Teacher education: making connections between complementary and mainstream schools

1. Gee Macrory Institute of Education Manchester Metropolitan University 20 April 2010 Teacher education: making connections between complementary and mainstream schools

2. COLT teacher training 2007- 10 Gee Macrory : g.macrory@mmu.ac.uk Pura Ariza: p.ariza@mmu.ac.uk

3. Outline • Role of teacher education • Training the trainers: • Course structure and content for teachers • Complementary school teachers • Initial teacher education • Training the trainers • Findings • Conclusions • Issues to consider

4. Role of teacher education • Teacher education: opportunity or barrier? • Place of ‘community’ languages and ‘MFL’ • Who educates the teachers? • From classroom to higher education (Wright, 2008) • Appropriate knowledge base (Fedick, 2005) • Training the trainers

5. Training the trainers • Appointment of trainers for Mandarin, Urdu and Arabic • Identification of teacher audience (course participants) • Teachers from complementary schools (yrs 1,2,3) • Trainees in initial teacher education (yrs 2,3) • Basic course structure and workshop content for teachers

6. Course structure for teachers Needs of participants (see Minty et al, 2008) Teachers in complementary schools Trainees in initial teacher education

7. Teachers in complementary schools • Course structure: 4 parts: • Workshop 1 at university • Visit to a mainstream school • Workshop 2 at university • Visit by trainer to teaching context (observation and feedback opportunity)

8. Visiting mainstream settings • Advantages? • Pitfalls?

9. Initial teacher trainees • 4 part course structure: : • Workshop 1 at university • Visit to a complementary school • Workshop 2 at university • Visit by trainer to teaching context (observation and feedback opportunity)

10. Certification and accreditation Certificate of attendance for 4 part course Accreditation at 20 CAT points against award Eg MA Language Education PG Cert /Dip Teaching Bilingual Learners Foundation Degree in Supporting Teaching and Learning

11. Course content • What do teachers in complementary schools need? • What are the priorities at the outset?

12. How did we train the trainers? Two full day workshops (June 2008) prior to 4 part course Review and development meeting (Jan 09) Additional day’s training (April 09)prior to follow up day in June 09 Two further training day for trainers (Oct 09 + April 2010) Content and process

13. University workshop 1 • Characteristics of a good teacher trainer • Subject knowledge/language analysis: characteristics; learner perspectives • Role of target language

14. University workshop 2 • Effective teaching strategies for languages (skills, grammar) • Planning a school visit • Planning and assessment • Supporting teachers’ classroom skills: observation, feedback and target-setting.

15. University workshop 3: reviewing progress and identifying needs Planning Assessment Professional progress Future needs

16. University workshop 4: ITE • What do you anticipate the differences to be compared to experienced teachers/teachers from supplementary sector? • How will language trained teachers differ from other subject areas? • How will primary and secondary trainees differ?

17. Summary of content A parallel process Needs analysis The good teacher trainer Anticipating participant needs Subject knowledge for teaching Methodological issues Assessment Planning a training session Preparing teachers to observe Observing and giving feedback Accreditation

18. Process: principles and pragmatism Some guiding principles (see Wright & Bolitho, 2007) Modelling a teacher education pedagogy Making choices about content A training plan as an outcome

19. What was the impact on teachers and trainers? Teachers (complementary; ITE trainees) Trainers

20. Attendees Complementary school:44 teachers on the autumn 2008 course and 28 on the spring 2009 course;41 currently on autumn 09 course ITE :15 38 people attended the top-up workshop.

21. Findings: teachers from complementary schools Year 1

22. Findings: teachers from complementary schools Year 2

23. Follow up day

24. What was useful? Learning teaching methods from others and sharing experience Active discussions and plenty of useful and practical information Opportunity to observe teaching in local schools Very clear and enthusiastic delivery Classroom management skills gained Feedback on observations Guidance of where to obtain help and resources Information about asset languages and the language ladder as a way to encourage pupils Teaching through action to engage pupils Ideas for integrating games and activities into the classroom Techniques for teaching grammar

25. ITE trainees • 83% of the trainees reported to be very satisfied with the overall workshop, the material, delivery, relevance and opportunities for discussion with colleagues. • Techniques found most useful: • Learning where to find resources and how to use them • Practical tips to keep students engaged • How to include culture points into lesson plan • Techniques to encourage use of target language in the classroom and in other subjects such as maths • 67% of the trainees declared that the school visit has been extremely useful as it enabled them to see how languages are taught outside the mainstream school

26. Feedback from trainers Improved professional practice Useful and appropriate content Discussion valued Opportunity to develop training skills and “to train colleagues as colleagues rather than students” “Made me more reflective and focused as a trainer” This “ has given me an effective model of training”

27. Conclusions Enriching opportunity for all First training opportunity for many Opportunities to observe in other contexts valued Clear desire to make further progress High interest in gaining QTS

28. Some issues to consider Course structure and content Meeting QTS needs of teachers from complementary schools Developing the profile of community languages in teacher education, initial and CPD Longer-term impact of training Differential training needs for different community languages Training trainers: modelling practice or co-operative development? Synergy and sustainability

29. References Minty, S., Maylor, U., Tözün, I., Kuyok, K. and Ross, A. (2008) Our Languages: Teachers in supplementary schools and their aspirations to teach community languages. Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University. Naldic (2009) Developing a bilingual pedagogy for UK schools. Naldic Working Paper No.9 Partnerships in Language and Culture: A toolkit for complementary and mainstream schools working in collaboration. www.ourlanguages.org.uk Tedick, D.J. (2005) Second language teacher education: international perspectives. Mahwah, N.J : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wright, T. and Bolitho, R. (2008) Trainer Development.www.lulu.com Wright, T. (2008) “Trainer development”: Professional Development for Language Teacher Education. In: Burns, A. and J. Richards (eds) The Cambridge Guide to Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.