From training adults to training teenagers: An interview with English teacher trainer Catriona Duff

Last week IH London teacher and trainer Catriona swapped her normal adult classes to train a group of local teenagers from St Marylebone School in English Language Teaching (ELT).

First of all, why is IH London working with a secondary school?
IH London’s partnership with St Marylebone School is facilitated by the International House Trust, as part of its work in the community.

This particular project came about when a former IH London teacher moved to St Marylebone School to teach English. He found that a lot of the pupils spoke more than one language, but didn’t really understand why this was an advantage. He set up the Interpreters Club to empower these students and show them what a valuable skill being bilingual is!

Why is language teacher training important for the pupils?
Bilingual pupils at St Marylebone School can participate in two voluntary English teaching projects. Some teach primary school children who are learning English as an additional language, and others help Marylebone School’s adult teachers to teach English to parents who need help with their English.

The ELT training day at IH London is a really important preparation for the pupils – to show them useful classroom techniques and build their teaching confidence.

Why did you want to get involved with teaching adolescents?
I’ve worked with teenagers in the past and really enjoyed working with 16-18 age group. I also enjoy designing training sessions for specific groups of people. Designing a course for teenage learners was particularly rewarding because it couldn’t be a straightforward CELTA course – I had to adapt the input sessions to meet the teenagers’ needs instead. It was particularly challenging giving the pupils an introduction to teaching adults AND teaching younger learners in one day!

What was it like training teenagers to teach English?
I noticed that the students were really quick to pick things up and had wonderful ideas about classroom management techniques – probably because they’re in class every day and can draw on experiences with their own teachers.

They knew what doesn’t work in terms of classroom management – for example shouting or being too serious. They were very prepared to experiment with new ideas and were brilliant at using all the techniques effectively and appropriately.

When we looked at ways to correct students I gave them lots of different mistakes and asked them to role play being teacher and student and practise correcting each other.

Training teenagers to teach English

Last week IH London teacher and trainer Catriona spent a day showing twelve teenagers how to teach English. The teenagers were Sixth Formers at St Marylebone School in London with a special skill in common….they all are fluent in English AND at least one other language.

Learning how to use language skills

At St Marylebone School, these teenagers are members of an Interpreters Club. The club runs workshops to show pupils how they can use their language skills. The twelve pupils spent a day at IH London to learn more about teaching English. They will soon be teaching both children and adults as part of Marylebone School’s volunteering projects.

Catriona gave them an introduction to teaching skills and techniques to increase their confidence when they do it for real!

Introduction to English Language Teaching (ELT): What the pupils learnt

Classroom management

Catriona started the day with a group discussion about how to manage a class effectively which is perhaps the biggest challenge faced by any teacher!

- Catriona explained different techniques teachers can use to set up classroom activities and get feedback from students.
- The group looked at different scenarios and discussed what they’d do in each scenario.
- They then looked at how to handle difficult situations in class and strategies for dealing with them.

Setting up speaking activities

After the break, Catriona showed the pupils how to set up speaking activities. She showed them the different methods teachers can use to encourage students to speak up. For example:

- motivating and engaging the class in the topic,
- giving the class relevant language that they can use,
- using prompts,
- setting an objective.

Role play

The pupils got into groups of three with one person playing the teachers, and two playing the students, to practise these methods. They loved getting into the role of teacher, but realised how difficult it is to set up class activities at the same time!

Using the skills they’d learnt the pupils did their own speaking activity group task about planning a dream holiday. Afterwards Catriona showed them how she’d adapted this task from a course book - something the Sixth Formers could try doing.

Top teaching tips

Catriona ended the day by looking at language teaching and how to deal with student errors. She showed the Sixth Formers some of IH London’s teacher training videos which they loved.

Catriona finished with a summary of top tips for different teaching areas (classroom management, dealing with student errors, teaching language and speaking activities), which the pupils made into posters to take back and display in their school.

Putting language teaching skills into practice

The pupils will participate in two voluntary English teaching projects run by St Marylebone School. Some will teach primary school children who are learning English as an additional language, and others will help Marylebone School’s adult teachers to teach English to parents who need help with their English.

After their day at IH London, the pupils will also visit a London university to learn more about careers in interpreting.

Check back next week for an interview with Catriona about the rewards and challenges of training teenagers to teach English.

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

When Sales Manager Mat arrived this morning with four boxes of handmade cupcakes, we couldn't resist sharing the pictures (and the recipe!)

Choose from chocolate 'mud' cupcakes, or vanilla and cherry cupcakes, or make both! We think they make an excellent Valentine's Day gift to impress your loved one...

Ingredients:
(makes approximately 24 cupcakes)

200g Softened butter
200g Self raising flour, sieved
200g Caster sugar
4 eggs

For vanilla and cherry cupcakes:
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
50g chopped Glace cherries

For chocolate 'mud' cupcakes:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Equipment:

You need cupcake cases – they are a little bigger than fairy cake cases

Method:

• Preheat your oven to Gas 5 180C
• Mix sugar and butter together by hand or with a mixer until light and fluffy.
• Beat the eggs and add half to the sugar and butter. Add half the flour and mix
• Add the rest of the eggs and the rest of flour and mix until all the ingredients have combined.
• For cherry and vanilla cupcakes: Add the vanilla essence and then around 50 grams of chopped glace cherrys and mix.
• For chocolate 'mud' cupcakes: Add 2 the cocoa powder. You can also replace the cherries with chocolate drops, raisins etc.)
• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and place in the centre of the oven. Cook for 10- 15 minutes or until the cake have risen and are springy to the touch.
• Remove the cakes from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.
  

For the Butter Icing (enough for 12 cakes)
240g Icing sugar (sieved)
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla essence (you can use different flavourings)
2 tablespoons Milk 125g Softened butter

You will need a whisk or a mixer to make the icing properly.
Method:

• Roughly stir the icing sugar and the softened butter together before using an electric mixer. If you don’t do this, you will find yourself covered in a cloud of icing dust the moment you switch your mixer on!
• Once the mixture starts to come together, add the milk and the flavouring and whisk until smooth.
• For chocolate icing add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. You can also add colourings. The best thing to do is make 3 or 4 amounts of butter icing so you can use different colours and flavours for each one.

Decorating the cupcakes:

Before decorating make all your butter icing and place in piping bags. (Mat used disposable bags that you can buy from kitchen shops or online at Lakeland.)

You can then use anything you like to decorate your cupcakes with. Try sweets, silver balls, chocolate drops, cherries or sprinkles. Go crazy!