Barbara Porter demonstarting how puppets can be used for language teaching

The following details have been extracted from Barbara’s report:

Feedback

The feedback for both courses was very positive. In some notes written in addition to the end of course questionnaires (about what they would like to see in future courses) teachers spoke about how the training helped with all subjects, not just English, how they got a lot of new ideas, how they enjoyed the ‘entertaining and varied methods’ and finally from one of the secondary teachers ‘how it really helps me a lot in classroom teaching’…’boosts up my energy to teach more.’….’Even my students interest in learning aroused when I do the teaching by applying the method taught by Mrs Barbara Porter’ …….. it had proved challenging trying to cope with the wide range of teachers (in terms of the age range they taught) on the second course. My aim had been to try and ensure that as much as possible all participants were involved in something relevant to their own teaching the majority of the time. We had some useful discussions at lunchtimes about how to organise future follow-up seminars (see later section of report). I was glad to find from both these discussions and the end of course questionnaires that although they had been aware of the difficulties, overall they had found the seminar to be very useful and enjoyable.

Training room

As before the facilities at Lamdon were some of the best that I have experienced. I had the same large, bright and airy training room. A large blackboard was provided. I had my own portable tape recorder and speakers which was fortunate. For the first week I was not able to get a second tape recorder due to the frantic rehearsals going on for Parents Day. In addition the electricity supply is rather erratic so it is better to be self sufficient in this regard. For the first time ever the participants looked slightly askance at the cassette tapes I had made for each school with recordings of all the songs I was teaching. They muttered about copying them onto CDs and asked if I could bring CDs or DVDs next time. Therefore in future I think I should take CDs and take all recordings of songs and interviews on my iPod. The 21st century has arrived!

Photocopying/stationery

The school now has a photocopier and all necessary photocopying was done promptly by the school secretary Padma. Any additional stationery items that I needed (such as the files and exercise books for all the participants) I was able to buy in the town at a very good stationer.

Thoughts for the future

Future course content feedback.

I asked teachers to write some notes about what they would like to see in any future course. Main points:

• More speaking tasks

• More work on classroom management

• More presentation & demonstration

• More storytelling

• Grammar & writing skills

• Would like the levels to be separated (see above)

• More songs & games

• More help with lesson preparation.

Course content development

As I am not able to travel to the region in 2012 until the winter, I would hope to be able to have some time to undertake some further course development. My priorities would be:

• Further develop/expand in scope the section on classroom management.

• Transfer all songs and project interviews to CD/iPod.

• Further develop material for talks & presentations.

• Develop (in response to feedback) material for teaching grammar.

• Develop section on board games. (Popular but more needed).

• Develop full day of kindergarten activities

Follow-up course ideas

1. Teacher profiles/course length.

It seems really valuable to conduct second/follow up courses. All participants on the second course were delighted to attend again and eager to attend a third if possible. Following discussion with the participants and Eshey, I think it would be best if course participants were grouped according to the age range that they taught. I don’t think it would be a problem if there was a mix of folk who had attended before and folk who hadn’t. There would be an element of repetition for the ones who had been before (but that could work as consolidation anyway) and possibly new participants would miss out on some things that other folk on totally new courses would cover, but I would be careful to make sure that it was nothing that I consider to be fundamental. I don’t think it is really appropriate for the kindergarten teachers to be with the primary teachers. Because of their level of English this can be a real struggle for them. Even though it worked out positively in the end in Leh this year, I think the kindergarten teachers would benefit from a shorter time totally devoted to them. I would therefore suggest the following timetable (assuming that 2 courses are to be run and that teachers of all levels will be involved).

Week 1:

Primary Course 5 days

Kindergarten Course 1 day New tailor made course consisting entirely of appropriate games, rhymes, songs and simple storytelling activities.

Week 2

Secondary Course 6 days

I discussed this pattern with the teachers in Leh and they were very positive about the idea.

