A guide for literacy, numeracy and ESOL teacher educators
learners react to a different style of or approach to teaching. For this the group
teaching practice model is ideal as it dramatically increases the amount of
classroom experience the trainee gains in the form of peer observation:
‘if there are six of them in the group, for every bit of teaching they do
themselves, they see five times as much watching their peers.'
Observation of teaching in a variety of contexts is also very important and for all
trainees, particularly those in teaching placements without much support,
opportunities to observe their peers in a variety of placement and work place
settings are of great use:
‘they found it very useful, particularly where they were seeing different kinds
of working contexts.'
However, this can be difficult to organise:
‘It's a bit tricky because you end up with lots of “oh I can't do that because she
only teaches on Monday and I have yoga on a Monday. '”
To address this problem one teacher educator we spoke to used a weekly
timetable grid on a chart on the wall on which all the trainees had to put what
they were teaching and in what context and then they could sign in to request
visits to each other. This appeared to be very effective in helping people know
what was on offer within their own group in terms of when and where they were
teaching,
‘...so if someone was teaching at a prison it might take a few weeks to organise
but they could set it up. It was a bit of a lottery, but they did do it and they found
it very useful, particularly where they were seeing different kinds of working
contexts.'
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