Today I attended one teacher development conference
organised by one of the publishing houses ( I will not
mention the name of the company for privacy
purposes).
There were several hundred teachers packed in the
main meeting hall, many sitting with their coats on
because it was cold inside and snowing (a few days before Easter!)
heavily outside. Many were sneezing or coughing.
The conference had to start at 9.00 and was supposed to be
due by 14.10 with a break for lunch. There were fours
topics on the agenda, mainly dealing with primary students,
teaching exam classes, motivation and teaching English
across the curriculum. There were three speakers all together.
The total impression left by this conference, including the
notion of wasted time, was that the lecturers thought
they came to an underdeveloped country where teachers
have no idea how to do their job.
To begin with, the pert about the primay classes was already
done in the same school a few years ago. I can say this
because I attended that conference: the same goal-setting,
the same theory part, a few new songs from the same book
promoted during the former conference.
The second part was about how to encourage
students become more self-reliant and sucessful
in their exams. The activities demonstrated caused
the back rows to whisper about wasting time, not being
doing proper exam practice, and wasting own finances
to prepare the tasks. We absolutely understand
that lesson preparation needs to take into account
the interest and motivation bits; skimming and scanning
as well as devising own materials is very useful but
it was not taken into consideration what type of
exam our state school-leaving exam is.
The third part dealt with what are motivated
teenager learners, how to deal with them,
etc. I understand that motivation is the buzz word in
education but sitting and listening for an hour
about how to motivate students was absurd as if
we were completely stupid teachers.
The fourth part was running late behind
the timetable and the lecturer (who delivered the
first part) tried and terribly failed to surprise us by
what integration of subjects and CLIL is. We saw many
people leave during this part without waiting for the end.
The overall picture was that it was an introductory
course to teaching principles for freshmen at a teacher
training college.
I wish the lecturers and organisers would take the
following into consideration:
1. Even though teachers so need to attend seminars and
get certificates for attendance and also this has got
to do with a certain amount of hours, topics have to
be chosen more carefully. We are moving onwards
and it would be really useful to have seminars on
business English, teaching with video, using authentic materials,
using smartboards, using Internet, etc.
2. The amount of people coming should be reduced. Speaking
to an audience of up to 400 people is a challenge for
the speaker and it does not allow much practical application.
3. Brainstorming with a teacher next to you is pointless
because it is ususally so that friends sit together and
all know what the others would say. Plus, doing this
every 20 min is BORING.
4. Such mixed conferences (primary to exam classes)
try to cater for many teachers since many teach different grades
and lecturers can promote many different books but to my honest
mind it is better to focus on one specific topic. That would reduce
the number of people (many will not come to a seminar
for the grades they don’t teach) and lecturers could have time
and demonstrate more practical aplication.
5. It would be nice for once to find in the teacher’s pack
a full set of coursebook, including CDs. This would give
a real chance to try the course and see if it works.
Now we always get a few different coursebooks
on their own but often have to buy the rest of the
material.
I might sound too demanding but this is the reality.
Our students make us be demanding. The market and
the educational needs are constantly changing. I
am also a quality freak and this conference
left me baffled.
