My experience of first Teacher Training Program

On 6th August, I got a golden opportunity to attend a one day training session on 'Effective Techniques in Teaching English' organised by Oxford University Press. The resource person was Ms. Ratna Rao, a well known ELT expert. Really it was a great opportunity for me. We three teachers attended this workshop from our school.

"We keep on learning and then only we can keep on proceeding as a teacher."

This quote is really true as the day when we stop learning as teachers, we cannot succeed. As Alvin Toffler says-

"The illiterate in the 21st century are not those who are not educated, but are those who do not learn, unlearn and re-learn.

The speaker applied the theory of Breaking the Ice which means taking out from the comfort zone. Some activities which can be done in order to free children from any type of burden and so they are supposed to sit far from their friends and this also helps in learning how to work collaboratively with new people. We did many activities which we can apply in our class while teaching and also in proxy periods. The first activity was of logical and practical thinking process where we were given some words and the some letters were missing three times and we had to fill the blanks. For Example- MALARIA, DISMISS, RELEASE ETC.

                        Listening is the most important skill. It starts with the womb of the mother as we have the example of Abhimanyu from Mahabharata. To learn English, listening is the most important of all LSRW skills. Not everyone will be knowing but in English we have 26 Alphabets, 5 Vowels, 12 Sounds and the words are spoken differently and written differently. The reason for bad handwriting of students is that they are not doing much activities of writing as in class they are only listening. They are rote learners.

              Another activity was that the speaker gave instructions and we had to draw whatever we were instructed. The speaker gave the first instruction and e followed that. We were told to draw a square but later she instructed to draw it in the centre of the page. This proves that we listen only half and act fastly. This type of listening is called Bottom-Up Listening. The opposite of it is Top- Down in which when we are given instructions, we apply our common sense and try to do it more nicely. Very few will know the difference between listening and learning. Listening is when the brain is active and we give feedback. Hearing is when we do not react  to anything and people are passive learners.  

              The third activity was that we had to write the name of the body parts which had three letters. The fourth exercise was to arrange the 12 months of the year in alphabetical order. These types of exercise can be given to students. These exercises are called HOTs(Higher Order Thinking). This concept of HOTs and LOTs is called Bloom's Taxonomy which I also studied during my M.A. studies at Department of English(M K Bhavnagar University). The six things which are included in this are Knowledge, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating and Creating. Knowing is important. Without knowing, we cannot directly create anything. The first three comes under LOTs and the other three comes under HOTs.

              There are two types of Grammar teaching techniques- Inductive and Deductive. We also came to know about different types of claps like Train Clap, Rain Clap etc. The next activity was a group activity in which 10 people were there. They had to invent a new festival for which we had to give reason for celebrating it, give a name to it, tell how it would be celebrated, what type of dress to be worn, which rituals to be followed, which food to be eaten and a poster about it. Our group invented a festival which is called Laughter Festival. The reason for celebrating it was to release stress, remove sadness. As Mother Teresa says- "Peace begins with a smile, laughter is many steps ahead of a smile." How will it be celebrated will be we just have to smile at everyone we meet. The ritual will be work like you laugh and smile everyday and no holiday will be there on that day. We all have to wear a smiley band or a batch. The dress will be funky or any costume which we have not worn yet. The food eaten will be sweets and chocolates. The other groups were also there who also invented different festivals like No Superstition Day, Being Human, Gratitude Day, Happy Moments Festival, Shadows Day, Country Fest and Familia Refreshio.

Poster for Laughter Day Festival

                      The next activity was that we were given a list f things and told a situation that we are on sea voyage and our ship starts sinking so which three things will we take with us to survive. After telling the three things, we had to argue with other groups proving our point. This activity was given because debating is one of the spoken skills in Oxford Books. We also were given poem and also told how to teach it. I did the same activity when Dr. Atanu Bhattacharya came at our department to teach ELT.

      The workshop was very fruitful and I gained many things which will help me to teach more effectively.