Page 120 - BLENDED LEARNING

an answer, individual trainees don’t need to ask … there was peer teaching going on’
(ibid.). On a face-to-face CELTA, peer support is, of course, also channelled through
the closeness of a teaching practice group, and following the pilot online course,
one of the TPTs noted ‘the TP groups supported each other as much as any TP
group would’ (Cambridge ESOL Teaching Qualifications, 2012b). This point is echoed
by a trainee on the course: ‘the TP group bonded quickly’, though she noted the
frustration of limited contact time.

While there is an obvious risk that some trainees may not contribute sufficiently
to the forums to develop as teachers, the OCT can readily ‘track’ each participant
in terms of which units they have accessed and their activity on forums, and
provide appropriate support encouragement via email and TPTs to any falling
behind accordingly. Communication between the OCT and TPTs is vital to maintain
a connection between theory and practice and one of the TPTs on the pilot
course says: ‘we were aware with where they were in input and referred to that,
we channelled their queries through the online course tutor … and got the online
tutor’s emails’ (ibid.). Additionally, as the OCT asserts: ‘the tutor can send a trainee
struggling with classroom management back to that unit’ (Paton and Rea, 2012) and
‘they noticed things they hadn’t before, so we can target their needs more than on
the face to face’ (Cambridge ESOL Teaching Qualifications, 2012b). Furthermore,
centres have the option of conducting mid-course tutorials face-to-face as would
customarily happen.

The online units and collaborative tasks
The online course units and collaborative tasks replace what in a normal face-to-face
CELTA would be the input sessions. A total of 30 units were created (one of which
allows trainees to choose an elective specialism) and each unit combines:

■ ■ input
■ ■ video and audio segments
■ ■ a variety of self-study activities with feedback or commentaries
■ ■ collaborative tasks (discussion forum)
■ ■ exposure to English as a foreign language (EFL) published materials
■ ■ additional useful online resources and reading.

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