Approaches Discussion Task

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Post your discussion, of not less than 1000 words.

[Mario Schiavelli]

Planning a training course

According to ancient inherited concepts, training and learning should cost (effort and money) and should be completely detached from enjoyment and pleasure. Training and Learning do require effort, perseverance and dedication, but we train and learn more and better when “we want to” than when “we must”. We train and learn more efficiently from playing than from academics; more from in what we are interested than in what we are bored; more from what we consider useful than futile. In their earliest years, children learn while they play, it is a great effort (they establish millions of neural connections per minute) but without suffering. The effort becomes delight from their own personal motivation. That desire to learn by exploring the world, playing and having fun, driven by curiosity and innate creativity with pleasure as an element of motivation. With the passing of the years that motivation disappears and with it the pleasure of learning, leading to feelings of obligation and discouraging the joy of knowing, working, learning and interacting with “the other”. With the passage of the years, school activity for Trainers and Learners ceases to be something cheerful, funny and playful. It becomes a rough, difficult, abstract feat required, depersonalized and separated from the aspirations and dreams of each trainer and student, resulting in a progressive emotional estrangement. “You teach and learn only what you like, how you like and from or to who you like.” The enormous pressure from parents, families and society to be good trainers and students, disciplined with a single goal which is to pass the courses, turns training and learning into a duty and no longer a pleasure. To please and to receive approval from the socio-motional environment is more than a motivation, it is an obligation that generates a lot of pressure ­our brain does not work under threat or pressure ­ the emphasis is constantly on the effort to train and learn, relegating the pleasant occupations into the background, with the promise that it is the only way in the future “to do well and be happy.” We procrastinate the “now” happiness with the promise of the “then” happiness. The principle “pleasure-­love-­duty” must go together throughout our lives to achieve meaningful existence and to acquire the ability to fully realize ourselves. Defer the deepest longings to conform to the educational and social (or economic) requirements, which do not always provide criteria and meaning to life, is a social behavior pattern that should be changed. What is trained or learned should not only be significant for the future but also for the present: the “Here” and “Now” is what matters. Our education systems tend to repress the pleasure and enjoyment, condemn gaming and underestimate emotions, giving priority to the intellectual and mental. Brain rather than heart. A training course that aims to excellence has to contemplate the human being as a whole; allowing the harmonic expression of the three aspects “pleasure-­love-­duty” because only together and complemented they will allow the development of full and happy beings. Many people work in jobs or professions that do not fill them, in institutions or companies with which they do not share their principles. Then comes the weekend and all that pent-up tension turns into an alienating leisure (bed-­TV-­food) or lethal addictions like alcohol or worse, drugs. The pleasure and emotional, strongly repressed by duty and the requirement imposed or self-imposed, expressed wildly through euphoric and alienating activities such as exhaust valves. Schools organization is a true reflection of this situation. Training methods remain the same. It continues to be taught for a time that no longer exists. New crises and tensions are demanding an urgent need for change in all education systems. Knowledge must be seen as a whole, teaching competences and not contents with more flexible spaces and times, with more integrative approach, more open classrooms without overloading mandatory tasks outside the educational field (homework). We must ensure that training and learning is no longer a duty, but spaces where both (trainer and learner) learn, enjoying all together, sharing and discovering their talents and potentialities. We must get from “What a nuisance! I have a training tomorrow! to “Wonderful! I have a training tomorrow!”

[Manon Dercourt]

Course objective: Know how to analyze a problem and solve it.

1) Basic situation:

You are chaining together a turn of phrase with a new grammatical point for your students. The exercise is not clear, the students fail to understand what you are saying and begin to drop out. You want to explain to them and at the same time you don’t want to increase your speaking time compared to theirs. You are lost, you feel that you are losing control of the situation and the learners start asking more and more questions and get annoyed at not being able to understand this technical point of the language.

(This situation puts the future trainer in real condition and forces him to think about the outcome of a problem)

2) Ask learners to identify the problem:

In this situation, what is the problem facing the teacher?
(= student misunderstanding to understand a grammatical point.)

What are the consequences of this problem for the whole class?
(= Loss of student attention, low energy in the class, increased speaking time of the teacher, tense atmosphere.)

3) Ask learners to find solutions to problems:

Example that learners can submit:
Write the sentence in question, make a timeline or an explanatory sketch.
Change the context of the sentence so that the grammatical point is more easily understood (with a vocabulary known and mastered by the learners for example.)
Last resort solution, you need more time to think about how to convey this point to them more clearly, you apologize and postpone this point to the next session, explaining to the learners that you need time to rephrase this grammatical point.

4) Simulation between the trainers to deal with different problematic situations.

Creation of scenarios where the trainers take turns playing the teacher and the student.

