The Language Teacher

Some Practical Basic Training Options for Teachers of English in Japan, Outside the Formal Education System

edited by Andy Barfield

In this second installment in the teacher education series, Sean Conley describes shared pre-training journals that he uses for teachers who are isolated from contact with ELT colleagues; Clive Lovelock outlines the gains and pains to be encountered on the RSA Certificate in TEFL for Adults course; and Janina Tubby, who has recently completed the (higher level) RSA Diploma course, looks at professional development options for the teacher of business English.

Meeting Trainee Needs through Shared Pre-Training Journals
Sean Conley
Kitanihon GEOS

People learn best what is immediately useful (Postman & Weingartner, 1969). Working with teachers with a variety of experiences and backgrounds it is challenging to design a course which provides appropriately useful material. Teachers new to the classroom often have little use for theory, and are often in immediate need of activities that will get them through their five o'clock class. On the other hand, RSA or TESOL program graduates may not be enthused by a topic such as "Introducing Vocabulary Items." Accepting that people will seek out what is immediately useful to them, and that we can learn from the experiences of others, I have been working with teachers on a shared journaling project as preparation for an in-service training course. In this project, participants define the point at which the course should be located on Graves' (1991) continuum from training (skills and knowledge) to development (attitudes and awareness).

Technique

The participants begin reading articles in Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language two months prior to the commencement of the course. Their task is to read one article each week and to choose one technique or principle that appeals to them. They then experiment in one of their classes and write a journal entry describing the way in which they used or adapted the technique or principle, and the results (which might include their feelings, students' feelings and plans for future use). This journal is faxed to two other participants who read it and respond. As the trainer I respond to all the faxes with the written equivalent of an understanding response (Curran, 1978) to show interest, understanding and support. Often I send standing responses (Curran, 1978) in the form of questions that ask participants to look more deeply into why something did or didn't work, or why students responded in the way they did.

Response from Participants

Participants responded along the following lines:

it is interesting to see what others found useful in the articles; I liked being able to pick what I wanted to do;
when I read about what Steve was trying, I decided to try it too; the deadlines helped me pace myself instead of cramming it all in at the last minute; as I read about what others were trying I felt more confident that I was doing a good job;
I liked getting to know the others by fax before we met;
what we wrote in the journals gave us a shared common ground during training.

Conclusions

Though participants are positive about the process, I think the greatest value is for me. By reading participants' journals I develop a clearer understanding of where they are in their teaching, and consequently I learn where to focus during training. What began as a set syllabus for training now changes with each group. This adaptation makes the course more interesting and exciting for me and more immediately useful for the trainees.

Sean Conley is a Masters candidate at S. I. T. and Director of Teaching for Kitanihon GEOS. He can be contacted at: GEOS, Tohoseimei Bldg. 9F, 4-2-2 Kitaichijonishi, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido. Tel: (h) +81 (11) 618 3716; Fax: (w) +81 (11) 242 2120. E-mail: QD3S-CNLY@asahi-net.or.jp

The University of Cambridge/Royal Society of Arts Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults
Clive Lovelock
Kitanihon GEOS

The U.C.L.E.S./R.S.A. CERT. T.E.F.L.A. is currently offered twice a year by Language Resources in Kobe. The following information comes from a combination of my own experience as an RSA trainer and from feedback provided by former trainees.

"The Cert" offers a thorough basic training in TEFL that equips teachers not only with an internationally-recognized basic qualification, but also with an array of classroom skills, and -- a strong feature of the course -- personal development skills. You learn how to set your own objectives, to plan and execute lessons designed to achieve them, and to evaluate them afterwards so as to learn from the experience. The course is highly practical, with about 50% of the time devoted to teaching in the classroom. Almost every trainee says the most valuable part of the course is the teaching practice and the peer feedback session which follows it. While Cert courses in the UK are mostly for complete beginners, trainees in Japan are all practicing teachers who bring a variety of experiences and ideas to the course. The exchange of ideas between trainees is at least as important as the input and guidance provided by tutors.