2. Micro-teaching

Practising in front of your colleagues

Eshey suggested that small groups of pupils could be drafted in so that the teachers could practise on small groups of students instead of each other. In the same way as I did this year, these micro lessons would be peer observed and discussed afterwards. Where appropriate student feedback could also be sought. I really like this idea and would like to use it elsewhere, not just in Leh where practical.

Once again special thanks to Lamdon School for hosting these seminars and looking after me so well. I was delighted to work there again and hope to be able to return in the future.

Barbara Porter, our teacher trainer, has recently returned from Ladakh, where she has run a couple of very successful seminars for local teachers. The first was for primary level teachers and the second, for secondary teachers. The aim of our teacher training programme is to develop long-term inprovements in the standard of English teaching in the schools we help.

These seminars follow on from the seminars held in Kalimpong and Sikkim in February 2007.

This is an edited version of Barbara’s report:-

Participants

Primary Course

13 teachers:

Lamdon Main School, Leh: 3

Lamdon Branch Schools: 9

Government school: 1

Secondary Course

12 teachers

Lamdon Main School, Leh: 3

Lamdon Branch Schools: 7

Siddhartha High School Stok: 1

New Millennium School, Leh: 1

Language Improvement project.

This involved the teachers working in small groups studying a topic related to culture in Scotland. Each group received a small dossier of information including: written material, pictures and a taped interview of someone talking about some aspect of the topic (i.e. friends of mine that I interviewed or asked to send a tape.) Topics were: Education; Care for the Elderly; Health Issues; Traditional Clothing/Costume; Food Production; Traditional Food; Traditional Music & Song.

As a reasonable level of English was required for these projects in their current form, I decided to limit using these projects to the secondary course. I did successfully use the material for Traditional Music & Song with the Primary group however. Doing it with the whole group meant that I was better able to offer the extra guidance required.

Using the material provided, each group had to produce:

1. A talk on the topic to be given to the rest of the group at the end of the week.
2. A poster or something similar to illustrate the talk if appropriate.
3. A letter and/or taped talk to be taken back to the people in Scotland who had written or spoken on the topic in the dossier.

The idea was to provide participants with a challenging and integrated project that provided practice in all the skills. I asked the participants to comment on the project at the end of their end-of-course questionnaires.

It proved to be highly successful and much enjoyed by all the participants. All said that they had found it informative, interesting and challenging. One of the key features of its success in my opinion was the fact that the dossiers included real opinions from real people that they were able to respond to directly. I have brought the letters and tapes home with me and will encourage the folk involved to send a short response. Finally some of the less confident speakers told me that they had found it a useful experience to have to give a talk to their peers.

Teaching Approach

It is a key feature of the course that the teachers participate in the activities. It is made clear from the outset that they are required to act in 2 different roles:

1. As if they were students in their own classes.
2. As themselves, teachers of English.

The course therefore often consists of teachers working as ‘students’ followed by time for reflection and comment as teachers talk about what they have just done, what is being shown and how it would fit into their own class context.

A key element of the course is for the teacher participants to be constantly aware of:

1. What they are doing.
2. How they are doing it.
3. Why they are doing it.

One aim of the course is to raise their awareness of these three things in their own teaching. They were constantly encouraged to assess these same elements in everything I did and to learn from how and why I was doing things, as much as from what the actual content was. The feedback from some of the participants shows that this was indeed an important feature of the course.

Modifications for next time.

1. Perhaps include some more grammar-related activities.
2. Further work on the language improvement project to provide material for a wider range of language ability.

Feedback

This was overwhelmingly positive. Most negative comments related to there not being enough time for the course. There were some requests for things that had not been included but also recognition that not everything can be squeezed into 6 days.

Feedback Summary

Primary Course

Secondary Course

Facilities

These were excellent. The school couldn’t have done more to make things as easy as possible for me. I was given the Kindergarten Hall to work in which was large, light and airy with a large blackboard. There was space at the front with chairs and 4 desks and at least half of the room was spare at the back for activities, games and songs that required moving about. There were also mats which enables discussions to take place sitting in a circle.

