Sandy Millin

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Because this was a plenary, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing yourself on the IATEFL YouTube channel. I’ll add the video at a later date.

Ali Waters is 11 years old and she keeps being told she’s going to change the world. She doesn’t want to be the next Greta, she wants to be the ‘next me’. Talking on stage about how to save education and the environment at the same time. She feels a lot of pressure. But she has an amazing support team: her parents, her friends, some of her teachers, Kids Against Plastic. It’s not fair that some people supported, but others don’t. She thinks school should be the place where everyone feels supported.

She’s doing the plenary with her dad Harry. Harry isn’t the voice for all of education and Ali isn’t the voice for all youth. But they’re going to ask and answer some questions. At the conference, we have lots of people telling us how to do education. But how often do we actually ask the people in education what they actually want, people like Ali.

Ali has a unique voice!

Question 1: Why do we spend so much time learning things we won’t learn in the future instead of making the world a better place?

Ali spends 25 hours at school every week. She spends 22.5 hours in classes. 5 hours of maths. What percentage of that is maths? You’re not going to have a calculator in your pocket…but yes you are!

Preparing ofor the future, we need to learn from the past, but also from the present. The goal of education is to help students develop as individuals, not just as future workers.

Here are some ways to do this:

• Understand the present: Discover what’s happening in the world.
• Project-based learning: hands-on, real-world applications.
• Curriculum integration: connecting subjects to life skills.
• Guest speakers: bringing outside insights into class.

If we talk about the climate crisis, won’t they be scared? No! If you break your arm, you don’t ignore it. You deal with it. The same with the climate crisis.

In Ali’s classroom, one person each week is asked to talk about something in the news.

ELT has this unique power: it’s in every corner of the globe. It’s not a prescribed way of learning, we can choose how to teach. We can help our students become more autonomous in their learning as well.

Important topics need to flow throughout our curriculum. It’s not just a topic that appears sometimes. We need to make sure there’s full representation throughout our curriculum, integrating all issues throughout our curriculum. If we’re not comfortable or confident talking about these issues, bring somebody in who knows about it. Ask your students to find out about things from the internet: they can teach you as well.

Question 2: How can I be expected as a kid to ‘save the world’ if I see adults ignoring scientific facts?

“Kids vs adults on the environment”

• Role models: inspiring eco-conscious behaviour. Not all adults ignore scientific facts!
  Youth activists: Amy and Ella: kids against plastic.
  Indigenous land defenders: e.g. the film ‘The Territory’
  Educators and scientists
  Local community leaders like Patrick Jackson

• Classroom initiatives: green teams and eco-projects help children grow their beliefs in the world.
  Kids Against Plastic (including Ali’s campaign to pick up 1 million pieces of litter, people from 34 countries around the world worked on this)

• Classroom initiatives and beyond: community-wide challenges, sustainability calendar, climate hero boards: students nominate peers who take eco-actions

• Responsibility reflection: ask students these questions to help them understand ‘capability vs responsibility’
  • What can I control?
  • What can we influence together?
  • What do we wish adults understood?

Don’t say ‘You can save the world’, say ‘You can do amazing things.’ ‘What amazing things do you want to do?’ Reframe the way we tell learners. Ask them how we can help them and what we can do together.

Question 3: Why don’t we talk about more important things like climate anxiety and exam stress at school?

There’s a lot about mental health in school now. When Ali was 7, she told Harry she had a tummy ache – she had an exam she hadn’t studied for. She was stressed about going into the exam. In Spain, there isn’t much away from exams. At school, there isn’t much that isn’t exams. ‘Look, I got 9.5 out of 10’ – do you say ‘well done!’ or ‘What did you get wrong?’ and the neighbour says ‘Y tus notas?’ – ‘And your grades?’ Or ‘that number doesn’t really mean anything. What did you learn?’

If emotional and mental health were graded, maybe we’d take them seriously. When did you last teaach a student to apologise or forgive?

• Mindfulness moments: As you move one finger up another finger, you breath in. As you move down, you breath out. That can help them calm down.
• Emotional literacy: Understanding and expressing feelings. How are you feeling about this exam we’re about to do? Climate Emotions Toolkit for Educators.
• Role playing / Real playing: How would you behave if you were a CEO and their child discussing climate action over dinner, a climate refugee is new at school and the students showing them around, a child with a social justice project trying to share that idea with a journalist?

Question 4: What’s the best way for teachers to help students like me find what they’re good at and passionate about?

It’s very easy when students are 6 or 7 and they love dinosaurs. It’s not easy to find out what students are passionate about.

We ask kids what they want to be…then give them no time to figure it out. We just send them from one exam to another.

• Passion projects: What lights up your students? When do they forget they’re getting marked? (e.g. gender inequality issues happening at home)
• Passion speed dating: Spend 1 minute telling somebody else about your passion, then tell the next person.
• Hidden strengths hunt: Look for what they can do. Are they supporting other people? Are they good at delegating?
• Passion portfolios: Keep a portfolio of all the wonderful things they’ve done.
• Passion interviews: Interview them about their passion.
• Ripple map: How far does your impact spread?
• My impact inventory
• 30-minute changemaker challenge: What impact can you have in 30 minutes?

Ken Robinson’s book The Element: passion + natural talent = true potential

Make sure they have time to dedicate to those different things.

Question 5: How can teachers make school more lifelike, where they actually learn things they’ll use in life?

“School reflecting real life”

What’s the point of cramming for exams to regurgitate it the next day? You’re not learning from history, you’re just learning dates, for example.

In school, collaboration is cheating. In life, it’s how you survive. Skills for 2030:

• Critical thinking
• Collaboration
• Resilience
• Creativity
• Emotional intelligence
• Analytical thinking

None of these are covered in Ali’s grades.

