A TEACHER TRAINING MAZE

Gao Yue-qinJiangsu Yangzhong Senior Middle School

ENTRY TO THE MAZE

You’re a busy teacher in a Jiangsu school. You’ve been teaching for 15 years, and you don’t feel you have changed much in the past ten. You’re tired and rather bored with the job. Your choices are:

Leave the teaching professionJoin a training course

Go on as you are

Slide 1

Who’s going to employ a tired, middle-aged ex-teacher? Unless you’ve got a private income or a rich spouse, think again!

Exit the maze

Return to ENTRY

Slide 2

You start on the course, but what with the travelling to the college, and the homework, you find it’s really much more work than you imagined. Your choices are:Talk to the course leaders

Drop out of the course

Sigh and keep going

Slide 3

Well, you’ll just get more bored and frustrated with your classes, and how are you going to cope with the new curriculum? You’d better:

Exit the maze

Return to ENTRY

Slide 4

The course leaders are sympathetic and try not to give you too much work, but basically they just tell you to keep going.

Return to Slide 2

Slide 5

So, you’re a quitter, are you? Well then, you are back at the entry to the maze except that now you feel as if you’ve failed at something too. Wouldn’t you like to think again?

Exit the maze

Return to ENTRY

Slide 6

You keep going but after a while you have the feeling that everyone is doing better than you. Your choices are:

Keep quiet about it

Tell the course leaders

Talk to the other course participants

Slide 7

You suffer in silence but things don’t get any better. You start to question whether you’re any good at teaching OR learning. What are you going to do?

Return to Slide 6

Exit the maze

Slide 8

The course leaders try to be encouraging and keep telling you that you’re doing all right, but you don’t really believe them. You still feel bad.

Exit the maze

Return to Slide 6

Slide 9

You are amazed to find that a lot of the other course participants feel exactly the same way as you. You talk about it, feel reassured, and decide to do more group work.

Move on to Slide 10

Slide 10

You keep going to the course and try to keep up with the work. You meet a lot of new ideas. Your choices are:

Try out all the ideas in your classes exactly as they were taught you on the course

Tell your colleagues at your school about the ideas at every opportunity you get

Not try anything new with your classes

Take the ideas you like, adapt them to fit your situation, try them out and adapt them again if necessary

Slide 11

A lot of the ideas don’t seem to work as well in your classes as they did on the course. Both you and your students lose confidence, and you go back to teaching in the old and trusted ways.

Go back to Slide 10 and think againExit the maze

Slide 12

Your colleagues at work become rather bored with your constant talk of “TTR - this” and “TTR - that”. You find yourself increasingly isolated - ‘a crane among the chickens’ - and lose heart.

Go back to Slide 10 and think againExit the maze

Slide 13

Well, you’ve stayed at the entry to the maze really, haven’t you? Rather a waste of your time - and everyone else’s time too!

Return to Slide 10 and think againExit the maze

Slide 14

You gain confidence gradually as you adopt and adapt more and more ideas. Your classes gain confidence as they find they can communicate more and more successfully in English. Things are looking up.

Move on to Slide 15

Slide 15

Your techniques improve. Your English improves. Your classes improve. But then the TTR course leader tells you there is going to be an end-of-course exam. Your feelings are: “My God, I hope I pass.”

“My God, I’m sure I’ll fail.”“Well … whether I pass or fail, at least I’ve learned something.”

Slide 16

Then you’ll have another certificate in your pocket, which is good. Perhaps more important is what you feel you have personally gained from the course.

Exit the maze

Slide 17

Then you won’t have a certificate in your pocket. But perhaps you’ll feel that you’ve learned a lot for yourself that will help you in your work as a teacher.

Exit the maze

Slide 18

You finish the course. Your career has been refreshed. You think you might be able to make it through the next few years with increased interest.

Exit the maze

EXIT FROM THE MAZE

So - are you happy with the outcome? Looking back, would you have done anything differently? Do you think the problems you had to consider reflect the real situation for Jiangsu teachers? Adapted from Models and Metaphors in Language Teacher Training by Tessa Woodward, Cambridge 1991