CPD Essentials MET 33.5

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Welcome to our professional development page! It’s designed to help you reflect on what you have been reading in this issue of Modern English Teacher, assist you in trying out some ideas with your classes as part of experiential learning, and to give you some activities you can do with colleagues or as part of a teacher development or training session. The answer to these questions as well as your reflections can be added to your online profession development tool, MyCPD, which comes free* with your subscription (*If you are on a school subscription, please check with the account holder). We hope you find it useful.

Questions for reflection

  • Read three or four of the articles about classroom management on pages 6–30. You can use the ‘First thoughts’ on page 5 to guide you. Do you share any of the problems discussed in the articles? What are the challenges in your teaching situation? Is there anything you could change to make your classroom management better? Discuss your views with a colleague.
  • Think about the main points of the article on reading aloud on pages 63–64. How much do you agree or disagree with the authors’ ideas? Would your learners benefit from this approach to reading? What skills can this type of activity improve? What are the non-linguistic advantages? Will you use any of the ideas with your classes in the future?
  • Look back to ‘Teaching EAP to med students’ on pages 67–69. What strikes you as the main point of the article? Would you be keen to take on a specialist English course? What advice do the authors offer? How do the authors benefit from teaching such a course? What does the article tell us about teaching? Think about a similar class you had to take on and how you managed.

 

Things to try

  • Look at the article ‘Shadowing’ on pages 39–41. What are the main reasons for doing this sort of activity? Discuss with a colleague and brainstorm how you feel it would work in your teaching situation. Choose a class to try the ideas out with. Download the online resource and distribute to your students. Discuss how the activities went with your colleagues.
  • Read the suggestions in ‘AI in the classroom – does it always work?’ on pages 54–56. What do you think about the activities suggested? Would they work with your classes? Try some of them out with one of your classes and get feedback. Were they keen to use AI? Which of the activities was most useful? Would you use any of them again?
  • Read the article ‘Now let’s discuss’ on pages 65–66. Do you have a lot of free discussion slots with your classes? Do you use coursebooks where discussion topics are suggested? Choose a class and try the ideas suggested in the article. Which activities were most successful? Get a colleague to do the same and compare results.

 

Things to share

  • Find a colleague who would be keen to discuss aspects of teaching and read together the article on pages 11–14, ‘When teachers go quiet’. What are the main reasons the author gives for reducing teacher talking time? Are there any you disagree with or ones you could add? Take the ideas and bear them in mind for a week of teaching to see if your teaching changes by being more mindful of when to talk. Take notes and discuss with other colleagues.
  • Present the article ‘FOBO’ on pages 31–34 and get together with a small group of colleagues to discuss it. Elicit the key points covered by the article then discuss how the ideas suggested could be useful for you in your teaching situation. Does your school have similar issues? How do people feel about observation? Would this approach to observation work?
  • Read the article ‘Increasing tolerance of diverse Englishes in the classroom’ on pages 35–38 as preparation for a group discussion with your colleagues. Is there a wide range of Englishes on your teaching staff? How do the learners react? Look at the three key facts on page 36. How could you get those ideas across to your learners? Discuss the near-peer idea and get a class to try it out. Get feedback and decide what the implications could be for future teaching.

 

Your subscription to Modern English Teacher gives you access to MyCPD, our online professional development tracker tool. You can access it in the tab under your profile, where you sign in. You can also find out more about the tool here: www.www.modernenglishteacher.com/mycpd

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