Constraints for Teachers

On the first day teacher participants conduct a survey asking each other about their teaching experience and school situations. In addition they are asked firstly about the things they enjoy and secondly the things they find difficult about teaching. This is useful information for me. In particular I always make time towards the end of the course for a whole group discussion of the difficulties that teachers have identified so that all can pool their experience and ideas. Key points that usually arise are:

1. The challenge of mixed ability classes.
2. The challenge of very large classes.
3. Control and motivation of students.
4. Constraints imposed by the school syllabus and examination system.
5. Pressures and constraints imposed by parents.

With regard to points 1-3, I aim to address these in a variety of ways throughout the course.

With regard to points 4 7 5, these do have implications regarding the implementation of the ideas and activities put forward during the course. It is something I keep constantly in mind when designing the course and take pains to ensure that there is a balance between exposing the teachers to new ideas, methods and approaches and trying to ensure that what is included can realistically be integrated into their existing syllabus. For it to be fully effective it does require a degree of flexibility (and bravery!) on the part of the teacher as well as support form the Principal of the schools involved. I discussed this with Eshey. As he pointed out, the bottom line is the exam results. Parents will support anything that does not adversely affect these. It is also a question of good communication. Things that will help increase the effectiveness of these courses are:

1. Understanding and interest of school Principals in the course and its aims.
2. Support for participating teachers in implementing the ideas and sharing them with colleagues. Support needs to be both academic (interest in and discussion of the ideas) and practical, i.e. making space and time available for this.
3. Where necessary/appropriate ensuring good communication with parents about the aims and objectives of English teaching within a school.

School Visits

I was glad to be able to visit the Lamdon Branch Schools at Thiksey and Shey after the courses were finished.

Library provision

While I was at Lamdon School, I was taken to see the Secondary Section Library which has a good airy room and a fair selection of books. There is currently no Primary Section Library. I discuss with (the principal of the Lamdon Secondary School) the possibility of a room being made available for this with shelving and a part time (at least) librarian. He said that there are plans for this. I explained that once these were in place I would do my best, in partnership with a couple of Primary Schools in the UK, to arrange for the donation of a supply of books to be sent out to the school. I would also try to arrange something similar in conjunction with 2 high schools in London that I have contact with, to have a further supply of fiction sent out to the secondary section library.

We also discussed the possibility of these resources being shared with the Branch Schools. For example a box of books could be sent out to a Branch School to be returned and the contents changed every 3 months.

Finally, I gave one of the 2 books that I had with me (700 Activities for the Classroom) to the Lamdon Schools for their use. It is currently with the Nubra Valley Schools.

I think we can be pleased with what is our first venture into teacher training, and I should like to thank those organisations who specifically gave us grants to enable this to happen: the Community of the Presentation and Himalayan Kingdoms, both of which gave us £500. Thanks also to all those volunteers whose fees have gone into our general ‘donations’ fund, and to individual donors who have also given us money to use as we think fit.

Here are extracts from Barbara’s report:

END-OF-SEMINAR QUESTIONNAIRES.

Summary of first section of Questionnaires

I was very pleased with the response to the course which I think it is fair to say was overwhelmingly positive. In particular I would like to single out the following comments:

1. Kalimpong. Geeta Chhetri: “Before this training, I thought that English will be improved by giving stress to the student, by scolding them, by beating them, but this seminar has changed the way of teaching. This course teach me that we improve English learning of student by an encouraging way.”
2. Sabita (the teacher trainer in Gangtok) in the course of a conversation with Ms Targain (Principal of the Palyor Namgyal Girl’s High School) said that she knew a lot about pair and group work in theory and knew that it was supposed to be important but that she had always felt that she would be too nervous to contemplate approaching it on her courses with teachers. She said that she now felt completely differently. She felt that now she understood how to incorporate such work and that I had provided her with dozens of good ideas for this.
3. Ms Targain held a de-briefing meeting with the PNG teachers who had attended my course. Again she reported a very positive response. She had asked them to identify specifically what would be the first things they would use. They replied:

· Using the picture bank

· Error correction

· Eliciting and pre-reading activities.

