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The other day in a conversation with two trainers, I heard two questions. From the first: “Do we still use loop input these days?” and from the second trainer(2) “What is loop input?”
I first learned about ‘Loop Input’ in an excellent training session with Tessa Woodward and she wrote a book called Loop Input (Pilgrims 1988). It’s now out of print though I bought a copy from the woman herself so I guess she has a few left for sale in her garage if you want one. You can also read an article by her here.
Anyway, in answer to the two questions: Yes, most trainers use it a lot though may not know it’s called loop input. And in answer to the second question (What is it?) here’s a brief summary with an activity to illustrate how it works.
When presenting a new teaching technique, it is common for trainers to follow this two-step procedure:
Step 1: The trainer asks the trainees to pretend to be students and then models or demonstrates the technique.
Step 2: The group discusses what was done before trying out the new skill themselves in their teaching practice.
So, in effect, you are doing two things in parallel: (1) Pretending to be language learners and then (2) Learning about teaching.
Loop input on the other hand offers an alternative by combining the two steps so they are less in parallel but work more in combination: as a loop.
Here’s an example of a loop input activity to train teachers to use dictations which Tessa originally outlined in her workshop though this version is in my words (so don’t blame her if it doesn’t work). In it, the trainer dictates a text describing how dictation works. In this way, the trainees experience the process and consider the content at the same time.
| A training session on dictation1 Explain that you will read a text aloud and each participant needs a pen and paper to write down as much of it as possible. Read the following text to them: ‘A dictation is simply the teacher (or someone) reading out a piece of written text and asking the students to write down what they hear. The text could be the first few lines of a newspaper article, a verse of a song, even the instructions to another activity. It’s useful since it practises writing and speaking as well as listening. If you include language that you’ve recently taught in a dictation, it is also a good way to evaluate whether students have learnt it.’2 Afterwards, pairs or groups compare their texts afterwards. Read the text again so that everyone has the entire text (more or less). Briefly discuss as a class what the listeners found difficult and what they would imagine students would find difficult about doing a dictation.3 Now read the second part of the text on dictation below, which is about how to read dictations. You can either read this as you would any other dictation or, in order to illustrate the process of reading a dictation, read it differently from the way suggested by the guidelines in the text (i.e. incorrectly). So, for example, read the dictation slowly the first time, very quickly the second time (faster than normal) and finally, very slowly again.
‘As a general rule, the first time you read the text, read it at natural speed. The second time, extend pauses in natural places, such as at full stops and commas. The third time, read it again at natural speed. At the end, hand out a printed version or ask the students to read back what they have to you so that you can write it on the board.’ Afterwards, ask the group what you did wrong each of the three times you read the dictation. |
Loop input appears to have the benefit of presenting information quickly and more efficiently than presenting the technique as it would be done with students and then discussing it. However, a loop input activity will also require discussion afterwards and some ‘unpacking’ of the process and content.
I have also observed – on pre-work training courses – situations where trainees have not seen the connection between the loop activity and the type of activity they might use in class. But without doubt, used in conjunction with other techniques, it can be effective.
Once you start using loop input in your training sessions it’s hard to give it up for a while! For example, you can do a session on reading skills but instead of using a reading you’d normally use with students, you use a reading text about how to teach reading and ask trainees to complete the types of tasks (gist questions, comprehension question, orally summarising) that we ask students to do with a reading text. See also the session on teaching listening skills which uses loop input. It’s very addictive!
So I’ve answered ‘What is loop input?” As to the question, “Do we still use it?” Well, I do. Do you?
Tasks to follow-up teaching practice feedback
I heard someone once describe that period of time straight after observed teaching practice as being like ‘decompression’. After planning for hours (even through the night) and coping with the stress of being observed, the moments afterwards are similar to a deep-sea diver coming back up to the surface. Worse still for most teachers (and not deep sea divers) they then have to receive feedback. You might run a course where teachers have a break between teaching and feedback but the logistics of courses normally prevent this luxury, and besides many teachers would probably prefer to get feedback over with, if given a choice.
I’ve always worked on courses where feedback is given straight after the teaching practice lesson so I think it’s helpful to give a follow-up task to the trainee that may be completed at a time when they can reflect and digest. Here are some tasks that you can try….as ever, more of your own ideas for tasks are welcome in the comments box at the end…
Reading
Ask the trainee to read a specific article on a subject which relates to the lesson taught or to re-read a relevant chapter from a book on the pre-course reading lists.