• Real world problems: tackling community issues
• Community involvement: partnering with local business
• Practical skills: budgeting, cooking, communication, sewing a button on!

Get the students talking about these areas.

If education’s goal is just a certificate, we’ve already failed. Real education is preparation for a life worth living, not just a job worth applying for.

How do we convey passion to our teachers so they can pass it on to their students? What changes can we make?

The future isn’t something the next generation are waiting for. They’re going out and changing things already.

The classroom should be somewhere where all children’s voices are heard, where their passions are nurtured.

Ali’s conclusion

If we wanted a better future, we should have started yesterday. But it didn’t, so we have to start today.

We’re all changemakers.

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Differences which can be found within teacher development:

• Levels of experience / knowledge
• Language levels
• Needs / wants
• Motivation levels
• Neurodivergence
• Generations
• Age
• Personal backgrounds
• Home languages
• Tech use
• Their goals and plans
• Speed of processing new information

This session is about adaptive training.

Questions for discussion:

• In what ways do participants in training sessions in your context differ?
• How do you (or others) deal with these differences (if necessary)?

Teacher training and differentiation in the literature

Cambridge English Trainer Framework: “Uses a range of strategies to take individual differences in to account when planning and conducting training activities.”

But there’s not a lot on the strategies of how we can do this!

There are some things in the literature about organising a training session or series of training sessions:

• Practical / Professional / Personal (Ellman and Lucantoni, 2022)

Teachers are looking for practical ideas to take into the classroom. The trainer bridges the gap between research and what’s in the classroom (professional). Then it needs to relate to the personal context of the teacher.

• Begin and end with experience ‘Get out before you put in’ (Malderez and Wedell, 2007)

If we begin with their experience, it helps teachers to consider their experience, feelings, beliefs and knowledge about the topic. It also helps the trainer to understand where they are in their teaching practice.

If they end the session with this, the teacher can think about how it can help them going forwards.

If teachers can articulate where they are with their learning, when you give them new information, they can make connections.

So here you could combine these:

• Start with experience i.e. ‘get out’ (Personal)
• ‘Put in’ (Professional)
• ‘End with experience’ (Practical)

How does this help to differentiate the outcomes of a training session and make it relevant, appropriate and engaging for teachers?

The personal section allows them to set their own agendas: the teacher might want to get something different out of the session to what the trainer expected.

Some activities which could differentiate

Start with experience / ‘get out’ stages:

• Dcisussion questions
• Do you agree with the quote?
• Share your experience of…
• Compare how you would both…
• A quiz e.g. ‘Find out your beliefs’

‘Put in’ stages:

• A case study
• An article
• Watch a recorded or live demo
• Trainer talk
• Problem solving (brainstorm)

Differentiating activities

We then need to think about how to differentiate the activity. Instead of ‘What is feedback?’ […], you could differentiate on a CELTA course for teachers with different levels of experience:

• What do you understand by ‘feedback’? What might you need to consider? Think about wh- question words. [These are more low order thinking skills, with some scaffolding]
• How would you deal with feedback in a speaking lesson where learners make a lot of errors?

You could have a buddy pair where you have one more and one less experienced teacher in a pair answer different questions, but are still working together. The more experienced teacher supports the less experienced one, and the less experienced teacher can learn from the ideas from the more experience question.

When differentiating, we could consider:

• Scaffolding language
• Providing extra support with questions
• Scaffolding the task
• Interaction

In our groups we discussed differentiation through:

• KWL charts
• Articles given in two different forms to manage language content – a full article for a group with more language knowledge, and a summary for another group [don’t put copyrighted articles into AI by the way!]
• Articles with differentiated questions, or with compulsory and optional questions
• Jigsaw texts
• Differentiated tasks when watching a lesson: less experienced teachers could identify strategies, more experienced teachers could write the feedback they would give the teacher
• Academic Reading Circles – give teachers different roles when reading

Lindsey’s ideas for start with experience / ‘get out’:

• Discussion questions > differ questions / LOTS vs HOTS
• Do you agree with the quote? > Give prompts e.g. Consider…
• Share your experience of… > guided Qs with options, e.g. Did you…or…? / Provide a speaking frame.
• Compare how you would both… > ‘buddy’ or ‘ability’ groups
• A quiz > compulsory + optional (+ one tip)

And for ‘put in’:

• A case study > Participants complete a skeleton case study and relate to context
• An article > Differentiated texts / Jigsaw task
• Watch a recorded or live demo > Participants set goals: what do you want to learn from it?
• Trainer talk > Provide skeleton notes / glossary
• Problem solving (brainstorm) > Give prompts / ideas mixed up

‘End with experience’

These are open-ended and give choice, both of which make the experience more personalised.

• Ranking: rank these from most useful to you to least useful to you? Or choose the four most useful ones to you then rank them. Or most to least relevant? Or what you’re most excited to try?
• Micro teaching
• Peer planning: teachers bring their materials and use them to plan some part of the a lesson based on the training.
• Revise one of your lesson plans (past or future lesson plan)

How do we deal with teachers feeling ‘stupid’ or ‘less able’? Give choice. Don’t label: just tell them what each task is (not what level it is) and allow them to choose which one they want to do.

One of the key things with differentiation is knowing the learners well. Listening closely, taking notes.

Ending this session with experience:

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Because this was a plenary, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing yourself on the IATEFL YouTube channel. Here’s the video if you want to watch it yourself:

How Neil came to be interested in TBL

Neil was based in Barcelona and was one of the people who set up Serveis Linguistics de Barcelona, a cooperative for teachers to support each other.

