3.1 Who?
3.2 Why?
3.3 What?
3.4 How?
3.5 The evaluation
3.6 Final checklist
3.7 Lessons learnt
3.8 Models for timetabling
3.9 Sample questionnaire
3.4 How will you do the training?
Your decisions will be affected by the length of the workshop/s or course and the age, level and size of the group. If you also want to develop skills and attitudes, the group should not be too large as you need them all to actively participate. If there are many participants, you can divide them into small groups of 6-8 for some of the tasks, and you can have small groups consisting of 2 or 3 participants for others.
Other factors to consider are:
- the logical sequencing of content;
- starting "with a bang" to raise interest;
- scheduling the workshop or course so that there is a shared perception of a beginning with clear aims, stages of progress, and an ending with a sense of achievement;
- allowing for a variety of activities and working modes (e.g. instead of listening to a lecture for 2 hours)
- progression from low-risk to high risk activities (e.g. discussion-type activities are lower risk than acting out a role-play)
Here is a set of interrelated working principles which guide the way we plan and conduct training sessions (Based on: Gabriela S. Matei et al. First steps in teacher training: A practical guide.). We summarize the most important ones here:
'Start from where participants are'
In practice this means enabling participants to explore and share their
previous assumptions, experience and knowledge. New and more experienced
trainees alike will perceive everything you offer them during courses
or workshops against this background. Past and new experience is the essential
basis of new ideas in teaching.
Facilitate talk between participants
The exploration of experience and ideas entails conversation between
participants. There is an important role for personal narrative here,
which can take the form of stories, anecdotes and critical incidents.
The successful exchange of such experience and ideas does not just happen
but needs to be facilitated by the trainer. This involves attention to
individual and group characteristics, the ability to structure communication
in a group and the skilful handling of participants' personal information.
Provide opportunities for active learning, personal
review and reflection
We believe significant learning happens when the trainees are truly engaged,
participating in activity / talking , exploring ideas, designing
solutions to intercultural teaching/training problems and planning for
classroom activity. As well as being active in training sessions /
participants also need time to pause and think, to reflect, and to allow
new ideas to 'digest'. A good balance of do and review opportunities
can contribute 'deeper learning', i.e. more meaningful and
lasting effects.
Help participants to conceptualise when appropriate
We want participants to leave our training sessions with new ideas and
concepts which are beginning to be internalised. A trainer needs to be
ready to contribute ideas, concepts or theories at strategic points in
training sessions, i.e. when participants are ready to relate such input
to their own understanding and practice, typically after intensive exploration
of experiences and ideas.
Create links with the real world of teaching
/ classroom, teachers' room, schools.
Trainees come to us from the world of the classroom and that's where they go after training. This is why participants expect training to be relevant to their immediate or future teaching contexts. One way of meeting this expectation in training is to work actively with real cases of teaching situations, perhaps drawn from participants' classrooms during observations. In addition, trainees appreciate space in our training sessions in which to make new plans or to try out ideas for classroom activity.
After considering the general principles you might want to select some fitting techniques and activities from the open list below:
Recommended Techniques and Activity Types:
- Brainstorming (to map out what participants have in mind about certain issues);
- Short presentations (to find out about participants' experiences, to provide input for further discussion);
- Critical incidents (to raise awareness of cultural differences and their importance in communication);
- Role plays and simulations (to experience as much as possible what it is like to communicate with people from other cultures);
- Project work (to give ideas for culturally enriching projects that participants can do with their trainees or students in their teaching work);
- Ethnographic tasks (to give ideas about the learning potential in doing interviews and observations);
- Quizzes and rating tasks (to offer the group concrete information about different cultures and thus stimulate a purposeful discussion in small groups);
- Pair or small group discussion helps the participants loosen up before discussing the ideas with the whole group or class;
- Discussion: essentially after each of the above activity types it is of great importance to exchange ideas, discuss the participants' own experiences, and generate further thoughts. Discussion helps both the workshop facilitator and the participants to clarify their attitude towards the stated questions or the perceived problems.
next chapter: 3.5 The evaluation
