She wants to introduce the idea of internships for trainee teachers in schools and in further education.
She told us that many trainee teachers go on internships to do research but then do not apply their findings when they do finally get into the classrooms themselves.
She had a number of questions for us and started with asking us if we evaluate our professional development level. I must admit I had never really thought about it, I take courses to improve myself but had not evaluated where I am now as a teacher. She told us that Cambridge English Teacher have set up a chart for teachers to evaluate their position. I am a member of CET and had forgotten about this. Here is the link
She also pointed us to the British Council CPD framework.
She asked us what kinds of Personal Development teachers undertake and the majority of answers were courses, and seminars, I would have added reflection too but she gave us the stages of development Awareness, Understanding, Engagement and Integration. First of all we need to be aware of the need for improvement, then we need to understand where we need to improve to be engaged in our development with courses etc and finally to integrate with other teachers in order to share our experiences and knowledge.
She then told us the difference between teachers as searchers and researchers. As a searcher we look for input and try to use it in the classes but when we become researchers we reflect on how things work in the class.
She then went through the process that they use in their internship in their community. This starts of with an evaluation and then moves into producing a CPD plan, from this they decide which sessions are necessary. They have weekly teacher meetings to help each other with their problems. At the end of each month they have guest speakers who also hold Q&A sessions in the meeting. It is rounded off with a final evaluation and move into producing a plan for future development. The whole internship takes 3 months and seems to me to be a very thorough and effective way of developing teachers. This procedure could obviously be used with people at any stage in their teaching career.
The interns are expected to go through articles, attend/watch webinars and assess apps/websites for the classroom and cpd which are then presented to the course. She expects that the interns learn how to search for topics which are relevant to their teaching situation and their needs and problems and they also know who and what to listen to, ie they are critical in their analysis of who is presenting and why.
As the interns start to present to each other there is a sense of engagement so even reluctant participants wanted to join in and contribute to each others learning.
From here they take their ideas and assess how they might work in the classroom and think about all the possibilities and at this stage they are becoming researchers and finally they can take their knowledge into the classroom.
She said that they have successfully run 2 of these internship courses and it certainly looks like a very effective program. She gave us the facebook page maha.esltraining and also told use where the program is going and that she hopes to put some of the meetings online.
Thank you Maha for this information.
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