Tandem-Neuigkeiten 19oct01

Ten vears a-qo, the Association for Teacher Training In TEFL ( ATT ) was founded by Dr
Kevin McGinley in Dublin and , then brought to fruition by a group of people (the present
writer included) with the aims and objectives of creating and providing quality teacher-training
courses in lreland comparable to the best of what had been on offer in Britain for more than a
generation before that. A panel of moderators guaranteed standards and a suite of eight
separate teacher-training courses were produced over the years, including two courses specialising
in Distance Learning for Teachers of English as Foreign Language (TEFL).
a) Content
There is nothing radically new about the ATT Distance Learning Teacher-Training courses.
They offer as much as can be presented in such circumstances to enable the trainee to inform
himself / herself as comprehensively as possible about the world of English Language Teaching.
Naturally, there is always room for improvement and the ATT will seek to include
whatever is needed to ensure that the trainee is given more personal support in his/her studies
than would be possible in a contact course.
The introductory course includes an overview of the history of the development of the
language, teaching methodologies, the four principal skills, phonetics, teaching aids, lesson
plans, and how to analyse errors. Each unit has a number of assignments which have to be
completed and returned, culminating in an end-of-course test. It is hoped that the trainee will
also find the time to read some of the books listed in the bibliographies supplied. But by and
large. the material provided should be in itself sufficient, after a hundred hours' study, to equip
a teacher with the knowledge required to enter a classroom and teach.
Despite the fact that teachers who wish to work in the field of TEFL in Ireland are graduates,
most of the trainees would encounter their greatest diffEculties in dealing with the grammar
unit, as many of them would not have studied English grammar formally at school. This is
where the training can be compared to driving lessons where the learner finds out about the
engine, the nuts and bolts of the language. Although we try to avoid "lifting the bonnet" as
much as possible in the classroom, a knowledge of the metalanguage is mandatory as it
deepens the trainee's appreciation of how a language works effectively.
But this is where it gets personal: some trainees about to embark on stint or even a career of
TEFL are naturally embarrassed about exposing their lack of knowledge of the blueprint of the
language, but e-learning allows them to drop their defence mechanisms and genuinely work
with the trainer on questions of grammar that may never have occurred to them before. The
fact that the medium is currently exclusively in writing also helps to enhance their writing skills
(and spelling!) which have seriously deteriorated amongst schoolleaves for a generation. As
the medium is generally 1:1, they don't have to worry about making a fool of themselves in
front of their peers in the classroom or about taking up valuable classroom time by asking
what they might perceive to be silly questions. They are not pressurised and restricted by the
tyranny of a class hour or afraid that they have been left behind because they missed a class or
weren't in the mood or slipped into a daydream while looking out of the window. Generally,
there is no time for questions such as Why do we use the word do in some questions and
negatives and not in others? A-fter all, they are supposed to know that already, aren't they?
And if they don't know. they should know where to go to find out. (Shouldn't they?)
b) Technique
The imparting of skills relating to style or technique in distance training presents greafer
challenges for the trainer but as stated above, in the final analysis the only way to learn how to
teach is to teach. And we all have our own stvles. thank goodness.