Download - EnglishAgenda - British Council

■■ the training approach should attempt to show the teaching ideas interconnectwith i) existing teaching practices (Q.29), and, in particular, ii) the realities ofthe trainees’ teaching contexts (Q.30 – cf. the responses to Qs.7-11 above,and Kelly, 1980, regarding the effect of the ‘feasibility’ criterion on innovationadoption by teachers); as one of the participants in a focus group put it:It [i.e., the teaching strategy being advocated] should match. It should match theclass size, the level of the students, etcetera. [unintelligible] etcetera. Economicfactor and so on and so forth, readiness of the teachers to implement, theknowledge of the teacher – they cannot give what they do not have [TRFG2:737]Also, in one of the interviews, the particular issue of ensuring a match betweenlocal circumstances and educational ideas originating from abroad wasmentioned:Well of course we always take into consideration the realities of the classroom.One of the … weaknesses of the echo seminar, meaning coming from the mainoffice, is that sometimes these trainings come from abroad, with a differentcontext, with a different setting, so they try to impose something which is notapplicable. So in our division-initiated trainings, we always consider the realismin the classroom. So what is plausible inside the classroom [SI-6: 279].■■ collaboration among trainees should be encouraged (Q.31), including peercritiquing(Q.32) – however, it should be noted that the relatively lower meanfor responses here indicates a less strong degree of agreement regardingthe value of the latter. Further light is shed on the possible reasons for suchconditionality in the thorough, detailed and very interesting discussion whichoccurred in TRFG3: 496:585 (see Appendix B), where the point is made thatpeer critiquing does not preclude trainers from also adding their own feedbackas well, i.e., the former should be seen as a complement to, rather than asubstitute for, the trainer’s point of view. The wording of Q.32 may not havemade it clear enough, however, that it was a scenario of this kind which wasenvisaged.■■ the ‘medium’ should not contradict the ‘message’ (Q.33), i.e., the trainingapproach should be in harmony with the teaching ideas being advocated (cf.Woodward, 1988).■■ the seminar should also include work which involves the trainees in makingplans for follow-up, school-based activities concerning the teaching ideas theyhave been introduced to (Q.44) – in other words, the training needs to functionnot just as an end in itself, but also as a means of preparing the teachers forthe next, post-seminar stage of their learning (cf. Waters & Vilches, 2000).In overall terms, thus, these data contain a clear expression of views regardinga wide range of aspects of what are seen to be optimal practices in terms of theINSET training approach.328 | Best Practice INSET