Lesson Plans and Teaching Practice

Lesson Plans

Trainees must write lesson plans for the classes they practice teaching to volunteer English students. I found that the lesson plans are so detailed that they were unrealistic and impractical. Working English teachers that I know never have time to write anything that resembles these plans. I think that if you are learning to teach, you should write a lesson plan that reflects what you will really work with as a professional teacher.

The other drawback that I discovered is that trainees spend so much time writing one lesson plan (around 5 hours) that (as a working adult) their time would have been better used preparing for the class.

The lesson plans and the assignments together are unnecessarily overwhelming. I do not understand why my tutors felt that overwhelming new teachers would improve their teaching skills. I found the main purpose of the course was to create the illusion that learning to teach with a coursebook is complicated. I suggest that you do not take the class while you are working full-time.

Practice Teaching 

Each trainee must practice teaching volunteer English language students. A tutor and the other trainees observe these lessons. Trainees are never taught the method. Trainees learn through trial and error as they teach. I have never found playing guessing games (in front of an audience) to be educational.

Practice teaching sessions vary in length and content, which makes it even harder to get your footing. For example, in one class the trainees could spend forty minutes teaching a grammar lesson; in the next class they spend one hour teaching reading comprehension. 

I observed that the tutors are free to decide who passes the individual teaching practice and to score according to their mood at the time. They can make it up as they go along because they rarely taught anything concrete and no criteria exist. 

After one teaching practice, I was told I did not achieve the higher score because I did not ask the students enough questions. I still do not know how many questions I should have asked to meet with that tutor’s approval. 

In my course, when the trainees were not teaching, they observed the other teaching practice sessions and took notes about what they saw. My observation tasks were guided by selecting one of twenty-seven different observation forms. For example, one week I was given the opportunity to evaluate how the desks were configured. The next week, I counted how many times the teacher asked students to talk to a partner or work in a small group. I also made several other observations that I found unnecessary, but that’s the idea. I saw this as an attempt to create an illusion that this is a productive use of your time while other trainees are teaching.

Watching other trainees teach took up to two hours of the six-hour class each week. I didn't find it educational to watch others who have never taught anything, let alone watch them guess their way through a formulaic teaching method. 

I think the tutors should spend four hours in the first trainee class reviewing videos and actually teaching the basics of this technique. Then when the trainees get in front of a real class, they might actually be prepared. Unfortunately, my CELTA tutors felt that guessing the method while you are teaching a classroom full of students and being rated by the tutor was more productive than knowing what you are doing before you do it. I once read that CELTA practice teaching is compared to pilot trainees learning on the job. However, pilots are given extensive training before they are put in a cockpit. 

Feedback Sessions

After each teaching practice there will be a feedback session. The trainees meet with the tutor and the other trainees. Each trainee that taught will reflect on their own teaching, then the fellow trainees will tell those that practice taught what they observed and what they need to do differently. This wisdom is provided by people that have most likely never taught anything  before and that are also guessing their way through this formulaic teaching method.

I found most of  the feedback to be a waste of time. I  saw the feedback sessions as mind games. The mind games here are that the trainees are to respond to peer pressure and strive for peer approval. In one case I experienced a power trip by another trainee that confused herself with the tutors. This is another reason that teaching with criteria is important.

Then the tutor will tell the trainee (without criteria) what they observed. This is when the tutor indirectly communicates what the trainee should be doing. I liken this to crashing the car into the wall and then learning how to drive.

One of my tutors never looked up and she typed a novel for each teaching practice. As she was never engaged in the lesson it was hard to take her and her rote phrases seriously. The other tutor took illegible handwritten notes, and his comments were minimal. I observed that the tutors frequently contradicted each other, which is not helpful when someone is guessing what to do. I even heard them contradict themselves.Feedback sessions were  the only possible way to piece together the teaching method. If they had taught the method before putting the trainees in front of a class there would have been less to discuss in the feedback sessions.