Context specific teacher training

Abstract

In order for teacher training and trainer training programmes to have both immediate and long lasting impact they need to be clearly situated in the context in which they are delivered. It is advisable that the JIJOE (Jet-in Jet-out expert) paradigm is avoided (Alderson and Scott 1992). This is where specialists from outside are flown in to offer advice about classroom practice, despite having minimal knowledge about the local teaching and teacher training context, the beliefs of learners, teachers and supervisors, or the wash back effect from the examination system in place. Though teachers may pay lip service to what is introduced by such trainers in the short-term, JIJOE centered approaches may ultimately lead to what Holliday (1992) has referred to as ‘tissue rejection’. ‘Despite advances in curriculum design procedures, there is often failure within ELT projects to produce innovation which is in the long term meaningful and acceptable to the host institution. In other words, ‘tissue rejection’ takes place: the innovation is sooner or later rejected because it does not fit.’ The CiSELT trainer training programme in 2015 was conducted by Salam Affouneh, a Palestinian trainer and Nick Bilbrough a British trainer. We aimed to develop a framework within which the teacher training course could be personalised by the local trainers. It was important that the Palestinian teacher trainers we were working with, and who would be delivering the CiSELT course later on to teachers, stayed true to the core components of the course but, at the same time, were empowered to adapt it where possible to the local context, thereby simultaneously emphasizing to their own participants the importance of context specific teaching.