Observe a lesson
Arrange for the trainee to observe a more experienced teacher. Provide an observation task which focuses them on an issue which came up in their own lesson.
Re-teach the lesson
Arrange for the teacher to teach the same (or a similar) lesson to another group of students at the same level. This allows the teacher to re-think the lesson and gain confidence by teaching it again. If this isn’t possible, the trainee can select problematic parts of the lesson and re-create them with groups of peers pretending to be students, e.g. sets of instructions or explaining tricky language points. This offers a forum for correcting problems or discussing alternative approaches.
Watch the video
If the lesson was recorded on video, it can be helpful to watch it a day or so after the lesson so it is studied more objectively (though I personally think video should be used maybe once or twice at most on a course).
Keep a journal
Many training courses require trainees to keep a log of their lessons with lesson plans and the trainer’s written feedback. It is also helpful for trainees to write a page or so about the lesson in the light of their own experience and all the feedback received (from both trainer and peers).
Meet before the next observation
If you are observing the same trainee teaching a subsequent lesson, arrange a brief meeting beforehand in which the trainee talks about the lesson they intend to teach but focusing on how they are addressing any issues that emerged in the last feedback session.
Here’s a session that I first used on a Cert TESOL (initial) training course to introduce listening skills. But you can adapt the basic idea for loads of other contexts.
1 Write the following on the board:
Prediction Interest Keep playing?
First listening task Good quality Detailed comprehension
Tell the trainees that in a few minutes they are going to listen to a lecture about listening. Put them in pairs and allow two minutes for discussion about what they think you might say about the six items on the board.
2 Ask the trainees to listen to your lecture and number the items on the board from 1 to 6 in the order in which they are mentioned. Read the following lecture at natural speed.
| More than any other classroom procedure, the teacher’s handling of listening material is absolutely critical if the listening tasks are to succeed.First of all, teachers need to check that the quality of the audio equipment and of the recordings they use is adequate for the students to hear well.It is essential that the teacher provide an informative lead-in for a listening exercise to arouse interest. This may take the form of discussing the topic the students are going to hear or showing pictures, which the students interpret before they listen. Before playing interviews, the teacher can give students the interviewer’s questions and ask them to predict what the person to be interviewed will say. If the listening material is on video, this stage could be facilitated by watching the sequence without sound. Prediction is also an extremely important stage. It allows students to get interested in the topic and predict the kind of vocabulary they are likely to hear. It means, above all, that they are not approaching the task ‘cold’.
The teacher will then give the first listening task clearly so that the students have no doubt about whether they are listening for general understanding, to extract specific information or to judge a speaker’s attitude or opinion. When the students have listened to the recording for the first time, the teacher will play it again so that they can work on more detailed comprehension, perhaps prompted by a set of questions on a handout. Sometimes they will have quite a lot of difficulty, in which case, the teacher will play parts again, pausing at various points so that students can ‘catch their breath’ or focus on a particular piece of information or language. In some extreme situations, the students may continue to have difficulty and it will then be the teacher’s decision how long to go on. |
[Text adapted from Harmer, English Teaching Professional Issue 3]
3 Check the answers to step 2 at the end of the lecture and ask the trainees which of the six steps on the board you did with this listening. This should elicit that the listening was of ‘good quality’ because it was live rather than recorded; that you attempted to raise interest and encourage prediction through the pair work task and that you set the first listening task of ordering the six items. Explain that now you want trainees to listen to the lecture again. Hand out these comprehension questions one between two or write them on the board or on an OHT.
| 1 What should you check before a listening lesson?2 What should a good lead-in be?3 What does the speaker suggest students predict?
4 What is one type of first listening task? 5 How can we prompt detailed comprehension in the second listening? 6 How can the teacher help the students understand difficult listening texts? |
4 Trainees answer the questions. You could follow this up (perhaps with more experienced teachers) by asking pairs or groups to suggest two more answers to each question on the handout which were not mentioned in the lecture. For example, for question 1 they might suggest that you should also check the acoustics of the classroom. With less experienced teachers move straight to the final task.
