I’ve just been interviewed for a website called FirstSiteGuide designed to encourage and inspire fledging bloggers.
Some of the questions I answered include:
If you’d like to read the whole interview, you can find it here.
They also have a beginner’s guide to web hosting.
Adam Simpson and I were interviewed by Paul Braddock and Ann Foreman from the British Council, as part of the IATEFL Harrogate online coverage. It was a great privilege to be asked to do this.
We were asked about what makes a successful blog and how we go about blogging. The interview is just under 8 minutes, and I hope there are some useful tips in there.
Adam’s blog is www.teachthemenglish.com, and if you’re not already following it, you should be.
Shortly afterwards James Taylor, Katherine Bilsborough and Willy Cardoso were asked about ‘the benefits of blogging, growing the confidence to blog, and how it enables a different level of communication with peers around the world.’
Paul and Ann run the highly successful TeachingEnglish facebook page, which is a treasure trove of resources. All five of us have benefitted from it, and it’s great to be able to give something back.
This is the first in a series of posts showing you all the different ways you can approach the Cambridge Delta. They are designed to help you find out more about the course and what it involves, as well as helping you to choose the right way to do it for you, your lifestyle and the time you have available. If you’ve done the Delta (or any other similar higher-level teaching course, including a Masters), and you’d like to join in, let me know by leaving me a comment or contacting me via Twitter @sandymillin.
Katy Simpson-Davies is currently teaching in Dubai. She tweets @katysdavies and blogs http://lessonsfrommystudents.wordpress.com. She used to teach with me at IH Newcastle, and we saw each other again at IATEFL Liverpool:
– I did module 2 first, and I did this face-to-face at IH Dubai, intensively, full-time over six weeks.
– I did module 1 six months later, after going back to work. I followed an online prep course over three months through IH Wroclaw, before sitting the exam at my local centre.
– I’m still working on my module 3, and will pay a consultant for guidance (when I’ve made a bit more headway!)
I was advised to do module 2 first by my tutor, on the basis that it’s easier to understand the theory once you’ve already tried putting it into practice, and I think it was great advice. Module 1 felt so much easier than I think it would have done otherwise.
Having done a Masters online, I knew that I wanted to do module 2 face-to-face, and I was in a very fortunate position to be able to give up work for six weeks. I appreciate that not everyone can do this, but if there’s any way you can, I would really recommend it. I feel I got so much more out of it by being able to completely immerse myself in it compared to people I know who didn’t do it this way. I didn’t learn much more on the module 1 online prep course than I’d already learnt on module 2, as it was more about exam technique, which was what I expected (and was why I didn’t mind doing it online).
Where to start?! SO much. For me, it’s not an exaggeration to say that it was life-changing. I gained a greater understanding of:
– how to teach skills. I was a very grammar-orientated teacher before, and only ever really helped students to practice things like listening, not really develop it.
– the importance of helping students to reflect on their learning, and how to encourage them to do this.
– how to hand over more control to the students, and to take myself out of the equation more.
– how to help students to see patterns and make connections.
– how to use the same activity in different ways for students of different abilities.
– how to deal with emerging needs in the classroom, and adapting my plan depending on how the students are coping.
– how to conduct action research (particularly through the exploratory practice).
– the importance of the different teacher roles, and how to switch roles at different points to maximize the learning opportunities for our students.
The most important thing, overall, was a renewed passion, buzz, and thrill out of teaching. I gained confidence to experiment, and to see the classroom as a laboratory where you’re constantly trying to improve your work. Since doing the Delta, I can’t imagine ever doing a job where there wasn’t scope for constantly improving and learning new things. My husband is a pilot, and there’s a wrong and right way of doing it, and they learn it and they do it. I would hate that! Delta taught me that we’re incredibly lucky to have a job where we can experiment and take control of our own development, every single day, not just on the Delta.
– Obviously the money! Doing module 2 full-time means not earning, before you even consider the fees.
– It was VERY intense. If you don’t cope well with intense pressure, you could really crack up under the stress of it. I personally work better under pressure with tighter deadlines, but by LSA4 I think I was basically suffering from exhaustion. I didn’t get to bed before my LSA4 because I was still writing my lesson plan at 5am. I literally ran out of time because I was the first one to do it out of the group, and there physically weren’t enough hours. I still wouldn’t change the way I did it (even though this did end up messing up my grade), but if you can find an intensive course that’s over seven weeks instead of six, that might be better.
– We didn’t have as long to ‘digest’ everything, and perhaps if you did module 2 over a long period, you could implement things you’d learnt before moving on to the next new thing.
– Spreading the modules out, and separating them in this way means that it’s now a while since I did module 2, and I kind of feel like I’ve ‘done’ Delta, even though I’m actually missing a third of it! It means that I need to get all the books out, all over again, and study harder than someone else might need to who had done them all together, as it’s all feeling a bit rusty now. I’d recommend doing them in quicker succession.
