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Tag: Teacher training

Why a Trinity CertPT in Teaching Lexically?

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Teacher Development and CPD, Teaching lexically, Trinity CertPT. No Comments on Why a Trinity CertPT in Teaching Lexically?

The Trinity CertPT in Teaching Lexically is the official title of our course for this level 6 qualification . Some of you may wonder how that works and whether out assessment is different to other ones listed on the Trinity website. Same assessment with Teaching Lexically content The short answer to this is no. All the different courses use the same assessments and follow the same criteria in terms of grading them. The focus is on evaluating published material, adapting material to your learners, writing material for your learners and assessing the success of your class with this...

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CELTA or Trinity CertPT?

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Teacher Development and CPD, Trinity CertPT, Uncategorized. 4 Comments on CELTA or Trinity CertPT?

When Trinity CertPT is not for you. For some people there is no choice between a CELTA or a Trinity CertPT. The name tells you what you can and can’t do. The Cert PT is for Practising Teachers. If you have never taught before you can’t do a Trinity CertPT. Instead an initial course like CELTA or the Trinity Cert TESOL, is probably the best choice, though other courses are available.  These short initial courses provide some background to principles of language teaching. However, they are mainly about mechanics of teaching – giving instructions and explanations, organising...

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Target Language and planning

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Grammar, Lesson planning, Teacher Development and CPD, Teaching lexically. No Comments on Target Language and planning

Target language will be a familiar term for anyone who has studied a course such as CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL, but it is a core idea for many teachers practice, even if they are unfamiliar with the term.  It basically refers to the language that we plan to teach. I’m not against having a goal for a class or even having language in mind that you think will be useful for your students. However, in this post I want to outline some of the problems that arise when we let the target language dominate our thinking and actions above other goals. Choosing language for learners...

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The Trinity CertPT with Lexical Lab

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Courses, Teacher Development and CPD, Teaching lexically. No Comments on The Trinity CertPT with Lexical Lab

We are now offering the Trinity CertPT as part of our teacher development provision. In this post, we’ll be looking at what the CertPT is and how it fits with our programmes. What is the Trinity CertPT? The Trinity CertPT is a way to provide assessment and accreditation for teachers’ ongoing professional development. The PT stands for practising teachers and is, therefore, aimed at teachers who have two years’ language teaching experience or an initial training certificate with a national or international provider + 6 months’ teaching experience. The...

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More activities to revise language in class at low levels

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Classroom Activities, Lesson planning, Revision, Teaching lexically. 4 Comments on More activities to revise language in class at low levels

Why do activities to revise language in class? Teachers sometimes see class time as only for ‘new’ input. Revision is for students to do at home. I understand that idea. It also depends a bit how long your class is. If you have one 50 or 60-minute class a week, maybe that makes some sense. And students do have to take some responsibility, right? Ultimately, languages are truly learnt and certainly become more ‘real’ when students study and use the language outside class. But then many students set aside 3 or 4 hours of their week to do a class, so expecting a huge amount extra is not...

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Student-centred classes: it’s not just pair work!

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Classroom Activities, Core Principles, Lesson planning. 1 Comment on Student-centred classes: it’s not just pair work!

What do teachers mean by student-centred classes? It seems some only see it as increasing pair work and reducing whole class teaching. The teacher should be a facilitator setting up tasks and watching, rather than doing explicit teaching. That at least was an impression I had from one teacher at a recent training, but it also comes from CELTA trainers urging to keep teacher talking time (TTT) to a minimum and others who frown on direct explicit teaching. However, I think this is a rather reductive way of thinking about learner-centred classrooms and hides important principles of...

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Planning lessons: chat is an outcome too.

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Classroom Activities, Core Principles, Developing materials, Opinions, Teaching lexically. 2 Comments on Planning lessons: chat is an outcome too.

When we talk about planning lessons that have an outcome, teachers often misinterpret this as meaning all lessons should have a clear practical benefit. They may feel that following an action-oriented approach (as follow the CEFR calls it), means we should only design or select tasks where students role-play practical activities, resolve problems, or reach definitive conclusions. This was an ongoing debate we had when writing tasks to encourage mediation in Outcomes Third edition. As we discuss in our course on Mediation in language teaching, while complex tasks are likely to result in...

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