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TESOL, TEFL and CELTA forum

Re: CELTA
By/Re:I agree
7 December 2009
In Response To: A bad CELTA experience (Expatriot)

Too often trainneed and indeed experienced teachers are subjected to the whims and demoralising observations of other so-called experts. Every teacher has good and bad days. Those who claim to be all things to students are hypocrits who get some perverted satisfaction out of putting down others. Teachers need to be supported not be subordinated to the role of follower and walking on egg shells trying to teach to the scripted garbage peddled by those who mischievously claim to have a so-called infallible approach to teaching. Be yourself is the best way to develop your teaching. Sure we can learn from others, just as they can learn from us. As Jeremy Harmer (a renoun expert on teaching practice), cites (Fanselow 1987),"Development may be brought about by breaking our own teaching rules or norms as a way of challenging what we have taken for granted" Furthermore, "it may involve investigating something that puzzles us or that we do not know about. But in all cases our intention is not only to improve our own performance, but also to learn more about teaching and about ourselves". In regards to Peer teaching, peer observation, Harmer points out, " In our teaching lives we are frequently observed by others. It starts on teacher training courses and goes on when academic coordiantors, directors of study, or inspectors come into our class as part of some quality contgrol excercise. In all these situations the boserved teacher is at a disadvantage since the observers - however sympathetically they carry out their functions - have power over the teacher's future career. Peer observation and peer teaching, on the other hand, involve colleagues who are equal - watching and teaching together so that both may be helped in their understanding and practice". I will add that sound teaching methods are fluid, and so they should be. There is no one right way, and no amount of hubris should discourage you from developing your own style of teaching. Teaching is in many cases about entertaining, that is to say, making yourself happy and your students, not trying to be all things to all people. Right, now teachers in many schools, where perception money and politics rule the day, are afraid to teach, and students afraid to learn. So, lets bridge this unprofessional divide based on ignorance, arrogance, gender bias, ageism, and ethnicity and just plain hubris by working together.





Messages In This Thread

A bad CELTA experience -- Expatriot 5 September 2009
Re: CELTA -- I agree 7 December 2009
Re: CELTA experience -- cunning linguist 17 November 2009
Re: CELTA -- Esl teaching 13 September 2009

Go to another board -