5 Put the trainees in small groups and assign one recording (taken from course books or authentic) of any kind of short listening to each group. Ideally, trainees take their listening to different parts of the building and listen. Their task is to design a listening lesson based on the recording, which follows the basic structure and ideas outlined in the lecture. This stage can easily take 30 minutes.
6 Finally, groups report back to the class and present their listening lessons.
In ‘Training to develop Part 1′ I suggested a way to start a session on looking at Teacher Trainign vs Teacher Development. In this follow-up to that, here is an action plan I’ve used with teachers where they think about the ways they develop and how they might continue in the future.
There is just one point to add I’d like to add to this topic. At IATEFL in Harrogate this year, Tessa Woodward talked about stages of teacher development and one chord really struck. She talked about the teachers who don’t attend lots of workshops and conferences but instead they tinker with ideas and activities in their own classrooms. They are very reflective but don’t publicise the fact. And they are often the teachers who’s careers in the classroom last longer than the rest of us. It made me look back at people I’ve worked with and think about those teachers who were always developing but not in the obvious ways or ways in which are easy to describe. I guess what I’m saying is that a list like the one below needs to be used carefully and if you use it in a session be aware of those who may develop in ways not listed here. Just because a teacher rushes off to lots of conferences or twitters endlessly on the subject, it doesn’t make them any more developmental that the teacher who does none of these things.
| Which of these do you already do? 1 Share my ideas with colleagues. 2 Read at least one article a month from a journal or on a website.
3 Study for a further qualification in teaching or another subject that interests me and may help my teaching. 4 Attend workshops in my school or with a teacher’s organisation. 5 Lead a workshop or give a presentation. 6 Participate in online teacher forums/twitter etc. 7 Observe my peers teaching and invite them to observe me. 8 Keep a journal about my teaching and reflect on how lessons went. Think of one more way to develop and add it to the list above. Compare it with others. Now choose one you don’t currently do to implement over the next three months. |
Since starting this blog a month ago, the most popular posts seem to have been the ones with ready-to-use activities you can use in training sessions. So here’s another simple way to get teachers thinking about the difference between teacher training and teacher development.
Here’s how it works:
Give a copy of this list to the participants in your training session. It’s a collection of mixed-up terms and expressions which are often used to refer to either teacher training (TT), teacher development (TD) or to both:
| means you stay interested in the job compulsory temporary emphasis on end product short term long term one-offcontinual external syllabus voluntary competency-based
emphasis on process top-down internal syllabus done with ‘experts’ done with ‘peers’ holistic skills and knowledge based ongoing awareness based bottom-up means you can get/keep a job |
Then ask them to work in pairs or groups and put them into a Venn diagram like this:
They put the words in the list in the right circle if they refer to TT, the left for TD and in the middle if they refer to either. Afterwards, the pairs or groups compare their diagrams with each other and explain their answers. It’s all a good way into the topic of how teachers expect to be ‘trained’ and how they can ‘develop’.
Look out for another post in the next few days which follows on from this one called ‘Training to develop (2)’ and looks at what you could do next in a training session on this topic.
(Note: I’m not sure of every source for the list I gathered above. Some were comments from teachers but I’m aware that I took some from the excellent but now out of print book Readings in Teacher Development by K Head and P Taylor Heinemann ELT 1997. Read a copy if you can get it!)
People often ask how you get into teacher training. Many teacher trainers also seem to have their own specialised area or interest so this is the first in a series of interviews with experienced trainers in different areas of ELT. If you have another question for the trainer interviewed then add it below and I’ll see if I can get an answer for you.
The first person up is Evan Frendo.
Evan is an experienced business English trainer and published author. You can find out more about him at his blog, English in the workplace.
1 Did you yourself ever receive any formal teacher training when you started in business English?
Yes. I did an in-house EFL training course at Inlingua when I first started, and then followed up with an LCCI Diploma in TEB a couple of years later. But I guess my first qualification as a trainer was a few years before that, when I qualified as a rock-climbing instructor. I learned more about managing groups of people (don’t go too near the edge …) and motivation (it’s ok, you’re not going to die…) than any TEFL course I have ever attended.
