Pedagogical Ponderings 🤔

You know something, it's beginning to dawn on me that four weeks really isn't a long time, and I just hope I'm able to make the most of this tremendous opportunity. I'm still not sure what to expect in Spain, which is all very exciting, but these are my thoughts so far …

I feel that TBL, which Fran and Emile introduced us to last week, will be an invaluable tool for teaching young learners, because it seems to draw on learners' energy, creativity and desire to communicate in a way that more workaday lesson structures do not. I never had the chance to apply TBL during the CELTA course, so this will be a good opportunity to expand my teaching 'toolkit' in this direction.

Also, I'm looking forward to making my lessons more multi-modal. During the CELTA course, my natural tendency was to play it safe, and keep things as straightforward as possible. My materials were mostly limited to handouts and tasks, and my use of technological aids (excluding Zoom classes) did not much extend beyond PowerPoint and a whiteboard. And while I think this approach was generally effective for teaching adult learners, I expect that young learners may be more likely to engage with an approach that utilises more 'bells and whistles'.

So, a lot to think about already. It'll certainly be interesting to see how my expectations hold up in three, four weeks' time.