Geoff Jordan did a workshop there about Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language Teaching by Mike Long. As a result of this Geoff and Neil set up and ran a course about TBL, and Mike Long supported them and became a guest tutor on the course.

Neil also started out his career in Scottish ESOL. He did a CELTA and learnt to teach using coursebooks, but when he started teaching refugees in Glasgow he found that these techniques didn’t work. He saw other teachers using activities which were more relevant to learners’ lives, without realising at the time that this was TBL, for example working with a map to plot a route.

As Mike was getting very sick, he finished a book with Geoff called English Language Teaching Now and How It Could Be – they came up with a four-headed hydra of publishing, teaching, teacher education and testing which throttle change in our industry.

Neil ended up doing this plenary because Alexandra Popovski was on the course and invited him. He suggested a lot of other people who could do this plenary instead of him who have a lot of theory and history in TBL, but they said they wanted a practitioner. [How many of these people do you recognise?]

Why isn’t TBLT transparent to teachers?

There are TBLT programmes around the world. The numbers in this map show the ones which ended up in a study of TBLT programmes by Bryfonski and McKay (2019):

Most of the contexts on the map are K-12 schools and universities, and very few of these are language insitutes, where industrial ELT dominates (that four-headed hydra from earlier). That’s where education becomes much more profit-motivated, teachers with a minimum of training who don’t get much of a look at the theories of language acquisition or the theories which inform TBLT.

Even in places like New Zealand, which has English teaching programmes mandating TBLT, one teacher reported that she still didn’t understand what a task was after a year.

Is this a task?

Here are some questions you can use to decide, adapted from Peter Skehan (1998):

• Is meaning primary or linguistic form?
• Is there some communication problem to solve? (i.e. a gap)
• Is it comparable to a real-life activity?
• Would task completion have priority?
• Could it be assessed in terms of communicative outcome?

There are some negative questions you could take too, also from Skehan (1998):

• Does it give learners other people’s meanings to regurgitate?
• Is it concerned with language display?
• Is it conformity-oriented? Would every student making it end up with the same result?
• Is it practice-oriented?
• Are specific lagnuage structures embedded into the materials?

The activity Neil chose here is from a coursebook (not a task-based coursebook) – he selected this book because he was using it last year at summer school, not because he wants to do down coursebooks.

When you zoom out, the task above is part of a fuller spread which is language-focussed:

TBL starts from the premise that students need to do things WITH language not do things TO language.

But can’t we taskify the coursebook? Or even move beyond it? But to do this, we need a certain amount of freedom to move beyond this? The number one complaint of teachers on the TBLT course is that they understand it, but they don’t know how they can implement it when they’re restricted.

You can give up your central place in the classroom, avoid doing all the preliminary gapfilling etc. But this involves a bit of knowledge and training to give you the confidence to do this.

Knowledge

The bulk of language acquisition is implicit learning from usage. Most knowledge is tacit knowledge’ most learning is implicit; the vast majority of our cognitive processing is unconscious. (N. Ellis, 2005)

Implicit knowldge is in act ‘better’ than explicit knowledge …it is automatic and fast…and is assumed to be more lasting. (Whong, Gil & Marsde, 2014)

How to change this?

You need to believe it’s OK to do this, that students aren’t going to suffer if you don’t teach grammar, or that they’re not going to fail an exam because you do this, or that you understand that learners don’t necessarily learn what or when we teach them.

We also need time, money and investment to make changes. Teachers need time to create materials, do needs analysis. If you don’t have those opportunities, Neil doesn’t blame you do not using TBL. Why should you?

TBL is not easily commidifiable. It can’t easily be packaged. It doesn’t suit capitalism, though (as Evan Frendo says) it might oil the wheels of capitalism as in business contexts, organisations want teachers to teach to tasks that business people need.

We need to stop acting as if methodology has been solved.

IATEFL plenary topics since 2015

Only one plenary has been about methodology:

The plenary topics could be seen as what IATEFL thinks teachers are interested in. It’s great that social justice and EDI are at the top of this list.

But there’s an aspect of social justice which has been neglected: teacher pay and conditions. Issues about precarity and issues with conditions:

Some poetry

Watch the plenary (35 minutes in) to see the poem 🙂

This is a real poem by William Topaz McGonagall.

Neil linked this back “In IATEFL programmes since 2015, I saw something about methodology. But I’m damned if I can find it now!”

A task

Problem: Since the 1950s and 1960s, baby alligators have been given as presents, but as they get bigger, they get flushed away. They grow and flourish in the sewers, where they pose a danger to children falling down manhole covers and graffiti artists in the sewers.

Solution? We need some monitoring: accurate numbers, data to be determined. And extracation: viable and humane method to relocate them to a zoo of human folly in New York City. Remember that crocodiles born underground are often albino and blind.

Here are some solutions given by people Neil knows, the first by his nine-year-old nephew:

The second is by a group of teachers in China, which contained a lot of attention to detail:

The third solution came when it was used by a teacher who used with a task who worked with engineering undergraduates, who came up with a super complicated system that wasn’t this but this represents it:

The task was originally a throwaway for the workshop, but actually each group brought their own knowledge to the task and came up with different solutions. The task is a conduit for using other knowledge. It can work when there are no specific needs existing, and maybe this is something we can do in materials.

But what about the language? When do they work on language?

Pre-task options

Jane Willis and Peter Skehan are advocates of this. If students are so focussed on meaning, they forget about accuracy, so this can help them to think about language.