2 Which business English teacher trainers have you admired or benefitted from in your career?
There are so many people I admire – I would certainly include Adrian Pilbeam and Phil O’Connor from LTS, who helped me along in the early days, Vicki Hollett, who was one of the teacher trainers on my Dip course, and remains one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever met, Michael Lewis, who made me think a lot about the role of lexis and grammar, and Keith Richards, who taught me a lot about discourse and interaction. But it is also the countless teachers and trainers I have worked alongside over the years, and who have inspired by example.
3 How did you become a BE teacher trainer? What types of training do you deliver?
I’m not sure if there was a formal beginning. I started by doing workshops and presentations at conferences, and in 2003 I was asked to write a book for Longman called “How to teach Business English“. Both these opened a lot of doors, and people started asking me if I could run workshops and seminars for them. Nowadays I am often asked to run short teacher training courses, sometimes by language schools who want their teachers to know more about business English methodology, and sometimes by universities who ask me to focus on ESP teaching. Often the focus is on obtaining a qualification such as the LCCI FTBE. I also do some in-house teacher training and development for corporations; this includes anything from running workshops to coaching and mentoring individual trainers.
4 What sort of teachers do you train? Why do people take your courses?
Anything from teachers who have just started their careers to experienced trainers who would like a forum for discussion and personal development. I guess teachers come on my courses either because they have been sent or because they would like to obtain a qualification like the LCCI FTBE. A few come because they have already met me at a conference, or maybe read something I have written, and are interested in what I have to say.
5 How has business English teacher training changed in recent years?
I think it is becoming more popular, with more and more qualifications appearing all the time. And teachers are actually looking to get qualified, which was not the case a few years ago.
6 Is there an identifiable approach to training business English teachers? How is it different from training teachers in general English? (If at all?)
I think it really depends on the context. Teachers working with pre-experienced learners in a university have quite different needs to trainers working in a corporate environment. Many EFL teachers working in general English are a bit sceptical or even distrustful of the business world, but a successful BE teacher needs to be part of it. It’s a different mindset.
There are two things which set BE teachers apart. The first is the need to focus not only on the learner, but also on the other key stakeholders in the equation, as well as the overall goals of the organisation. And the second is the ability to understand and work with the learners’ specific workplace context and communication needs. So training business English teachers needs to include these two areas, both of which are not generally priorities when training general English teachers.
Do you have other questions for Evan? Post them below or comments about business English teacher training are also welcome!
You may have arrived at this blog from the OUP blog which has my post about the three questions you need answers to in a needs analysis: WHAT do you communicate about? WHO do you communicate with? HOW do you communicate?
In the article I mention that these questions can also be applied to assessing the aim of a lesson so I thought I’d expand on that here and suggest a task to give teachers who need help with fine-tuning their lesson aims. It also follows on neatly from the last two posts on this blog which have been looking at lesson planning. And, after all, even experienced teachers find the task of putting their main aim into words when asked to do it on, for example, Diploma courses or for a school inspection.
For me, the well-rounded lesson aim should answer WHAT you want to enable students to communicate about (e.g. sport), HOW you want them to communicate about this (e.g. face to face, online, on the phone) and WHO is communicating (e.g. friends, with your boss etc.) So give teachers these five aims. Ask them to identify the one aim which answers all three questions and then say which questions the aims do not answer:
1 “To enable students to offer to buy lunch for a colleague and order a meal in a café.”
2 “To help students telephone clients in France.”
3 “To practice talking about the past.”
4 “To enable students to respond to emails.”
5 “To improve students’ formal letter writing skills.”
1 contains all the elements and from it you can identify clear sub-aims and we know what is expected by the end of the lesson. 2 doesn’t answer ‘what’. 3 attempts to answer ‘what’ but not in enough detail and doesn’t answer ‘how’ or ‘who’. 4 and 5 only answer ‘how’.
Feel free to comment on how you think teachers’ aims can be fine-tuned…
A recent post on activities to help with lesson planning received a lot of visits so I thought we’d continue the theme. Outside of formal training sessions, lots of courses or mentoring situations mean the trainer/mentor is supervising the trainees’ planning: available as a sympathetic sounding board for trainees to let off steam and approachable when they need to ask for advice. It’s always tricky to know how much help to give a trainee with their planning. Sometimes it seems like a balance between virtually planning a lesson for the trainee on the one hand and leaving them to it on the other. The combinations of factors such as the trainee’s character, learner style or stage of development, the stage of the course and how many minutes to go before the actual lesson affects all of this.
