The past two days I've been with Lesley Dick, a teacher trainer from the British Council, learning about the differences between EFL methods here and ESL methods in the US, reviewing materials and planning a 2 day long conference for the teacher trainees. Lesley is extremely experienced and so we were able to cover tremendous ground in a short time, completing our original two day agenda on the first day and using today to create curriculum plans for the conference.
The teacher trainees are going to be taking the TKT exam offered by Cambridge University, which would be an impressive certification here, and one of my main tasks is to prepare them for that exam and use the preparation to improve their teaching here. I have not yet met these teachers, but everyone who talks about them suggests that they will have a rigid teaching style that relies on rote instruction and slavish attention to mediocre textbooks. Everyone also suggests that their English language level may be somewhat inexpert. My task seems to be to invigorate their teaching methodology and by doing so allow them to teach classes at Saaraketha that will be fun for the local community and promote interest in Saaraketha's education center. Lesley and I planned 2 LONG days -- we will be teaching and learning for 8 hours Thursday and Friday -- but with dynamic lessons and a lot of modeling and reflection. If in fact, the teachers are rigid or not well trained, I think we are off to a good start and have set up something that we can build on.
I do have some anxiety about the tasks I have been asked to do here in Sri Lanka and am taking it on trust -- and on the word and passion of the Saaraketha folks who obviously have more knowledge of the local context and what can be achieved -- that I will be able to start something lasting in the short time I have here. To give a sense of the things I am wondering about:
> Am I condescending to the teacher trainees by assuming they need training basically from scratch when they are already full time teachers?
> Teaching and modeling best practice does not mean that these teacher trainees will reach mastery with what we discuss. I have very limited time with them, and to cover too many things mean they won't learn much. Less is more, obviously, but can I change their attitude toward their practice in such a short time.
> How my time at Saaraketha is structured is somewhat bizarre. I am working with the teacher trainees every day from 3-6, but they are not going to be teaching real classes at that time. We will have people to experiment practice with, but not a real class. In the meantime, I am going to be teaching 2 clusters of students in the mornings myself, but the teacher trainees are at their regular work during that time so they won't observe me or know what I'm doing. Presumably, the teacher trainees are going to take over these courses when I leave but how are they going to be prepared to do that effectively.
> The teacher trainees, once I leave, are coming from their regular teaching jobs to Saaraketha, but without much time to prep or reflect. As a result, they may inevitably go back to an over-reliance on the books which would make the classes seem less innovative or interesting to the participants. This type of pedagogy they can already do.
At a minimum, I am confident about the next 2 days and I am also confident that I can meaningfully begin to impact the teacher trainees in the time I have. I also hope I can be an advisor to the Education Center and help to set it up on a strong beginning. The work I've done over the past 2 days has been creative and challenging, forced me to innovate in my own practice and bring together my background experience in a novel setting. From what I understand, the challenges in Sri Lanka are similar to the type of challenges I face every day at my school in the US which has a largely immigrant, ESL, socio-economically poor population of students who do not have academic parents or community role models. Thus, I am teaching in my element here and am excited to meet the teacher trainees tomorrow.
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