• Task and topic familiarisation (Willis, 1996, Bui, 2014) e.g. models of tasks, ways they’ve done the task before
• Relevant rich input – elaborated input not simplified / impoverished / flooded (Long, 2020) – elaborated to make the meaning of some of the key lexis clearer
• Planning their task (Skehan, 1998, etc.) – 3-5 minutes is the optimum time to do this, they can plan a strategy, plan language they want to use, when students are encouraged to be creative in their planning they are more likely to be creative in their language

This can impact positively on:

• Complexicity
• Accuracy
• Lexis
• Fluency (CALF) in task
• Interlanguage development

In-task options

• Manipulate task characterisitics (Skehan) e.g.
  • Make tasks more structured, use familiar tasks (+Accuracy, +Fluency)
  • Require complex decisions, interpretation, transformation (+ complexity)
• Create cognitively simple to complex sequences of tasks (Robinson) e.g. add more elements, more reasoning demands in each repetition
• Adapt task types to push students to negotiate meaning (Pica et al., 1993) e.g. in jigsaw tasks, it tends to push learners to negotiate meaning more
• Intervene with reactive feedback (Long) – immediate feedback when there’s a communication breakdown (though if you have a lot of learners, this isn’t enough but can be part of it)

Here’s an example of feedback which doesn’t break the communicative flow:

Post-task options

• Reflect on, evaluate, report on task performance (Willis, 1996)
• Discuss and correct errors collected by teacher
• Repeat the task they have done
  • Exactly as it was
  • Changing content, not procedure
  • Changing performance conditions e.g. private to public/recorded (influenced by Willis) – knowing they’re going to perform publicly seems to make learners focus more on accuracy
• Transcribe and analyse transcriptions: what could I have said better? (Skehan, 1998; Ellis et al., 2019)

Is TBL transparent now?

Mike Long liked to characterise TBL as building the road as we travel. However, there are lots of obstacles in the way.

Big asks for the industry

• Task-based testing that’s relevant – and washes back positively (do teenage students really want to write an email to their friends?)
• Taskbooks not textbooks – for specific and nebulous purposes (task as conduit)
• Investment in curriculum renewel, in teachers and in learners
• Teacher education that addresses theory and integrates that with practice

Bigs asks for TBLT as a field

[I missed this photo]

Exmaples of materials

Activities for Task-Based Learning by Neil Anderson and Neil McCutcheon

Widgets Inc.

Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach [my review of this course]

TBL4 Tourism

We need more stuff like this and better stuff like this in our industry.

Resources:

These are my slides and accompanying notes from my talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025, where I described the lessons I’ve learnt since 2021 when I first set up Take Your Time DELTA. These lessons will hopefully help other freelancers with tips and advice if they want to set up their own group courses.

The slides are organised into a brief introduction to TYT DELTA, followed by a series of lessons I learnt organised into categories. You can download them here:

Scroll down to below the IATEFL Edinburgh logo to find a more blow-by-blow account of how my courses have evolved over time, and the lessons I learnt from each cohort. It’s long, and I definitely don’t expect you to read it all, but some of you might be interested!

To see all of my notes from other people’s talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Setting up your own group courses as a freelancer

OR The story of Take Your Time DELTA

OR Why I haven’t been blogging as much recently!

Introduction

My talk at IATEFL Edinburgh told the story of the development of Take Your Time DELTA courses, which have grown from having 4 trainees in September 2021 to 70 trainees across 11 groups and 2 cohorts as I write this in March 2025. Along the way, I mentioned various tips, tricks, lessons and more which I’ve learnt about along the way as a freelancer running my own long-term group courses. Hopefully some of them will be useful to you as well! (Feel free to skip straight to the lessons after each section to get the highlights – I don’t expect you to read the whole train of thought!)

Key

Module 1 = the Cambridge DELTA exam, 2 x 90-minute papers testing methodology knowledge

Module 3 = the Cambridge DELTA extended assignment, a 4500-word piece of work on either a 20-hour syllabus designed for a specific learner / group of learners (ELT Specialism) or on a proposed change for a language teaching organisation (ELT Management)

Before Take Your Time DELTA

I knew that I planned to go freelance from summer 2021, but I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do. At some point I had a brainwave: what about a long-form Cambridge DELTA course? I have no idea where the idea came from, but I’m glad I had it as it’s now the basis of almost all the work I do!

I’d completed my own DELTA in December 2013, and in the process I’d blogged a lot about it. People would often tell me how my blog had helped them out, but they’d also tell me about the problems they’d encountered when trying to complete their DELTA qualification, and more often than not how hard the whole process had been. I’d found DELTA to be an incredibly stressful and isolated experience, leading to lots of time of work sick and triggering a genetic illness I have to deal with for the rest of my life. This was frustrating because I knew that it was a useful qualification, but so many of us seemed to go through very negative experiences to get it. I was also sad about the fact that the main facebook group for DELTA is called ‘DELTA and DipTESOL Survivors’. I don’t think DELTA is something you should only ‘survive’ – it should be a process you enjoy and appreciate.

That was the first step in coming up a new kind of DELTA course.

I did some research to see what other DELTA courses were out there, and found that apart from Sue Swift’s longer-form course (largely self-study with some opportunities to meet for live sessions), most Module 1 courses seemed to be a maximum of 3 months, or rolled up with Module 2 and sometimes also Module 3, so time was at a premium.

I realised there was a gap in the market, so Take Your Time DELTA was born. The name makes it clear that it’s different from other courses, and I decided on the following key principles to make the concept of the course as clear as possible:

• Slow: run across the 9 months leading up to each Module 1 exam date, so starting in September for June and March for December.
• Synchronous: a series of live online Zoom meetings so you don’t get lost in forums and can get to know your group.
• Social: opportunities to learn about your colleagues on the course and to share experience with them, plus WhatsApp groups to stay in touch beyond the sessions.
• Supportive: guidance in how to study and time to do that study, rather than rushing through everything without really knowing what you’re doing or what you’re working towards (that’s how I felt throughout my DELTA, despite working with some very good trainers during the course!)

