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



A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators

‘You need a lot of discussion and exploration in order to build enough trust to
get an agreement, especially if people are new to it, new to the concept, they
need a lot of talking through. Getting the green light takes a lot of work and
sometimes a long period of notice - but it’s well worth it.'

Then you need to add some reassurance...

Partner organisations are often anxious about letting trainees teach their
learners, in order to protect quality. Reassurance will be needed. Evaluations
from learners who have been in teaching practice groups have been very
positive, particularly because they get lots of extra personal attention. They also
like helping the trainee teachers, as one trainer put it,

‘...it's very interesting, the learners get quite protective of their “baby”
teachers and want to help them succeed in graduating as teachers.'

Another frequent evaluation finding, reported by Burghes (2006) is that learners

‘benefitted from the contributions of creative, energetic (novice teachers) at the
cutting edge of research and development.'

And organise the timetable.

This can seem challenging at first, but only until the patterns are established.
With two groups of learners at different Skills for Life levels, the trainee teachers
can be split into two sets. Each can be assigned to one level before swapping
with the other set at the mid-point of the teaching practice period (see example 1
in Appendix 2). Alternatively, a more fluid system can be set up in which
individual trainees first observe a group, teach a slot and move on to the other
group to observe and then teach that group (see example 2 in Appendix 2). The
latter system is more complicated to timetable and administer but provides a
richer experience for the trainees, allowing them to see all of their peers
teaching at both levels. It also avoids what can be an awkward shock when
trainees, having become accustomed to one level, are asked to adapt to a new
one.

For example, if a teaching practice group meets twice a week for a two-hour
lesson with six trainees working together, they may each teach two 20-minute
slots in the first week. In the next week this may move on to three trainees
teaching 40-minute slots. Later in the course each trainee can take one hour of
the lesson. This needs to be carefully timetabled at the beginning of the course

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