Sue Leather

Starting a teachers association needs an initial burst of energy to get it off the ground and to ensure it stays in the air! Sue Leather offers some tips for take-off.

Teacher Plus is a new series which focuses on specific areas in which you can step outside the strictly teaching sphere. In this issue, Sue Leather has some encouragement for teachers who want to teach teaching. Getting into teacher training ‘I want to share what I have learnt,’ Natasha told me. ‘I like to see teachers develop,’ Missy said. ‘I love the dialogue and exchange of ideas,’ Mary wrote. ‘I want to make a difference to what happens in classrooms,’ said Antonella. Do any of the reasons why these teachers became teacher trainers sound familiar? Do you feel that you have something to share with other teachers? Maybe you like the thought of talking about teaching ideas, helping others to develop and having more influence on how teaching and learning is conducted in your school, your area or even your country. Have you thought of getting into teacher training? In many ways, teacher training is the obvious ‘next step’ for a teacher who loves teaching. It makes use of the skills you’ve already developed as a teacher, extends them and allows you to share them with colleagues. It’s also potentially a very good field for continued professional development, offering a wide variety of training contexts as well as the possibility of further academic and professional qualifications. But becoming a teacher trainer is not necessarily a smooth career path with a single qualification. So how do you get into teacher training and development? Here are some tips. Do some research The first thing to ask yourself is what teacher training means to you. It may seem like an obvious question, but teacher training is a huge area, and it’s good to have a sense of the possibilities, especially those in your geographical area. Teacher training can mean pre-service training, such as the training offered for future state-school teachers in universities or colleges. It can also be in-service training, which again may be part of the governmental system if you work in a state school. If you work in the private sector, it may be offered by an international exam board, a local teachers’ association or other group. It may even be offered by your school. A good way to start, then, is to do some research into what kinds of training are available, and what is going on in your area. This may help you to find a ‘gap’ or to let people know you are interested in getting involved. Ask around, talk to other teacher trainers if possible, and find out about opportunities. Start small The majority of teacher trainers first get involved in training and development at their own school by mentoring less experienced teachers or by giving a training session. My first training session, for example, was for a group of my colleagues in my school’s in-service training programme. It was on reading skills, I think, because I was very interested in that topic and had done some work in the classroom that I thought might interest other teachers. The session lasted just one and a half hours. Little by little, I gained experience of training. My repertoire of training sessions, though, remained quite small for some time. My story is, I think, quite typical of how teachers all over the world get into teacher training. Radmila, a Serbian trainer, has a similar story: ‘I took my first steps into teacher training while I was working in a language school in Belgrade. The school organised seminars in winter for teachers from language schools all over Serbia, and the Director of Studies asked me to prepare a talk because she liked my classes and thought I had some interesting ideas. That was the beginning. The talk was on how to make the best of not very interesting texts and mechanical grammar exercises. It went well, I think, because they asked me to do it again with a different group of teachers.’ So, teacher trainers tend to start small, and start with what they know – something they’ve tried and tested in their own classrooms. Sharing ideas with colleagues is also a common theme in trainers’ stories. Natasha, a trainer from Kyrgyzstan, says: ‘I don’t know why I wanted to get into teacher training, really. I didn’t think about improving language teaching in the country at the time, I just wanted to share what I had learnt.’ Think about co-training Although teacher training is a natural move for many of us, it can also feel very threatening when you first start teaching other teachers! To alleviate this, some trainers start training alongside a colleague; this can make the experience much less intimidating. In fact, co-training is such an excellent way of developing initial skills as a teacher trainer that I usually use it as a way of developing training skills on my own trainer development courses. Hem, a British trainer, really recommends it. She says: ‘I was teaching in Poland and felt that I would like to become more involved in teacher development. I approached my Director of Studies, who advised me to try my hand at some in-house training sessions. I delivered my first session with a co-trainer, mainly to share the planning and, of course, the nerves. We were both really interested in teaching teenagers, which is how the session came about. I really enjoyed the experience and loved working with another teacher.’ Get some experience Getting experience as a trainer is essential. Often, once you’ve started offering sessions in the way outlined above, you get more requests. In my case, for example, after my in-service sessions for my school, I got invited to do some sessions on the local pre-service CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching for Adults) and in-service DELTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching for Adults) programmes, which were run by another local school. That way, I got more exposure in the community as a teacher trainer. Before long, I’d gained quite a lot of experience. One excellent way of gaining good experience is by putting yourself in a school or situation where you are the best qualified teacher to do any teacher training. Or how about getting a volunteer job through an organisation like VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas)? This kind of post may mean having a low salary for a while, but it may be worth it in the long run as it can give you a large amount of varied experience in a relatively short period of time. British trainer Simon says: ‘I first got into teacher training through VSO in China. I worked in a provincial teacher training college, where 100 teachers of English came for a two-year secondment. I got a chance to do everything, including designing all the courses, choosing course materials, designing tests and exams, running a library for teachers, showing evening films and setting up and designing my own materials for a self-access centre. I learnt about teacher training through trial and error, from talking to my partner, talking to the other six VSOs in China at the time, from talking to my Chinese teachers and from methodology books.’ Be prepared Like Simon, many teacher trainers develop their skills through trial and error. So what can you do proactively to prepare for being a trainer? Obviously, being an excellent teacher is a good start, as is gaining a good set of qualifications. Leila, an Iranian trainer, has a story which shows that. She says: ‘After I was nominated as ‘teacher of the year’, the Quality Control and Teacher Training Manager at the institute where I worked called me into her office. After an informal interview, she asked me to join her team of teacher trainers. I’d been teaching for around six years at that point and was one of the few teachers in Iran who’d had internationally recognised training, so it seemed like the natural next step in my career. I was assigned a couple of modules to teach.’ Getting a good qualification such as an MA with a teacher training component, following an international teacher training course, writing an article for teachers for a local or national magazine or journal, giving sessions, observing teachers, mentoring beginner teachers in your school – all these are ways that you can prepare yourself to become a teacher trainer. All the teacher trainers I interviewed for this article come from different contexts and have different stories. But they have one thing in common: they all love their chosen path. So … what are you waiting for? Get sharing! Sue Leather is a trainer trainer, educational consultant and writer. She has delivered talks, workshops and courses in over 25 countries for the British Council and other organisations. She works with trainers and teachers on trainer development courses and curriculum and capacity-building projects all over the world. This article first appeared in issue 67 of English Teaching professional, March 2010.

Distinctions & Dichotomies explores pairs of linguistic and pedagogic terms. Sue Leather examines learners’ apparently contradictory needs.

Sue Leather encourages us to think about our own learning goals.

Sue Leather has some tips for teachers who want to see their work in print.