Getting the practical teaching element right: A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators

A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators

with workplace-based mentors operating as the outer circle to the inner team
responsible for the taught programme and the formal assessments. A broader
team of this nature is not able to create the tight feedback loops between the
taught and the practical elements that the group model facilitates. Training
teams need to give thought to the support given to trainees in the workplace and
to how they keep up to date with the trainee’s progress.

For in-service trainees employed in smaller organisations in the sector, there are
additional difficulties with this model. A trainee may easily be the only literacy,
numeracy or ESOL teacher in their place of work. Their teaching practice mentor
will need to be externally sourced, and they will have to operate without the peer
group of Skills for Life professionals that is too often assumed by those
managing teacher education programmes. In some settings the procedures and
expectations operating may also not provide models of good professional
practice for the trainee.

Mentor support, provided by the more experienced teacher with whom trainees

Individual teaching practice

In this more familiar model, the trainee teacher is alone with a group of
learners, observed by a teaching practice mentor. This model is closer to
everyday professional practice but does not bring the advantages of a
collaborative group approach in the integration of theory and practice.

Source: www.talent.ac.uk

One trainee is matched to a
TP mentor and their learner
group

In the classroom are: 1 trainee
teacher; 1 TP mentor; a group
of learners.

φ Learner A Trainee TP Mentor

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