Why the Use of Video Technology in Teacher Training is Important
The advancement in video technology has proven wonders in furthering education. For teachers specifically, it has allowed for them to be trained and professionally developed from anywhere in the world. Video technology for teacher training has several benefits, of which I'll name a few.
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Video Technology in the TEFL Course
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Benjamin D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Benefits of Video Technology
One of these benefits include the cut down of added cost for the teacher or their school of employment. Having video technology, teachers can do training without leaving their home to travel somewhere else in the world to get the needed training sessions.
Another benefit of video technology in teacher training is if the teacher is already employed, then they do not have to take time away from their students to go to training. This helps to maintain consistency for the students, by the teacher being present instead of away at days of training, and the students not having to have a substitute teacher, who they may not be familiar with, which could hinder the learning process.
Another benefit of using video technology in teacher training, which I will delve more into in the next paragraphs, is that it is a visual method of providing feedback for enhancing their teaching skills. For me personally, the video method is best since I am a visual learner.
Video Technology in the TEFL Course
Tying this summary back to the units that I completed during my online TEFL course, video technology was covered in unit six. In this unit, I was asked to watch two different videos. The first video, about 25 minutes in length, showed a teacher teaching a lesson to a group of students learning English. The video included the behavior, attitude, and actions of the students and the attitude and actions of the teacher. One could clearly see that the teacher was not very enthusiastic about the lesson being taught.
The video starts by the teacher entered the class late, seeming disheveled after almost all the students were already present. Once in the room, the teacher starts teaching immediately and asks questions that the students clearly do not know the answer to. The video shows the teacher's frustrations when he continues to ask questions, as the students do not know the answers. There was no true opening to this lesson.
The video continues, showing that the teacher has the student do a worksheet but doesn't go over the directions with the students. Additionally, the teacher does not give the students ample time to complete the worksheet and seems to get frustrated when the students are struggling to get the right answers. Finally, the video moves on to show the students doing an activity. As you can see, the students are very confused about what to do, since the teacher provide very vague, unclear directions. Overall, the students are not very engaged in the lesson and are left with a lot of confusion. As a viewer of this video, I was also very confused and unengaged by the lesson taught.
The second video that I viewed was about 40 minutes in length. It also showed a lesson being taught, the behavior, attitude and actions of the students, and the attitude and actions of the teacher. This video was a complete turn around from the previously mentioned video. The video starts off with the teacher already in the classroom as students are entering.
Also read: Should I take a TEFL course online or in-class?
The engaging activity is already written on the board and is ready to go for when they get to it. When the class starts, he first introduces himself and writes his name on the board. Following this, he engages with each student by asking them to say their names, so that he can learn how to say them correctly. After this, he moves into the activity written on the board, which gets the students talking in English. The information in this activity covers items that the students already know; it is being used to review what they know, connect the class to each other, and move into the new learning for the day. Throughout the lesson, the students remain engaged and excited, because you can see that the teacher's attitude is positive, and he is excited to be teaching the lesson.
Furthermore, as compared to the first video, the teacher is well prepared to teach this lesson. He rarely had to refer to his lesson plan to know what he was supposed to be talking about. As he moved into the final activity that ended the class, a mill drill activity, he made sure that the students knew how to correctly do the activity. He did a few examples with the class, before asking them to get up and do it with their classmates. The setup of the classroom has in the shape of a horseshoe, which allowed the class to easily pair up on a worksheet that was done earlier in the lesson.
Video Technology in Everyday
Looking at the two descriptions in the preceding paragraphs, one could easily see that the second way of teaching is the better way of teaching. The use of video technology in everyday teaching could help train a teacher to see this and to know how to be a better teacher. If a teacher videotaped themselves teaching and review it with a school administrator or seasoned teacher, they could clearly see what the mistakes that they make are, and where improvements are needed.
The purpose of the school administrator or seasoned teacher would be to help point out mistakes that the less experienced teacher is making and give them tips/advice on what would be better to do. Once the teacher has implemented the feedback and felt that they had made improvements, then they can tape themselves teaching again, and have the school administrator or seasoned teacher review it once more to make sure that the recommended feedback had been implemented well. Overall, I truly believe that video technology can help in many ways within training a teacher.
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