Gee Macrory

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Promoting diversity in language learning the
role of teacher education

• Gee Macrory
• Institute of Education
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• 19 November 2009

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COLT teacher training 2007- 10

• Gee Macrory g.macrory_at_mmu.ac.uk
• Pura Ariza p.ariza_at_mmu.ac.uk

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Outline

• Role of teacher education
• Training the trainers
• Course structure and content for teachers
• Supplementary school teachers
• Initial teacher education
• Training the trainers
• Findings
• Conclusions
• Issues to consider

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Role of teacher education

• Teacher education opportunity or barrier?
• Place of community languages and MFL
• Who educates the teachers?
• From classroom to higher education (Wright, 2008)
• Appropriate knowledge base (Fedick, 2005)
• Training the trainers

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Training the trainers

• Appointment of trainers for Mandarin, Urdu and
  Arabic
• Identification of teacher audience (course
  participants)
• Teachers from complementary schools (yrs 1,2,3)
• Trainees in initial teacher education (yrs 2,3)
• Basic course structure and workshop content for
  teachers

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Course structure for teachers

• Needs of participants (see Minty et al, 2008)
• Teachers in complementary schools
• Trainees in initial teacher education

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Teachers in complementary schools

• Course structure 4 parts
• Workshop 1 at university
• Visit to a mainstream school
• Workshop 2 at university
• Visit by trainer to teaching context (observation
  and feedback opportunity)

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Initial teacher trainees

• 4 part course structure
• Workshop 1 at university
• Visit to a complementary school
• Workshop 2 at university
• Visit by trainer to teaching context (observation
  and feedback opportunity)

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University workshops

• Workshop 1
• Characteristics of a good teacher
• Language analysis characteristics learner
  perspectives
• Role of target language
• Teaching activities (skills, grammar)
• Planning a school visit
• Workshop 2
• Debrief from school visit
• Planning and assessment
• Place of culture
• Preparation for a visit from trainer

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Follow up day for all

• Planning
• Assessment
• Professional progress
• Future needs

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Attendees

• Complementary school44 teachers on the autumn
  2008 course and 28 on the spring 2009 course41
  currently on autumn 09 course
• ITE 15
• 38 people attended the top-up workshop.

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Certification and accreditation

• Certificate of attendance for 4 part course
• Accreditation at 20 CAT points against award

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How did we train the trainers?

• Two full day workshops (June 2008) prior to 4
  part course
• Review and development meeting (Jan 09)
• Additional days training (April 09)prior to
  follow up day in June 09
• Two further training day for trainers (Oct 09
  March 2010)
• Content and process

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Content

• A parallel process
• Needs analysis
• The good teacher trainer
• Anticipating participant needs
• Subject knowledge for teaching
• Methodological issues
• Assessment
• Planning a training session
• Preparing teachers to observe
• Observing and giving feedback
• Accreditation

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Process principles and pragmatism

• Some guiding principles (see Wright Bolitho,
  2007)
• Modelling a teacher education pedagogy
• Making choices about content
• A training plan as an outcome

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What was the impact on teachers and trainers?

• Teachers (complementary ITE trainees)
• Trainers

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Findings teachers from complementary schools

• Year 1

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Findings teachers from complementary schools

• Year 2

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Follow up day
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What was useful?

• Learning teaching methods from others and sharing
  experience
• Active discussions and plenty of useful and
  practical information
• Opportunity to observe teaching in local schools
• Very clear and enthusiastic delivery
• Classroom management skills gained
• Feedback on observations
• Guidance of where to obtain help and resources
• Information about asset languages and the
  language ladder as a way to encourage pupils
• Teaching through action to engage pupils
• Ideas for integrating games and activities into
  the classroom
• Techniques for teaching grammar

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ITE trainees

•  
• 83 of the trainees reported to be very satisfied
  with the overall workshop, the material,
  delivery, relevance and opportunities for
  discussion with colleagues.
• Techniques found most useful
• Learning where to find resources and how to use
  them
• Practical tips to keep students engaged
• How to include culture points into lesson plan
• Techniques to encourage use of target language in
  the classroom and in other subjects such as maths
• 67 of the trainees declared that the school
  visit has been extremely useful as it enabled
  them to see how languages are taught outside the
  mainstream school

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Feedback from trainers

• Useful and appropriate content
• Discussion valued
• Opportunity to develop training skills and to
  train colleagues as colleagues rather than
  students
• Improved professional practice
• Made me more reflective and focused as a trainer
• An effective model of training

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Conclusions

• Enriching opportunity for all
• First training opportunity for many
• Opportunities to observe in other contexts valued
• Clear desire to make further progress
• High interest in gaining QTS

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Some issues to consider

• Course structure and content
• Meeting QTS needs of teachers from complementary
  schools
• Developing the profile of community languages in
  teacher education, initial and CPD
• Longer-term impact of training
• Differential training needs for different
  community languages
• Training trainers modelling practice or
  co-operative development?
• Synergy and sustainability

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References

• Minty, S., Maylor, U., Tözün, I., Kuyok, K. and
  Ross, A. (2008) Our Languages Teachers in
  supplementary schools and their aspirations to
  teach community languages. Institute for Policy
  Studies in Education, London Metropolitan
  University.
• Naldic (2009) Developing a bilingual pedagogy for
  UK schools. Naldic Working Paper No.9
• Partnerships in Language and Culture A toolkit
  for complementary and mainstream schools working
  in collaboration. www.ourlanguages.org.uk
• Tedick, D.J. (2005) Second language teacher
  education international perspectives. Mahwah,
  N.J Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Wright, T. and Bolitho, R. (2008) Trainer
  Development. www.lulu.com
• Wright, T. (2008) Trainer development
  Professional Development for Language Teacher
  Education. In Burns, A. and J. Richards (eds)
  The Cambridge Guide to Language Teacher
  Education. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.