I’ve been a teacher trainer and a head trainer, I’ve set up new teacher training courses and trained trainers and even the next head trainer, but not until now have a had a scrap of teacher training training myself. I think that means that I’ve been following the craft model of training or development or something. The confusion in that sentence comes from the fact that I can’t get my head round the theory of teacher training at all. Come the bit where I observed a lesson on video and wrote up feedback on it, however, I was at least 80% there and couldn’t really see how knowing the distinction between “training” and “development” would’ve helped with the other fifth. As I am fairly typical in not being a natural teacher, let alone a natural teacher trainer, my experience suggests that all you need to do is know your subject, have some fairly normal people skills, reflect on your own teaching, work with other teacher trainers who you can learn from, and have a good slice of common sense. Any other experiences or views?
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So what *is* the difference between training and development?
Not a scrap? What about the CELTA / DELTA?
Jon- That’s either one of the things I never understood after a 25-hour course and two books on teacher training (Beyond Training and Second Language Teacher Education) , or one of the things I think I understood but then instantly forgot
Darren- I think you’re confusing teacher training and teacher training training. No disgrace there, as my (teacher trainer) boss said “What?? Not even Harmer????” when I told her that I’d never read a teacher training book before I became a Regional DELTA Tutor.
Gotcha. In that case, yes… it is common sense, a knack, and a natural, god-given talent.
I think you are view teacher training training too narrowly, though. Learning how to become a self-sustaining, reflective teacher yourself is a key stage of learning how to train other teachers.
Just curious, do you believe, then, that all good teachers would make good trainers?
Don’t you find a difference in the knowledge and the skills involved or maybe a lot of this has become second nature and subconscious ? I would image that even someone with a doctorate in TESOL would most likely have limited knowledge and/ or experience in providing constructive feedback to other individuals?
I think Darren is right, being reflective is probably the most important difference between a good teacher and a good trainer, and being able to put it into words like we try to do would be damn good practice.
Giving constructive feedback just seems like basic common sense to me, and I’ve never done a peer observation with someone who really couldn’t do it. All the rest, someone can train you to do without ever needing to mention a word of the theory of observations and feedback, I reckon. In fact, I’ve both done it and had it done to me, and when I finally read the theory it didn’t add anything at all
I’ve always found the distinction simple.
Training is the passing on of specific techniques and knowledge from one (more experienced) teacher to another (less experienced one), and/or specific preparation to teach a particular curriculum (such as for a new school).
Professional development, on the other hand, is led by the teacher him/herself, doesn’t require a more experienced guide (though it may help), and as some of you have already pointed out, is deeply rooted in active reflective teaching, experimentation, discussion with peers, etc.
Once I’d made this distinction – as a teacher “trainer” at the time – I began to really dislike “teacher training” and avoided it in both wording and practice.
And I loathe the whole idea of teacher observation, unless a teacher has specifically requested it.
Teacher “training” and teacher “observation” are useless, antiquated, boring processes in our profession (IMHO). Teacher development is everything – and I’ve generally found that a teacher who isn’t interested in his/her own development may be keen on training, but can’t actually be trained.
Important question: can you teach common sense?
If that is the case, Jason, exactly how much ‘training’ is going on. I’ve had about a week in my entire career. The rest was all assisted development, as I see it.
Look at the collocations for ‘training’. Dog, potty, bra. You want anything to do with that lot?
; P
No comment sorry – but just had to say I loved the post and comments, especially Darrens last one. Ha!