I also believed that this was an idea which could grow, so right from the start I wanted to lay the groundwork for this. That meant creating a clear application process, making sure that only people who were ready for DELTA joined the course. I decided on:

• An application form (to find out key information about qualifications and experience)
• A pre-course task (to give a taster of the course and the kind of feedback trainees would get)
• An interview (to make sure the trainee has all of the information they need before the course and they know what they’re getting themselves into!)

With some minor tweaks, I’m still using the same process now.

I also needed to decide what price to set for the course. I originally chose a price which turned out to be way too low when I did some market research. I looked into the prices and offerings of a wide range of other Module 1 courses, and balanced this out with the number of hours I had decided the course would take and therefore the amount of time I would dedicate to it, deciding on a price which was at the low end of M1 courses, but only required me to find four trainees to make it viable to open a year-long course.

So now, with a name, a product, a price, and an application process, I was ready to launch.

Lessons

• Figure out your niche. Make it as clear as possible so people know what you’re offering and how you’re different. Keep refining it.
• Do market research to see how your course fits into the market and whether there really is a gap.
• Be clear about why you’re setting up the course and why you believe it’s valuable.
• Come up with a name which makes it clear what your course is.
• Don’t undervalue the course.
• Start building for the future.

October 2021

I started advertising the course on my blog, as ‘DELTA’ is still the number one search term which brings people to the blog. I also put adverts onto the facebook group I mentioned before, as I knew that my target audience might be there.

Throughout my advertising and application process I was honest about the fact that this was a brand new course and there might therefore be some teething problems.

I also made it clear that I would be building the course throughout the year. I generally knew what I would teach two or three weeks in advance, but I didn’t know what the whole structure of the course would look like as I wasn’t completely sure what the key problems would be with DELTA Module 1 and therefore where I should focus my efforts.

I set an early bird price to tempt people to sign up, but only managed to find three people, not the four I needed to make the course viable for me. I decided to go ahead anyway, and thankfully a fourth person signed up a couple of weeks in. I also decided that people would be able to pay in one go or in two payments to make it a little easier to cover the cost of the course.

I didn’t advertise specific times for the live sessions as I had no idea when might be the best time to run them: I just knew that there would be thirty 90-minute sessions in total. Instead, I asked applicants for their availability and selected a time based on when all of us were available. With only four of us involved and all of the trainees being in Europe while I was in the UK, this wasn’t too challenging.

I was working around various other freelancing commitments, trying to find my way as I’d only gone freelance a few months before. I was also lucky that living with my partner gave me a little financial security meaning I wasn’t entirely dependent on the success or failure of the course. I know not everyone has this luxury! I set up a clear process for accounting and invoicing, and started setting aside money for taxes: 1/3 of everything I earnt.

I spent a lot of time planning sessions and deepening my knowledge of the DELTA exam, as well as creating answer keys for a couple of papers I had which didn’t have a Cambridge answer key available. This took a long time, much longer than I’d factored in, but it was another way of laying the foundations for future courses. I also chose two set books for trainees to buy which I’d found useful in my own Module 1 preparation – these formed the basis of the homework I set each week, along with a couple of mock exams at specific points in the course.

During the course itself, I got regular feedback from the trainees, and I set up mid-course and end-of-course evaluation forms. This allowed me to develop the course and collect testimonials which I could use to advertise for later courses.

Ultimately, none of the trainees took the exam for various life reasons, so sessions towards the end of the course ended up being more focussed on discussing their teaching questions. Despite this, I got great feedback on the course.

Statistics

• M1:
  • 1 group
• • 4 trainees started
  • 0 trainees took the exam

Lessons

• Advertise where your market is likely to be.
• Be honest when asked questions about your course.
• Think about whether having different payment plans is worth it.
• Be at least a little flexible, especially at the start. This will teach you about what your course participants want and need.
• It’s fine to start gradually, setting up your course alongside other commitments.
• It’s OK for a course to evolve: you don’t have to have everything pinned down from the start.
• Planning always takes longer than you think it will! Track your time and match it up to your earnings to make sure the courses are worth the effort (though remember it can take time to build things up!)
• Just because the course doesn’t have the result you expect, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a useful course!

March 2022

Using great testimonials from the first course, I was able to advertise more confidently, knowing that my course was valuable to trainees.

I tried to be flexible with timing again on this course, but it ending up being quite stressful, especially at the last minute. I ended up with two groups partly because of time zones, one of which was very small and sometimes only had one trainee attending a live session – not very social! This happened more often once a trainee in the small group dropped out – I hadn’t really thought about this happening as I assumed that once people paid for the course they would finish it. Time zones also made things complicated as when the clocks changed one trainee had to attend at 6am while another was attending at 11pm!

Based on what I’d learnt during the October 2021 course, I was able to come up with a set schedule for the sessions. I also started to provide homework assignments in advance, so trainees could look ahead and see what they would need to study.

I could reuse session materials, but I still spent a lot of time planning as I’d realised some of the materials weren’t working as I needed them to, and I needed to add materials for the final few sessions of the course.

The 90-minute live sessions had settled into a pattern of discussing homework and answering questions for about half an hour, then 60 minutes of exam training and practice. However, because I didn’t know this would happen, some trainees complained as they felt the first part of the session wasn’t valuable.

The course was priced slightly higher than in October to reflect the fact that it wasn’t a new course any more.