There were some negative comments. The 3 main negative points that arose were:

1. Not enough grammar
2. Didn’t like the error correction…
3. Not enough time.

I would like to make the following comments about these points:

1. Not enough grammar.

This is a common complaint in both General English and Teacher Development courses here in Edinburgh as well. Most foreign students’ language learning has been grammar based and they associate this with ‘proper learning’. However one of the aims of our courses, and this was true of the language learning element of mine, is to redress this balance. It was also something that I was very much talking about in my methodology workshops. It was interesting that when we did a survey of how much time they spent on the 4 skills, a typical result was:

Writing 25%; Reading 30%; Listening 45%; Speaking 5%.

Previous to this we had had a discussion about the different skills, and had agreed that the most important skills were listening and speaking for communication purposes, and that of these speaking the most difficult and therefore needed the most practice. I therefore had a bias towards activities that increased student speaking time, including strategies such as pair work and group work.

The teachers attending mostly had a good level of English. During the course, there were many occasions when I briefly revisited a grammar point. They were all very familiar with the rules. However the problems creep in when you are actually using the language in a freer situation. This therefore was what I was focussing on and to this end I included a lot of correction of grammar in context, though often quite subtly.

I would not include ‘grammar lessons’ as such in a future course. However I do think in response to these comments, and my observations, that I would extend the ‘Practising and Presenting Structures’ section and include more grammar based games and activities that the teachers could use in their own classes by way of extension activities.

2. Error Correction

This was identified by a number of teachers, especially in Gangtok, as a problem area in their own teaching. This was especially true when correcting written work when the main 2 problems are:

· It is very time consuming.

· Often seems ineffective.

I had planned to devote a session to error correction for both spoken and written work. With regard to correcting speaking, I feel that this was very successful. In the course of the week I was able to demonstrate a number of strategies that enabled them to correct students’ speaking in a more encouraging, supportive and less intrusive way. Such methods are less teacher-dominated and operate in a way that encourages students to think about the error and its correction. The student is therefore more likely to remember the correct form.

Correcting errors in students writing.

I had also included a number of writing activities that had introduced a variety of methods of correction, as alternatives to the usual method of the teacher having to correct every single mistake. These strategies included such things as narrowing the focus to the particular grammar point or vocabulary being taught in a lesson when correcting. However this is where the sticking point came. A few teachers responded positively to this (e g the Tibetan teachers) but most were very uneasy and resistant. I did not spot this in Kalimpong until afterwards, when I had a long discussion about it with Shrawan. In Gangtok I reduced this section and asked for comments in a discussion following the class. The majority felt that pressure from parents and school authorities would make it impossible to correct in such a way. They felt that they would not be able to defend their position with educational arguments. However in the course of the post-course debrief that Ms Targain held with the PNG teachers, one of them identified the new ideas about error correction as one of the first things she would incorporate into her teaching. Ms Targain is of course a highly supportive head teacher with regard to new ideas etc.

Therefore I think I would reduce the amount of time discussing correction of written work but not exclude it. I would also include discussion of the issues as part of the course.

3. Not enough time.

Timings were an issue. In Kalimpong, on day one, before we had even started they expressed horror at the length of the day. ….They said that due to outside commitments, tiredness etc they could not stay until 5pm. In my original plan I had thought to finish earlier but as I was preparing I felt I needed the extra time, hence the 5pm finish. They asked me to finish at 3.30pm but still include everything I had prepared. I pointed out this was impossible! We compromised by shortening breaks to 15 minutes and lunch to 30 - 40 minutes, in order to claw back some of the time. However it did feel rushed and I had to exclude some of the extra practice activities. Such short breaks meant that I was short on ‘gathering my breath and thoughts’ time, and time to do the small fiddly bits of preparation that lunchtimes are so useful for.

