Well, I had every intention of telling you my Luddite reflections this time, but they will just have to wait. One thing I have learned about these new, tek-savvy times, is that it doesn’t matter if you do what you said you were going to do, because you can always send a text to say that you’re doing something else.
Anyway, first up, edgeblog had to decide between the two outstanding entries in the neo-Gricean Principles competition. The committee discussed long and hard the merits of Magdalena’s data-based contribution and logical analysis, as compared to Jane’s somewhat cheekier effort. In the end, and not until the bottle was empty, it was decided to award first prize to Jane, for her postmodern pedagogic:
Only provide as much information as can comfortably fit on your smartboard screen.
Jane, if you send in a suitable address, an inscribed copy of Edge & Garton 2009 will come winging your way. Ha! Bet that surprised you all, dinnit? Didn’t think edgeblog would really give a prize, dijja? And as for the book itself, what about this for a mind-boggling sentence from Chapter 2?
So far in this chapter, we have introduced three levels of mental activity and two general approaches to language teaching. We are now going to examine five basic elements of ELT which have a role to play in both general approaches and which need to be integrated.
And that’s on p.19 already! Just imagine how we’re getting on by p.119! It’s all there, believe me, it’s all there.
However, back to the Luddites. Or not, actually, of course, because I haven’t written that yet. And the reason is that thoughts of Cap’n Ned were displaced by a brief Blackboard exchange on the topic of teacher training, education and development, along with CELTAs, DELTAs and MAs. I found myself writing the following, which I thought came out rather well in an area that is always tricky:
Many thanks for these questions, which are really useful in helping us clarify what we mean when we use these terms. Here’s my take: An introductory course such as the CELTA will be very much oriented to the training end of the spectrum: Showing and telling people what to do in a set of predictable circumstances. This is the apprenticeship phase. A DELTA course will extend this training and take on some aspects of education, in that the participant will come out with a good understanding of why some decisions are made and with an ability to respond on a principled basis to novel situations. This is the ‘journeyman’ phase. An MA course will broaden the educational base of the participant’s experience and will bring into question also those principles that were previously accepted, while not losing touch with the need to act. This is the ‘master’ phase. Those are what I see as the responsibilities of the courses. At each phase, the possibility exists for the participant to create from these training and educational scenarios developmental experiences of their own. The best courses will be trying to create conditions under which these experiences are more, rather than less, likely, and a master’s course should provide the greatest scope. Well, excuse the historical sexism of the terminology back there. I’ve never tried to express those ideas in quite that form before, so, thanks again. best, Julian
Wodja think?
Luddites next. Look after yourselves out there.
Remember, edgeblog cares about you.
‘What? They are handing them out as prizes elsewhere!’ ehehe…
Envy will blind me! (and I need to get mentally fit to enter the second competition)
Hi again Julian and everyone in edgeblog,
First of all an anecdote. Two weeks ago I actually went into the delivery room with my copy of Edge & Garton – along with a couple of glossy magazines and a notebook with the midwife’s instructions – it’s difficult to know what one may feel like reading in such times, hence the variety
Of course, what happened was that after some hours of pain all I wanted to do was throw the all the reading materials in my husband’s face – including E & G, sorry about that… 
However, I did get to the end of chapter 6 before that day, and what I most liked was the fact that it’s honest and realistic, qualities that I think are a fundamental part of any teacher development programme/book. For example, the last paragraph on p.41 where it talks about teacher-learners of English as a foreign language being able to admit that they don’t know everything, and in the same chapter at the very beginning, the reflections on ‘English and the Englishes’. Very well said.
On the topic of education, training and development courses, I found Julian’s explanation very clear. However, I remember discussing the same terminology and concluding that the terms ‘teacher training’ and ‘teacher education’ implied the educational process was coming from outside the teacher, so to speak, while the ‘development’ process came from within. Does that still make sense in the light of this new explanation?
Hope to see you all soon.
Best,
Magdalena