During this course, I paid taxes for the first time as a freelancer and was pleased that my mum had warned me in advance that the first year you pay taxes in the UK as a self-employed person you have to pay 1.5 years’ worth. Thankfully I’d set aside enough money to cover this! I had a savings account specifically for my taxes so I couldn’t spend that money, and it would also earn me some interest during the year.

Statistics

• M1
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 10 trainees started
  
  
  • 3 dropped out
  
  
  • 5 Pass
  • 1 Pass with Distinction

Lessons

• Factor in drop outs: will your course still be viable?
• What will you do if there aren’t enough people attending to run a session? Will you make it up or cancel it completely?
• Making courses work across time zones is complicated and clocks change at different times or not at all in different time zones!
• Setting a clear course schedule makes things easier to manage.
• Don’t be afraid to raise your prices!
• Set money aside for taxes, and put it into a savings account to make it work for you.

September 2022

This was the first time I offered Module 3 ELT Specialism courses, as it seemed a natural progression after Module 1. I had a more fixed course plan than for the first Module 1 course, but I still needed to feel my way a little in terms of the amount of time trainees needed at each point in the course. As with M1, they knew it was a brand-new course on joining and I was honest throughout about learning about the module with them. This added a lot of work, just as M1 felt like it was getting a little easier.

I pushed the course start date a couple of weeks earlier in September for these course as this gave me more flexibility with live sessions during the course, just in case I was sick or had an extra commitment which I needed to factor in.

One M1 applicant asked for a monthly payment plan, pointing out that the full fee for my course was more than a month’s salary for him. Since then, about half of the people on my course have paid monthly. I charge an extra fee for split payments as it’s more work for me to manage them, but it means that people have the flexibility to choose the payment plan which works for them. On the flip side, occasionally people quit the course part way through without making all of their payments – I still need to work out what to do about this.

Statistics

• M1
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 13 trainees started
  
  
  • 3 dropped out
  
  
  • 3 didn’t take the exam
  
  
  • 3 Pass
  • 4 Pass with Distinction
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 1 group
  
  
  • 5 trainees started
  
  
  • 2 dropped out
  
  
  • 1 didn’t submit the assignment
  
  
  • 1 Pass with Merit
  • 1 Referral

Lessons

• When adding new courses to your portfolio, think about how much extra time it will take to put the course together.
• It’s useful to factor in time for sickness and other unplanned commitments into your course schedule.
• Monthly payments offer flexibility to trainees but may lead to people dropping out without fully paying for the course. They give you a form of regular income throughout the whole course, making managing money a little easier.
• If people drop out of your course, what will your policy be on people returning for later courses? Will they have to pay to move courses? How much?

March 2023

One applicant asked about whether I would run a summer version of the Module 1 course, covering everything in 2 months. I spent a while trying to schedule this in, then realised that this went against the principles behind Take Your Time DELTA and would also make the summer a stressful time for me.

During the application process, I started to use more templates within gmail. This made the application process much easier as I didn’t have to write out every email from scratch or find a previous email to copy and paste.

Module 1 momentum started to pick up for this cohort, a steady increase in numbers and some trainees returning after dropping out of previous courses. On the other hand, Module 3 seemed to stall. Although four people started the course, they all stopped just over halfway through. This was my first major setback, and I questioned whether it was a good idea to run Module 3 courses at all, as I seemed to have plenty of work with Module 1 already. I introduced a clearer methodology strand into homework for the Module 1 courses, as previously they had been fully exam-focussed. Session planning was becoming faster at this point as I had a lot of Module 1 materials ready to go, but Module 3 still needed work.

I introduced Module 1 tutorials after session 20 (of 30) to supplement the feedback forms after session 10 and at the end of the course. This is 30 minutes of individual time for the tutor and trainee to meet and discuss progress on the course, mock exams, signing up for the real exam and next steps. I’ve found these are really helpful to get a sense of how trainees are feeling about Module 1, but also to help them get back on track if they’re feeling lost or frustrated. 

During this course we also had our first IATEFL meet-up – it was great to have the chance to see trainees in person who I’d previously only met on a screen 😊

One trainee from the September 2022 Module 3 course had got a referral, so during this period I supported her in rewriting M3 in light of the referral report. Referrals were a new concept for both of us, so we had to work out what to do and whether it would require extra payment.

Statistics

• M1
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 17 trainees started
  
  
  • 8 dropped out
  
  
  • 2 didn’t take the exam
  
  
  • 4 Pass
  
  
  • 2 Pass with Distinction
  • 1 Fail
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 1 group
  • 4 trainees started
  • 4 dropped out!
  • 1 resubmission after Referral > 1 Pass with Merit

Lessons

• Focus on the course formats which match your principles and keep your stress levels manageable – remember why you decided running courses as a freelancer was important in the first place!
• Use email templates and other time-saving tools.
• Be patient: setbacks may happen, but give things time and keep thinking about how to improve them and hopefully everything will be OK!
• Set up individual check-ins with learners to give them a chance to speak to you outside the group context.
• If your course trains people for an exam or assignment submission, will you offer anything if the candidates fail? What are the conditions for this? Will it require extra payment? How much time / support will you provide?

September 2023

For the first time, I started working with other trainers on my courses. I realised that as I continued to add more groups it wasn’t sustainable for me to teach everything by myself. I spoke to colleagues who I thought would be a good fit for the principles and the course format, and agreed with two trainers that they would each run one Module 1 group. Working with other trainers meant I needed to decide on a fair rate of pay, be clear about what my break-even point would be in terms of minimum trainee numbers for a group I wasn’t running, agree on a schedule which worked for them and me, and write much clearer trainer notes so they could understand the thinking behind how I had planned the course as a whole and individual sessions. Because I’d been tracking my time since I first started running the courses, I had a fairly good idea of what a reasonable rate might be for the trainers, but it also had to be acceptable to them: I want to treat other trainers as I would want to be treated. We also talked about what training and support might be needed and I met the trainers periodically to check in with them and answer their questions. Partway through the course, one trainer decided the course wasn’t the best fit for her schedule and the way she freelanced, so I took over that group by mutual agreement.