Here are three situations you may be familiar with. You have three trainees planning their lesson on a pre-service course. Read the situation and consider what you’d do. After each one I’ve suggested an approach but it would be good if you’d like to comment and say what you’d do or suggest other situations you’ve dealt with.
Trainee X
It is week two of teaching practice on a course with all trainees having taught twice so far. You left one of the trainees at the beginning of the session with a few ideas to work on for a lesson involving a handout to use in class. Half an hour later you return to find the trainee hasn’t progressed any further. There are only ten minutes before the end of the session.
Commentary
At this stage of the course, I’d probably tell trainee X what to do step-by-step or to try to elicit the plan from the trainee through careful questioning, e.g. Now the students have discovered the rule, what do you want them to do next? What will they want to do next?
Trainee Y
It is week four of a course and trainees are teaching their penultimate lesson. You haven’t had much to do in this preparation session with no one appearing to need your help. A confident trainee asks you to listen to her ideas for today’s lesson.
Commentary
Further on in the course many trainees like to be left alone until they are ready to ‘talk through’ the plan as in Trainee Y’s case. This often involves the teacher simply describing each stage of the lesson. The act of talking through doesn’t necessarily require anything other than a nod or agreement with the odd question such as How to you intend to deal with it, if the students don’t know that word? or What if they finish early? The actual act of describing the lesson is for the teacher an act of rehearsal and moment for reassurance.
Trainee Z
A competent trainee who lacks confidence has described a lesson. Overall, you think the lesson will work well, but one classroom activity does not sound very realistic. However, the trainee is very excited about this particular activity and has spent lots of time preparing for it.
Commentary
When you see (or hear) a plan where you consider something really will not work, you quickly need to evaluate the need for change. Is there time for the trainee to change the plan before the lesson? Will making a change have a more damaging effect on the trainee’s confidence than simply allowing for some problems in the lesson? In fact, will leaving the problem in the plan be a useful discovery for a trainee? Are they ready to identify and deal with difficulties on the spot? Much may depend on the stage in the course. Certainly towards the end of the course, trainees should be able to plan independently and intervention should be kept to a minimum. In Trainee Z’s case I might well ‘back off’ and try not to change the plan.
If you run a training course where trainees are expected to complete lesson plan proforma, then you’ll need to give trainees a model version of what it is you want. If you simply want your teachers to think more about their lessons and how they plan them, then the following may still be helpful.
Basically, the following ready-to-use activity involves making copies of the lesson plan below to hand out to trainees in an input session. You can use it in different ways (including cutting it up into different parts) but here are a few which focus on a particular aspect of planning and they can either be used all together or targeted towards the needs of the group. If you can think of more, then feel free to comment afterwards!
Aims
Hand out the plans, but cut off the column entitled ‘Aims of the stage’ first. The trainees read each stage and procedure and decide what the aim of each one was.
Staging
Cut up the plan stage by stage. Working in groups, the trainees re-order the cut stages in the way they think they were planned to take place. They also discuss if the stages could have been done in a different order and what the effect would have been.
Timing
Remove the timings column and ask the trainees to guess how long they think each stage was planned to take.
The whole plan:
Make copies of the whole plan for each trainee and set any or all of the following tasks:
