What’s worse than a teacher who can’t apply best practices in the classroom? A teacher trainer waffling on in front of his trainees about said practices with a power point presentation full of copied text. With that gruesome image in mind, here are some of my thoughts, condensed to a cognitively friendly 7 items.
- Don’t waffle (or blabber, drone on, lecture…); yes, students can benefit from your input, but it’s production they need most (whether as language students or teacher trainees)
- Don’t put up PPT’s filled with text – that’s what we have handouts for; power point is a visual tool
- Focus – I’m sure someone out there cares about your amazing anecdotes from life as an ESL teacher in rural Mongolia but really, how does it tie in with the learning outcomes?
- Wikipedia, Salon.com and your various TEFL newsletters are not sources of wisdom – they’re how you pass the time in the teacher’s room; closely related to points 1-3 above
- There is no correlation between being a native speaker and being a good teacher
- There is a correlation between personality variables and being a good teacher – but Cambridge & Co. can’t sell you a certification for that so it doesn’t get as much attention as it should
- Never confuse language ability (or lack thereof) with overall intelligence – any group of people will contain a wide range of abilities and strengths; your job is to empower, not judge them