This blog post is part of the Sponge Chats video series.
I recently had the privilege to sit down with Adrian Tennent, an ELT heavy-weight within teacher education. Adrian has trained in numerous countries and contexts around the world, and consulted on loads of really interesting projects. He is also a writer and, of course, a teacher!
This Sponge Chat was a little different to previous ones in that we spoke more about the context in which training is situated, who is running the training, and also about how some of the political-logistical stuff can be really important to consider. One of the most important points I think Adrian raised was this idea of trainers not really being able to fully understand the perspective of the teachers they are training, and therefore need to have very good listening skills and be willing to ‘not be the expert’ without saying that you’re not the expert.
We also some very interesting (some familiar) book recommendations:
- Wright and Bolitho’s Trainer Development
- Woodward, Graves and Freeman’s Teacher Development Over Time
- Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down
- Akoue, Nguemba Ndong, Okomo Allogo, and Tennant’s (yes Adrian is one of the writers!) Starter Teachers
I have no doubt that, just like me, you’ll find plenty of value in this Sponge Chat. Remember that you can check it out on YouTube or Spotify. I would love to hear your thoughts as well, so leave a comment, a like or get in touch via email 🙂
SPONGE ELT 