Professional Documents
Culture Documents
on in-service teacher-training
courses
Sarah Hundleby and Felicity Breet
Introduction
The methodology
notebook
ELT Journal Volume 42/1 January 1988 Oxford University Press 1988
articles
welcome
4 A collection of relevant
from EFL teacher-training
Ways of establishing
the methodology
notebook
taken
The notebooks were begun early in the first semester during the time
allocated to Methodology.
They were referred to regularly during the
language-improvement
courses. In order to demonstrate
their value, they
were considered to be worth 25 per cent of the courses final assessment.
Several methods of demonstrating
the range of possible contents in the
notebooks were employed. These included:
1 Handing out a suggested format for an EFL language lesson which the
students could use as a guide to their analysis, considering for example:
how far does the lesson conform to the lesson plan? how and why does it
differ?
2 Handing out a list of sub-headings
which might be applied to different
parts of an EFL lesson. The trainees could be asked to focus their analysis
on particular
areas such as pre-listening
activities, or how the teacher
brings the lesson to a close.
3 Providing the class with an imaginary page or two as a stimulus,
based on the trainers analysis of his or her own recent lessons.
Monitoring
Ways of exploiting
the methodology
notebooks
perhaps
Once the aim of the notebooks as a potential basis for the students own
teaching had been established and the students had become used to evaluating methods and materials, it was found that they needed little direction
from the trainer.
Monitoring the development of the notebooks, however, was essential, as
the students found analysing methods extremely difficult. At first they
wanted to copy passages from books and only gradually became confident
of their own ability to discriminate
between practically valuable material
and intellectually
interesting but not very useful items. The notebooks were
therefore regularly collected in for the trainers perusal. Including
the
notebooks in the course assessment
highlighted
their importance
and
helped to minimize the emphasis on an end-of-course examination.
Several ways of exploiting
the methodology
notebooks
1 The notebooks provided the basis for individual tutorials from which the
trainer and trainee could cooperatively
select topics for seminars and
essays.
2 The comments and records of possible methods provided the students
with a basis for writing their own lesson plans and schemes of work. These
in turn were used as a basis for peer-group teaching activities.
3 The areas focused on by individual
students were also used to create
personal reading programmes. This was particularly valuable for students
whose future teaching needs differed considerably
from those of the
majority.
4 The collection of material and the writing of notebooks was also integrated into the study-skills component of the course, providing a meaningful context for developing the skills of notetaking, summary writing, and
so on.
5 The notebooks
provided
the framework
for trainees
research
into tech35
Using methodologynotebooks
articles
welcome
For the trainer the notebooks provided a unique opportunity to observe the
trainees changing awareness of the wide-ranging
possibilities
in EFL
teaching. Some of the areas in which students changing opinions could be
observed included:
1 The value of oral work in which students talk to each other rather than to the
teacher. At first some students commented
on their reserve and lack of
confidence: Why should we talk to our classmates? Well only pick up bad
habits. Later some pointed out how much they enjoyed these activities and
felt they were becoming more fluent. What a lot of practice the whole class
is getting was a frequent comment.
2 The importance of contextualizing listening activities and developing prediction
At first the pre-listening
phrase was felt by some students to be
unnecessary. Only gradually did they acknowledge its importance in aiding
listening and concede that this reflects real-life listening situations.
skills.
3 Authentic us grammatically
as students
improved
their
36
Teaching
Adviser
in North
West Cameroun.
Sarah
Hundleby
holds a Masters
Degree in TEFL from the
University
of East Anglia
and has taught
in Britain
and the Peoples Republic
of China.
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