1 What is the teacher’s role at each stage, e.g. controller, monitor, listener, instructor, facilitator …?
2 Define the main aim of the lesson, e.g. to enable student to write a holiday postcard to a friend.
3 Draw the classroom layout and interaction patterns for each stage.
4 Design the board work for each stage.
5 Microteach parts of this lesson to your colleagues, e.g. set up and practise the drill with your peers in stage 4.
| Time | Procedure | Aims of the stage |
| 10 mins | Show students video extract from my holiday in Mallorca. Brainstorm words in pairs and then on board that describe my holiday. | Lead in to topic |
| 5 mins | Each student is given a postcard and reads the description of the holiday. Students answer comprehension questions on the OHP. | Reading for detail |
| 10 mins | Students underline past simple verbs on the postcard. Elicit rule for regular verbs and the -ed ending. Form the question on the board as substitution table. | To focus on past simple tense |
| 5 mins | Drill the question form by asking questions about the information and picture on the postcard. | To provide controlled practice of the question form |
| 10 mins | Put students in pairs. Give out two postcards with different information missing. Students ask each other questions to get answers and complete the postcards. | To provide freer practice with p/s question forms |
| 5 mins | Hand out a series of cartoon pictures showing something that went wrong on a holiday. Students discuss in groups what happened and report back. | Freer practice with past simple |
| 5 mins | Students tell their partner about their last holiday. | Free speaking practice |
| 5 mins | Error and correction and feedback on speaking activity by writing sentences with errors on the board – students guess the mistake. | To clarify any problems/errors |
| 15 mins | Students write a postcard about their last holiday or the holiday shown in the cartoon story. | To provide writing practice and consolidation of the past simple |
| 5 mins | Pin postcards around the room for everyone to read. | Reading, peer correction and nice way to end the lesson |
I’ve been trying to identify exactly what it is trainers do when giving feedback. Here’s my list….feel free to add more!
Telling
Trainers sometimes shy away from telling trainees how it is and there is a great deal to be said for helping trainees ‘find’ the answer. But, at the early stages of teaching, I think trainees look to trainers to give the benefit of their experience, so a trainer should pinpoint the problem and suggest a solution or possible way to deal with an issue next time. Of course ‘telling’ also includes telling trainees how good it was, how well they did and how they should do lots more of it next time!
Questioning and eliciting
Asking questions or eliciting an answer can be an effective way to bring a learner to an answer or conclusion. It also helps trainees’ own critical thinking and prepares them for autonomous teaching and development. But as with teaching language the danger is that we play guess what’s in the trainer’s mind.
Showing and noticing
Sometimes you can use lots of words to explain when the quickest route is for trainees to have their attention drawn to something they need to notice. For example, watching a video of the lesson (used rarely) may help them to realise that they are only monitoring one side of the class. Reading a transcript of what they said word for word during instruction-giving can help them to notice repetition or unclear directions. Showing a teacher diagrams of student interactions throughout the lesson can highlight the need for more (or even less) variety in seating arrangements.
Demonstrating
As with showing (above) demonstrating what the trainee needs to do is often quicker than explanations. For example, if a trainee attempts to use drilling, a trainer many find it necessary to demonstrate how the trainee should have done it or present alternative ways of drilling. This is an example of where having peers involved in the feedback or having group feedback can help. These other trainees can play the parts of students and will also benefit themselves by receiving input. This kind of impromptu input session often seems more relevant/useful than the timetbaled sessions!
Discussing
Especially at further stages of teacher development, discussion resembling a seminar is useful. It’s a way of addressing wider issues relating to a lesson and encourages trainees to explore problems in terms of not only what the teacher might do but why problems in terms of student acquisition may be occurring. For example, a lesson where reading skills were prominent might provoke discussion about reading in general.
Listening
Some trainees will react to their lesson by not wanting to say much. Others may react by wanting to talk. Sometimes such talk may be a way of dealing with the adrenalin of teaching a lesson, but by talking in this way the trainee also starts to reflect and analyse. In such cases, trainers may choose not to speak but still need to show that they are listening and should respond with short comments or help the trainee to phrase their thoughts. Even where the trainee’s conclusions are incorrect, it may be wise not to interrupt the flow of thoughts immediately.
Chairing
In feedback where two or three teachers have been teaching and observing each other or peers have observed the whole lesson, the trainer may be in the position of asking for people’s comments on the lesson. Observers need to be encouraged to give plenty of positive feedback by responding to prompts such as What was one thing you observed about X’s lesson that you would like to do in yours?
Equally, it is important to develop an environment around the trainees which is supportive but where they will also make suggestions or identify ways to improve. Here the trainer chairs a discussion and ensures everyone is allowed to speak or defend themselves in the case of any over-harsh (or simply wrong) feedback.
Handing over
With more advanced stages of training (such as Diploma courses) it is possible to find that teachers reach the stage of reflection and analysis where they are able to describe and analyse the whole of their own lessons without any feedback from you. When a teacher is able to say everything you intended to say, then your role simply becomes that of the person who agrees with and confirms all that has been said. Quite often such a teacher may be at the stage where they, too, can move into teacher training.
Can you add anymore?