Demands on Trainees

It is a stimulating course, but on the downside, is exhausting. Because of the emphasis on getting trainees to develop their own style, rather than imposing a particular method or set of recipes, you don't get much for your money if you don't put a lot of time and effort into it. Though the Kobe course is not intensive, spread over 19 Saturdays and 2 Sundays, it tends to occupy much of the trainees' time during the week too. Participants must devote time to preparation for the weekly Teaching Practice, two action research projects and written reports, observation of non-teaching practice classes outside the course, background reading, the use of ideas learned during the course in one's own classes at work, and so on.

Longer Term Benefits

As a result of training the participants to think for themselves -- rather than rely on the trainer to tell them what to do -- and to question all their previously-held assumptions, most trainees experience a crisis at some point in the course. They become disoriented as they find more and more areas of their teaching that they want to change completely. This being an initial training course, a certain amount of confusion and awareness of the need to learn much more remains at the end. However, for most participants there is also a sense of having learned important lessons. Many RSA Certificate graduates report that the course's greatest reward is that it sets them on the road to further development.

Clive Lovelock is an associate professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University and an RSA teacher trainer. He can be contacted at: 2-75 Seiwadai, 1-chome Kita-ku, Kobe, Hyogo-ken 651-11. Tel: (h) +81 (78) 594 1332; Fax: +81 (723) 65 0865

Options for Professional Development for the Teacher of Business English
Janina Tubby
INTEC Japan

What options are available to the in-company teacher in Japan interested in professional development? Many business English teachers working either directly for, or in a client company situation, have little contact with other teachers: they teach in different locations or have conflicting schedules. Let us look at a number of practical options for professional development in such cases.

Overcoming Isolation

First, you can join a Business English group in your area. International Business Communication (IBC) is the largest of such organizations in Japan, offering meetings mainly in the Tokyo and Osaka areas. These meetings usually follow a roundtable format and bring Business English teachers together both to discuss topical issues in their work and to pool ideas. For instance, I belong to the Osaka group which meets monthly, and find it a useful way to keep up with what is happening in other companies; to discuss new ideas; and to stimulate the development of new materials for my classes. IBC is free but unfortunately does not provide a regular newsletter, although write-ups from meetings are frequently available. (For details of your local IBC group contact Ron Read at Kurdyla and Associates, Tel: +81 (6) 338 1855, Fax: +81 (6) 338 4001.)

Second, employers can help. For example, the company where I work tries to overcome the problem of isolation by providing regular workshops for teachers and by issuing a newsletter every two months. Since the employees are invited to contribute, the newsletter provides a local forum for sharing ideas, practical teaching tips and feedback. This type of networking is useful, though only really possible in a company which employs a relatively large number of teachers.

The third option is to join an internationally oriented group such as the IATEFL Business English Special Interest Group. This can help you to keep up-to-date internationally. BESIG produces a newsletter three or four times a year, focusing sometimes on specific areas of Business English (for example, a recent newsletter focused on teaching English to bankers and clerical workers involved in finance) and, at other times, on general Business English. Either way, the articles are well-written and informative: they provide interesting, relevant research information, and offer a wide range of Business English teaching ideas. Moreover, this publication can lead you towards further reading, since it includes advertisements and discounts for other periodicals, as well as information about specifically business oriented training courses for the teacher.

A final possibility is to start or join an e-mail discussion group. This is something I am newly involved in on a very informal level with a small number of Business English teachers at different companies. At the moment, we are really just at start up point. We are using the medium at the "Hi! Can anybody help me with ideas on teaching a short technical writing course?" level. We have each other's addresses saved as a group and post all answers to everyone in the group. As yet, the full potential has not really been realized but we hope this idea will grow so as to provide a useful service and more fully fledged discussion group for Business English teachers. If you are interested in joining this group or setting up a similar group, contact me by E-mail at LEDV06057@niftyserve.or.jp

Janina Tubby is an instructor with INTEC Japan at ABB KK. She recently completed the RSA diploma course, and can be contacted at: 7-4-17-405, Sunrise Haruna, Kasumigaoka, Tarumi-ku, Kobe 655. Tel: (h) +81 (78) 706 5026; Fax: (w) +81 (78) 303-5766

References

Curran, C. (1978). Understanding an essential ingredient in human belonging. East Dubuque, IL: Counseling-Learning Publications.

Graves, K. (1991). The training development continuum in teacher education: some practical applications. The Language Teacher, 15 (8), 8-11.

Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York, NY: Delta Publishing.