I introduced a Module 3 ELT Management course at the request of a past Module 1 trainee, something I’d been wondering about already as I’ve always been interested in management too. I knew there would be less demand for this course as it’s not a very popular DELTA option, so was very happy when I found 5 trainees to start the group!

The same trainee also suggested I join LinkedIn – I’d been avoiding it as previously it had really frustrated me. I’m very glad I followed her suggestions: LinkedIn has become one of the main ways I market the course now and it’s a very supportive place for freelancers. The Management course was fascinating, but as with the other M3 course, it was a lot of work to create all the new materials!

I started to need blocked planning marking time as the courses were all getting bigger, and I also needed to support other trainers. With the new M3 course as well, I was quite stretched and found some parts of the year pretty stressful. I started to give up other work so I could dedicate my time more fully to DELTA courses, but I didn’t really have any holidays during this course because I didn’t turn down the work fast enough. Financially I was in a better position, but my mental and physical health was starting to suffer and I was getting more and more tired. I was also trying to balance the needs of new and returning trainees and keep track of who had paid what, who needed what support, and what each person needed from me. The hardest period was January to May 2024, when I was trying to juggle too many things…more on that in a moment.

On a more positive note, I had my first post-exam meetup. This was a chance for me to have lunch with trainees who took the exam in London, a lovely way to finish the course and chat to people offline.

I decided that Take Your Time DELTA is definitely here to stay and it was time to start investing in a professional identity. I paid Kati Bilsborough from ELT Illustrator to design a logo, and I’m really happy with the result. It was based on a colours and ideas which I suggested, but because Kati is a professional designer she was able to turn it into something which looks a lot better than anything I would be able to make! Once I had the logo, I started branding materials and being much more consistent about how I presented them.

[add logo here]

Statistics

• M1
  • 3 groups
  
  
  • 3 trainers > 2 trainers by the end
  
  
  • 24 trainees started
  
  
  • 14 dropped out
  
  
  • 2 didn’t take the exam
  
  
  • 4 Pass
  
  
  • 3 Pass with Merit
  • 1 Fail
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 13 trainees started
  
  
  • 7 dropped out
  
  
  • 5 Pass
  • 1 Pass with Merit
• M3 ELT Management
  • 1 group
  
  
  • 5 trainees started
  
  
  • 3 dropped out
  
  
  • 1 Pass
  • 1 Pass with Merit

Lessons

• Find trainers you can work with as your courses grow. Provide training and support as necessary so you can guarantee they are teaching the courses to the required standard, but also give them freedom to add their own touch as needed. Pay them fairly!
• If working with new trainers to your courses, make sure that you can take over a group if things don’t work out.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin. Make sure you give yourself time for holidays, planning and marking. Say no to other work if necessary: your health is more important than money (once the basics are covered!)
• LinkedIn is a great place to advertise as you can go where your potential clients are.
• Having a logo provides a huge sense of identity. Pay a professional to design it!
• Brand your materials.

March 2024

This cohort was almost a breaking point for me. I was still trying to meet three or four other commitments around DELTA, my body decided it would make me badly allergic to pumpkin seeds which took a while to figure out but kept making me sick, and I felt really overstretched mentally and physically. I continued with the group numbers from the September courses, without factoring in that they tended to be fuller than the March courses. Between smaller groups and quite a lot of returning trainees paying less money, this meant that I almost overstretched myself financially, only just breaking even on the courses after paying the other trainers. Luckily I had income from other sources and savings from previous courses which made up the shortfall.

I tried to have another trainer on Module 3 ELT Specialism courses, but I couldn’t support her as well as could on Module 1, and ended up taking over that group myself halfway through the course.

Reflecting on the trainee who failed the exam from the March 2023 cohort, I realised that my Module 1 courses didn’t have enough support in developing methodological knowledge and depended too much on trainees working on this for themselves. I decided on a complete overhaul of the M1 courses, rewriting the whole syllabus from scratch and adding in a lot of extra resources for support with homework. This created a lot of work each work as it was taking around 2-3 hours to collate resources each week on top of everything else I was doing. It’s the fourth iteration of the Module 1 course, but I finally think it’s ‘there’ now!

I scheduled an earlier start date for the March courses as I’d realised a lot of people were either very busy or away from work in July and August, so I needed to factor in time for this so groups wouldn’t be too empty during this time.

Looking at statistics from this cohort in particular, it felt like there was a very high dropout rate on the courses, and I had to reflect on this to decide to what extent it was the courses and to what extent it was life circumstances. As far as I know, nobody has dropped out because of the courses themselves, though probably about a third quit the course due to the workload and not being able to fit it in around work, especially if they got a new job during the course. Others quit because they were trying to do another DELTA module at the same time, or complete a qualification like a Masters or a Doctorate. The remaining people who dropped out of the courses were evenly split between health problems and family commitments / health issues / problems. I’m satisfied that Take Your Time DELTA is able to provide people the flexibility for ‘life to happen’ during their courses, as not everybody permanently drops out in these situations. However, there’s also the flexibility for them to come back to later cohorts if possible. In addition to the principles laid out at the start, I want the courses to be as human as possible, and to recognise that health and family are important, and DELTA can wait.