The same thing happened in Gangtok but this time Ms Targain …. told everybody that I would start at 9am and finish at 4.30pm and that any one that had difficulties would just have to make the necessary arrangements. She added that if we saw anyone leaving early their principal would be informed! I had felt a bit diffident about being so firm myself but would not now hesitate to be firm about it in the future!

ST PAUL’S PRIMARY SCHOOL, Namthang, South Sikkim.

At their request, when visiting St Paul’s, (the school where I had taught in 2005), I did a smaller version of the course spread over 4 afternoons. There were 9 participants:

Daniel & his wife Korona, Samuel and his wife Kamala; Ongmit Lepcha (who I knew from before) and 4 new teachers: Prasan Subba, Nirmala Pradhan, Suk Raj Rai & Sudip Sharma all new to teaching and none of whom have received any kind of training. They were all very keen and committed. Daniel closed school a little earlier than usual at 12.45pm and after a very enjoyable ‘bring & share’ lunch we worked for around 3- 4 hours every afternoon. I was impressed by, and grateful for, the high level of enthusiasm, concentration and participation.

The elements I included were:

• Introduction to, and activities related to, the 4 language skills especially speaking.
• Eliciting.
• Using a Picture Bank, including a session creating the beginning of a picture bank for St Paul’s (cutting out suitable pictures from newspapers.) I suggested that this year’s volunteer could do further work on this and organise it into sections.
• Using the library: reading records, reading activities for students, keeping track of the books etc. This session was tailor-made for St Paul’s to try and encourage better use of the 200 books that they received from the Carlisle Primary School, (where my friend Anne Summers is the Deputy Head).
• Use of their Reader books (Gul Mohar), concentrating especially on pre-reading activities.

The course culminated in an open and interesting discussion for an hour and a half, with the whole teaching team discussing what they had learnt and the particular problems and obstacles to effective learning in their own situation. Some of the same issues came up as in the previous two courses, but there were other interesting points made that I would like to raise in such discussions on any future course.

Main points from the St Paul’s discussion:

1. The need for preparation. It was apparent that this is not something that teachers usually do. They are very wedded to their course books, partly because of lack of training. Their usual practice is to come in, not necessarily before the students arrive, open the book and start. Daniel noted that many of the things I had been showing them required a degree of preparation. There is a need to incorporate discussion about this point on future courses especially in rural situations. This was not such an issue at PNG.
2. How to increase fluency. There are many problems associated with using texts that are mostly too difficult for the students. They are using Readers where the proportion of new material to old is far too great for students to have a proper understanding of the texts or a fighting chance of learning the new vocabulary and material presented.
3. Related to the last point, the problem of the pressure from parents, and school board examinations, to use books that are far too advanced was discussed.
4. The problem for teachers and students posed by tests and examinations that are about feats of memory and regurgitation rather than skill acquisition and understanding.
5. A desire for strategies for increasing teachers’ own fluency and language level when there is no native speaker available.
6. The problems associated with teaching pronunciation.

RECOMMENDATIONS RE COURSE CONTENT FOR THE FUTURE.

1. Decide which parts of the course could be left out. Some material I didn’t use at all and some was not so useful or necessary as other parts.
2. Error Correction. Cut out final writing exercise but include the rest of the section. Include enough time for discussion of the issues.
3. Update participant notes for games & activities. Remove the inappropriate ones and add in the extra ones that I used.
4. Compile participant notes for using a picture bank.
5. Extend the section on Presenting & Practising Structures by adding more activities focussing on grammar difficulties.
6. Use their own course books and readers, (e.g.Gul Mohar, Our Way To English), more to provide more practice of inventing pre-reading and writing activities.
7. Include some work on pronunciation.
8. Include a session on strategies for increasing teachers’ own fluency and language level when there is no native speaker available.
9. Include discussion about the need for preparation.
10. Allow more time on the last day for discussion of the course content and their own school situations.”

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