5) Back to the scenarios.

What worked? What can be improved.

Manon Dercourt

[Camila Robledo De Bedout]

Approaches Discussion Task
The need: to train a new teacher to manage the platform and integrate the inlingua method.
The purpose of the training is to get the trainer familiarized with the platform and to integrate the inligua method in all of the classes.
The outcome is to have a teacher that is comfortable with all the aspects of the inlingua method and to be able to manage the inlingua platform in order to provide the best possible experience for the learner and the person at the center to be able to get all the information necessary to manage payroll and load the classes correctly in the platform
Agenda:
• We must have the teacher learn the inlingua method and make sure they are able to apply it to the classes they will be teaching.
• introduce procedures on how to present information to the person loading classes on the platform (make sure they understand time zones and daylight savings time and give the person tools to calculate time zones)
• introduce procedures on how to close a class and make sure they know the importance of closing a class to be able to manage classes and the importance of closing a class for payroll purposes.
• Introduce procedures on how to communicate with the students within the inlingua platform, how to teach students to communicate with the teacher, and how to file conversations in the chat feature of the platform.
• Teach the teacher how to access resources for the language they are teaching.
• Teach the teacher how to download the backgrounds required for the zoom background.
• Teach the teacher how to manage and use all the features on zoom platform during the classroom with the students (how to share content, how to share sound, how to give remote control to the students, how to use whiteboards, and how to manage the writing tools on zoom.
Learning content
I would like to have the teacher learn all the platform features and zoom features to be able to teach online classes. I would also like to teach the teacher how to manage the inlingua platform.
Group process.
I have always found it better to teach anything by first doing and showing how something is done and then to have the learner do what has been taught. Most teachers fail to ensure a concept is understood before moving on to the next topic. Teachers often make the mistake of assuming a concept is understood before moving on to the next topic. Arrogance is a character flaw in teachers. Often a teacher makes the mistake of assuming that because it is, or it was easy for them to understand something it will be easy for the student to understand the same thing. One must always have someone practice the newly acquired skill to make sure the concept is understood. When training a teacher it is important to make sure they understand, that it is important for the learners they will be teaching, to understand the concepts they are teaching as well. It is not enough to just state a procedure it is important that they understand why a procedure takes place and how it affects a certain outcome.
Design
By showing how something is done and then having the learner do the same thing one can assure learning is actually taking place. My design is to show and then have the learner do the same thing. This might be redundant but it is the only way one can have full certainty that the learner is understanding.
Capabilities
I believe there are on people who cannot learn something. It is the trainers’ obligation to make sure they make someone understand a concept. People learn in different ways and as a trainer, you are under an obligation to make sure you adjust to different learners’ brains. No two people learn in the same way. In other words, there are no “stupid” learners there are only bad teachers.
Feedback
Feedback is so important, I would even say it is the most important thing one can do when teaching, being a boss, or even in day-to-day relationships. When someone does not give you feedback how can you know if you are handling a situation correctly? It is not enough to just say: “You are not doing things right” or “You do everything wrong”. Often it is necessary to give someone an example of how to do something correctly, instead of what they are doing wrong.
Questions for Assessing Course and Learning Needs
• Is there a problem or opportunity?
Measuring problems and opportunities is always an important factor when teaching. This goes along with capabilities and how one teaches an individual brain. There is always opportunities to explore new ways of teaching.
• What is the value and likelihood of success?
When one takes on the task of teaching something in a manner where you are willing to adapt to a learner there is always a likelihood of success.
• Do needs relate to willingness, opportunity, or ability?
This again relates to capabilities, and I cannot reiterate this enough, as a teacher one must adapt to the brain one is teaching not the other way around.
• What behavior changes are needed?
The behavior that must always be tweaked here is the willingness to adapt. Again, there are no “stupid” learners only bad teachers.
• What external factors are influencing behaviors?
Many external factors may influence how fast or slowly one grasps a concept. Stress is a big factor in determining how receptive a person might be to accepting and retaining information. You will never know what stresses a person has and how to deal with them unless you ask. Know your student in order to understand how to best help and cope with the factors that will inhibit learning.
• What information is needed by employees?
The employee must know what is required of them and have clear and concise explanations and procedures in order to be successful at their job.
• Who can influence the needed changes?
Both bosses and employees determine the needed changes. As the boss, one can work to make sure there is flexibility and receptivity to change. As an employee one needs to understand the needs of the company and be flexible to the needs of the company, but one can also make suggestions for something that is not working within the company. The best companies are those that adapt appropriately to the changing needs of customers and employees.
• What course process and learning materials are required?
One needs to make sure that basic needs are met to conduct proper training. Computers, audiovisuals of procedures, and practice materials.

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