The final week!

This time yes, although this one actually lasted a wee bit longer; the assignment deadline was extended by a week, meaning that by the time my tutor’s feedback had come through it was almost three weeks from beginning to end for this module.

You promised us a longer reflection on the extensive course, but first let’s delve into the final module. What were you learning about this time?

Actually, the tuition at this stage was very limited. This second module focused again on lesson planning, and really felt like a culmination of various elements of the extensive course. The live session this week gave some valuable insights into how our lesson plans will be assessed during Unit 4 (the teaching one), as well as looking at what make a good objective in a lesson plan and all the other elements that need to go into it. The lesson plan really does seem like quite a daunting prospect – it took me almost a week to put together this 20-page (!) plan, and I’m well aware that Unit 4 will require 5 of these done in three weeks. 

Woah! 20 pages…?!

Here’s a breakdown of all the different parts: 

• Class and learner profiles: 2 pages. This is where you have to explain who the learners are, and give details on specific strengths and weaknesses of each of them. 
• Topic and objectives: 1 page. This section has a breakdown of the topic, why it’s relevant to the class and learners, and the different linguistic, communicative, and phonological objectives for the lesson. 
• Language analysis: 7 pages. This is where you provide a detailed analysis of the language you’re going to teach in the class, as well as reflecting on potential difficulties learners might have with it and how you can mitigate these. This part very much seems like a bottomless pit: if I had had another week, it could well have been  double the length. 
• Rationale: 3 pages. Here you provide, well, a rationale for the topic, language, and objectives, explaining why these choices are relevant to your learners. “Because it’s next in the book” is not sufficient!
• Lesson procedure: 5 pages.
• Syllabus fit: 1 page. Apparently Trinity expect you to show how your lesson relates more broadly to the syllabus that learners are following. Easy enough in this plan, based on a (hypothetical) class in a language school, but this seems like it could be a challenge in series of 5 lessons in Unit 4. 
• References: 1 page.
• Appendices: x pages. Here you’d include all the materials learners would use during the lesson. 

That all seems very thorough, but also very logical when you think about where the course has taken you. 

Agreed. The interesting thing has been thinking about objectives. I’m sure you already know about SMART objectives and all that jazz, but more about what language is being focused on (linguistic objectives), how that language will be used (communicative objectives), and also how you expect to be able to measure a learner’s progress to see if those objectives have been met. Part of that comes from figuring out how you will collect data to see what learners can do before you start teaching them something. That could be from a previous lesson; you see that your learners are trying to use for and since but can’t get it right, so you plan a lesson built around letting them see them in context, figure out how they’re used, and then use them in their own production before the end of the class. On the other hand, maybe you know that your learners are keen to use more transactional expressions in speaking, but you haven’t covered that yet in your classes. In this case, you’d probably want to adopt a TTT method

That’s test-teach-test, right?

Yep. In practice, that means giving the learners a controlled task near the start of the class that lets you see how well they use those transactional expressions. Your teaching then reacts to that, and later allows for them to use them again in a different context. You then have your measurable data to assess how successfully learners have acquired that language: can they use it? Are they using it more than before? Are they making fewer errors? Our tutor also gave us a handy trick for thinking about objectives in a lesson plan. Rather than saying something like learners will be able to use transactional expressions in conversation, you can start the objective with learners will be better able to… This adds a level of hedging, and gives you some leeway when you’re discussing the lesson with the tutor or assessor after the class. The first one is very black and white: did they or didn’t they use them? The second one has a lot of gradations available: Pepe still found it difficult, but used three expressions in the second task compared to one in the first. 

Gotcha. That’s lesson planning 2 done then. And, if I’m not mistaken, that’s it for the extensive course?

That’s right. Now we’re left to our own devices to decide when to do each of the assessments. I’ve pretty much decided to take the Unit 1 written exam this coming August, and then to focus on the Unit 2 Projects throughout the coming academic year. I’ll finish it off with Unit 3 and Unit 4 in Summer 2022. 

How does it all feel?

There’s a definite sense of anti-climax. Almost six months of studying has ended with, well a big open space of unknown. It’s a bit like the road once you pass through the Toll Booths on the Severn crossing going from Wales into England. All of a sudden there’s a huge sea of tarmac, and you have to figure out how you’re going to get into one of the lanes at the end. 

I suspect that part of that is the mode I’ve chosen to do this Dip. Being unemployed this year has afforded me a wonderful chance to study, to read, to reflect. It’s as if I’ve been back in full-time education again, and it’s been glorious. But now I’ve got to figure out how to put all this stuff into practice when I step back into the classroom in September (and that’s on top of the learning curve I’ll inevitably face stepping back in after more than 12 months away). That said, I don’t know how my colleagues on the course have managed to do it whilst working full time. That requires a serious amount of dedication and personal control. A fair number of people on the course have dropped out over the past few months, and whilst I’m sure there are many mitigating circumstances, I’m sure that balancing life, work, and Dip have something to say for that. 

On a personal level, this course has been exactly what I needed. I came into this course feeling drained and despondent, after a very hard year that brought me to my knees (and not just because of Covid, either). I recognise I have a very long way to go because I can hold that piece of paper in my hands, but right now I’m holding something much more important in my heart: I’ve got my love for teaching back, and I can’t wait to get back to it.