– I learnt so much from my tutors during the input sessions of my Delta module 2. They brought the hefty books to life. The input sessions alone were worth every penny of the course fees.
– The intensity of it meant that you could visibly see your progress, and made it easier to make connections between everything.
– We were a very small group (five of us), and became very close with it being so intense, and really supported each other, and could trust each other to give honest feedback. I know I’ve got friends for life from that experience.
– The tutors really got to know you, which I think helped them better understand why you might be teaching something in a certain way, which meant they could better help you to improve.
– Because you had so much time together, you didn’t feel that the course was just about exam technique, or complying with the Cambridge criteria. I felt that the tutors’ aim was really to improve my teaching, and that’s what the course did.
– Do Module 2 first.
– Choose your centre very carefully, and preferably go on a recommendation. I LOVED every single minute of my Delta module 2. I was in tears on my last day because I couldn’t imagine going back to real life after such an amazing experience! That’s down to the fantastic tutors I had, and I can imagine it would be a totally different story if you didn’t have such good tutors.
– Study the criteria very carefully, and when your tutors give you advice, make sure you follow it to the word!
– Remember you’re there to develop, not to just get a certificate, and try not to let the grades get to you. It’s about so much more than grades.
– But if you are someone who can’t let go of the grades (I admit that I struggle with this!), then be careful about pacing yourself. I messed up LSA4 and all the other grades I got counted for nothing. If you’re interested in getting a good grade, then make sure you think ahead to LSA4 carefully (e.g work backwards in your choice of LSAs, so you don’t scupper yourself by having to do a skill, for example, when you’d rather do a system).
– If you’re doing an intensive course, then try to do as much reading as possible beforehand, because it’s a whirlwind once it starts.
– Think carefully about the geographical location you do the course in. I really appreciated coming home every day to a supportive husband who put a meal on the desk in front of me as I carried on writing! Your whole life is literally put on hold. One of the other trainees came from abroad and was staying in a hotel, and I think that was emotionally very tough. If you can’t do it in your city, can you do it in a close friend / sister / parent / grandparent’s city?!
Just before IATEFL started I was interviewed by Ann Foreman and Paul Braddock for the TeachingEnglish British Council facebook page as part of a series of interviews with those of us who have been awarded ‘Blog of the Month‘ (the blue badge at the top of the blog). Each of us will be asked three or four questions suggested by members of the TeachingEnglish British Council facebook page. Here is my interview, talking about IATEFL, building and retaining vocabulary and helping students learn to love English:
No, not time travel. Instead, a few questions for Chris Wilson, who’s about to start the Delta. He’ll be dedicating his blog, elt squared, almost exclusively to Delta for the duration of his course. Here are my questions and his answers:
As soon as I heard there was a higher level teaching certificate than the Celta, I knew I wanted to get it at some point. I heard that I needed two years teaching experience, something that I am grateful for, but I knew I didn’t want to be a “base-level” teacher, although since then I’ve realised there are plenty of great teachers who haven’t done the Delta but still have learnt a lot over time.
I wanted to really know why I should teach in a certain way and how to craft better lessons. I guess I also just love learning about language, teaching and how the brain works. Really I just want to know more about teaching and help people more.
I’m doing a modular distance Delta, which means I’m taking each module on it’s own when I want, fitting them in as I can. This was largely a practical decision tying in with the financial help that I could get from my school, but also because of difficulties in finding a local tutor for module two. I am probably going to have to do module two intensively at a local centre because of that.
Also I’m interested in taking a closer look at how the distance delta does the distance learning aspect of the Delta so our school can hopefully steal some ideas too 🙂
I feel I know quite a lot about the course thanks to ELTChat and the recent “How to survive the Delta” discussion (and the previous “what has the delta ever done for us” one). I’ve also spent the last few months just asking people who had done the course lots of questions. At the same time I don’t know anyone who has done it the way I am about to, so I’m still unsure how it will go!
I’ve been asking a lot of questions, blogging for professional development and getting my note-taking system in order. At the same time we’ve been really busy here at work recently (and I’ve been finishing off a few projects that I want to get done before the start of the Delta) so perhaps erratically would be the best adverb 🙂
I am really looking forward to all of it, to be honest, and I am sure it will all be useful. I can’t wait to up my game in both knowledge of terminology and methodology, conducting a research project and lesson observations. In all honesty the lesson observations and classroom practice probably scares me the most and so is probably the part that will be most useful for me.
I think it’s connected to the point above, class observations. I am quite clumsy and forgetful at the best of times but with stress I know I can slip up more and take longer to recover.
I guess thanks to everyone who has helped with their advice and recommendation in relation to the DELTA. I hope you don’t mind me asking a few more questions over the coming months!
I’m looking forward to following Chris’ blog over the next few months, and even more, to the end of my own Delta on June 5th! This post is, in fact, procrastination, as I’m supposed to be getting ready for the third of my four observed lessons. Hope you found it interesting!
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