RESOLUCIÓN N.º 197/MAYEPGC/14

The setting for this study is the School for International Training (SIT) TESOL Certificate course, Vermont, USA, which is hosted and delivered by The American University Alumni Language Centre in Bangkok, Thailand (AUA). TESOL certificate courses such as SIT, CELTA, CertTESOL, and their many less well recognised derivatives, are offered at centres throughout the world and often constitute the first formal qualification undertaken by an aspiring TEFL/TESOL language teacher. Like many of these courses, the SIT course at AUA is based on materials, training and underlying theories provided by the host organisation, in this case the SIT Graduate Institute. Over the years that the course has been delivered at AUA, the trainers have developed, adjusted, and honed aspects of the curriculum, whilst maintaining the inherent structure, philosophy, and approach of the original course. Though the core structure, goals, and materials of the course remains relatively static, every

instantiation of the course is a unique series of interactional events, involving a new cohort of trainees, variations in the group of trainers, different groups of language students etc.

For a majority of aspiring teachers, these courses provide the necessary first qualification for a career in the field, as well as a crucial stage in their professional development. Indeed for many TESOL teachers, this is the only formal teacher education in which they will

participate. These certificate courses are therefore high stake investments for potential teachers, in terms of time, finances, and aspirations for a future career. However, it is the impact of these courses on the global practice of language teaching - as so many of the world’s English language teachers receive their initial training through these courses – that

fundamentally increases their significance within the field of TESOL teaching and learning. The impact being that participants’ experiences of a course will likely play a fundamental role in their ongoing classroom praxis, beliefs, and understandings, and in turn, shape language classrooms and the student experiences of language learners across the world. The training envisaged by these courses includes, but is not limited to, learning the professional discourse of teaching and reflective practice, as well as the theoretical, practical, and interactional resources necessary for effective classroom teaching, and the initial

development of professional identity as English language teachers (Richards and Farrell, 2005). It is therefore vital that a greater understanding of these courses and their impacts is developed through research.

The SIT certificate course at AUA runs for 130 hours, over a month long period, on a full time basis, approximately three times per year. It is organised, managed, and delivered by three or four - depending on trainee numbers - SIT qualified teacher-trainers from AUA. On each course there are approximately 15 trainee teachers, who are divided into three smaller teaching groups, with two or more of four trainers working with each group. Over the course of the month, the trainers rotate between teaching groups, to provide the participants with maximum exposure to different training ‘styles’ and personalities. These teaching groups work in isolation during the first half of each day’s training: doing practice teaching or observing practice teaching, engaging in post-teaching feedback sessions, and then group lesson planning. The small teaching groups then combine to form a single, large group in the afternoon, for a series of workshop sessions, demonstration lessons, and other activities. These large group sessions are closed in the evening, and the trainees who are practice teaching the next day then have the opportunity to plan their upcoming lessons, with individual support from the trainers.

Within the context of one instantiation of this course, this study focuses on one particular interactional event, which occurs on most days of the course: the post-teaching feedback session. On a typical day, two trainees from each group will teach a class of language

learners for approximately 45 minutes each. During the lessons, the group’s trainer and other trainees sit at the back of the classroom to observe and take notes. These practice teaching lessons are then followed, after a short refreshment break, by the post-teaching feedback sessions. These sessions are organised as a ‘group discussion’, where each of the day’s

teachers has an opportunity to ‘self-reflect’ on their lesson and to receive feedback from the trainer and other members of the group.

3.5.2 Participants

The participants in this study can be divided into two main groups: trainers and trainees. The four trainers on the course are all experienced TESOL/TEFAL teachers from AUA with Master’s degrees in TESOL, applied linguistics, or a closely related discipline, and are

competent in at least two languages. Their ages range from thirty to fourty five, two are male, two female, and they originate from four different continents. They have all completed the rigorous training program necessary to qualify as a certified SIT trainer8. The trainees on this course came from a wide range of backgrounds, ages, and experiences. They represent a diverse range of national backgrounds, including American, British, Nepali, and Thai; their ages range from early twenties through to late fourties. The trainees all hold Bachelor’s degrees, as a requirement of entry to the course, and the majority speak an additional

language, which for some of the participants is English. Some of the trainees have classroom teaching experience but the vast majority do not. The trainees are required to demonstrate an appropriate level of oral and written English before they can be selected as participants for the course. This assessment includes an application form, which requires them to produce a short essay about their ideas about teaching, and a short oral discussion with a trainer, which is carried out via telephone or in situ at AUA, depending on the circumstances of the

applicant.

The process of selecting the participants, who would become the focus of this study, was carried out by the trainers, as part of the logistics that happen during every SIT course. Two days into the course, prior to the beginning of practice teaching, the trainers meet and discuss the division of the participants into a number of small teaching groups, approximately 5 trainees. The trainer’s stated aim of this process is to produce groups that are balanced in terms of variables such as previous experience, age, gender, and perceived aptitudes for the course. The researcher requested that one group was formed that only included trainees who

8 _{One of the trainers was in the final stage of this process and was being mentored by the head trainer} during this course (in his role as ‘trainer-of-trainers’). The decision was taken by the trainer and head trainer not to include his teaching group in the data collection for this study

had given consent to be participants in the research. This selection was carried out by the trainers; the trainees who would constitute the focus teaching group for this study were therefore chosen by them and not the researcher. It is standard practice on this course that trainers rotate to different groups at given points within the course, and on occasions, trainees from other teaching groups would join the focus teaching group. In one feedback session a participant, who had not given consent to take part in the research, joined the focus group. This issue was discussed with the participant and his contributions in this session have been removed from the corpus. The data collection process (see section 3.5.4) therefore followed one focus teaching group for the duration of the course. During this process the focus teaching group also included three trainers, and a number of trainees from other teaching groups, who visited on a scheduled basis.