Statistics

• M1
  • 3 groups
  
  
  • 3 trainers
  
  
  • 19 trainees started
  
  
  • 11 dropped out
  
  
  • 2 didn’t take the exam
  
  
  • 2 Pass
  
  
  • 2 Pass with Merit
  
  
  • 1 Pass with Distinction
  • 1 Fail
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 2 trainers > 1 trainer by the end
  
  
  • 11 trainees started
  
  
  • 1 didn’t submit the assignment
  
  
  • 7 dropped out
  
  
  • 2 Pass with Merit
  • 1 Referral

Lessons

• Make sure you plan in time off!
• Plan your finances carefully to make sure you can cover your business costs. Be careful not to overstretch yourself.
• Keep reflecting on and refining your courses based on how learners do and what they need. Don’t be afraid to rewrite from scratch if that’s what’s needed!
• Notice when learners are actually available. Plan courses around this – it may not match exactly when you want to have time off!
• Reflect on why people drop out of your courses. Don’t take it personally, as there are many reasons why people might not be able to continue, the vast majority of which will have nothing to do with you or your course. Get feedback when possible to make sure this is the case!
• Remember you’re running a business: while it’s important to be understanding and kind to people who are going through challenging times, you also need to keep your business financially viable and manage your own mental health. You can’t solve everybody’s problems.

Interlude: Summer 2024

Despite the first half of 2024 being so challenging for me, I really believed in all of the Take Your Time DELTA courses and strongly felt that the Module 1 course rewrite would have the desired effect. I was starting to understand more about what Module 3 trainees needed and how the course could be adjusted to reflect those needs too. I decided to go all in on my business and start spending more money to invest in the future of Take Your Time DELTA.

As a result, I formalised various things. I created Terms and Conditions based on typical questions applicants have during the sign up process and typical issues trainees or I had had during courses, such as attendance requirements, payment conditions, and moving to later cohorts. To accompany this, I created a contract for trainees to sign before they would be accepted onto the course. Together, these two documents provide some protection both for me and for trainees, as they lay out what trainees can expect for TYTD as well as what we expect from them.

I started to put effort into promoting Take Your Time DELTA as a brand in itself, not just something ‘run by Sandy Millin’. Inspired by Rachael Roberts from Earn Learn Thrive in ELT and Jennifer Murray from Best Words Copywriting, I set up a mailing list in June 2024. I knew this would be a slow burn and an investment of time, building ‘Know, Like, Trust’ with people so they get to know what Take Your Time DELTA is and what it can offer as an alternative to other more established DELTA brands.

I worked with Jennifer, along with Nigel Hayward from NHC Web Development, to create the Take Your Time DELTA website, which launched in July 2024. Jennifer came up with the tagline ‘DELTA success without the stress’ which I love: it completely encapsulates what I’m trying to do with my DELTA courses. I created official email addresses to begin to separate the business from my personal email address, and start to improve the separation between the work and leisure parts of my life.

I considered adding to my offering as I’d done in previous summers, ready to launch in September, but I decided to let everything settle for a year. I had lots of ideas for how TYTD could grow, but I recognised that marketing was the main way to do this for the moment.

Lessons

• Terms and Conditions and contracts are a form of protection which are worth investing time in. They also mean people take your courses more seriously as they realise that you take the courses and your commitment to trainees and training seriously.
• Mailing lists take time to build, but they can be a great marketing investment. Just don’t give too much of what you’re selling away for free!
• It’s worth paying other professionals to support you with marketing. You’re a teacher / trainer and you know what you’re doing. They know what they’re doing, and the return on investment (ROI) of good marketing is absolutely worth the investment.
• Separate personal and work emails.
• Sometimes it’s best to let things settle.

September 2024

I made the mistake of being away to run a training course in two very busy weeks just before the courses started, which made the application, interview and course setup process very stressful for me.

The other major issue that happened (twice!) during these courses was my computer completely dying. It decided to stop charging one day, was away for 10 days in October, then did the same thing in February and was away for a month. Given that my entire business revolves around my computer, this was very stressful! Luckily I back up my data regularly to an external hard drive, a certain amount of my documents are in the cloud, and we had an old computer in the house which I could start using once it had been set up.

Apart from those two issues, three years and seven cohorts into Module 1, I finally feel like everything is in a good place. The Module 1 rewrite meant that trainees who started the new courses knew exactly what was expected of them coming in and were able to plan their time better. The way I’d displayed the information was still confusing though: lots of trainees struggled to find their way around everything at the start of the course because I’d overcomplicated things. It made sense to me, but not always to other people!

I simplified how I shared Module 1 resources, so they were in one evergreen folder which everyone had access to rather than in a separate folder for each group. This made things much easier to manage. However, it wasn’t until halfway through the course that I realised I could also have an evergreen homework document for all groups, rather than giving homework to each group separately on their own documents. This was a lot of work to create and still isn’t quite finished at the time of writing in April 2025, but once it’s done it will save a lot of time. It also means that trainees can do the homework which they want to do / have time for, not just what I’ve set each week, giving them more agency and flexibility while still providing scaffolding and guidance for those who want it. This document was the result of trainee and trainer feedback at the start and in the middle of the course: something which had come up so many times definitely needed to be addressed!

All cohorts started the year with WhatsApp groups both for their individual classes and for everybody doing their module at the same time, so for example, all Module 1 trainees are in a single WhatsApp group. I’d tried this once or twice in the past, but we finally cracked how to encourage trainees to use the groups well with this cohort. There were much clearer guidelines at the start of the year, plus suggestions in the homework document for how to work with the WhatsApp groups, meaning trainees are able to support each other and not only rely on trainers. We still see what’s in the groups and intervene when needed, but trainers don’t need to answer every question ourselves.

Module 3 groups had a more formalised course plan, as before I’d only given them initial planned dates and then updated them as needed during the course. The new plan clearly laid out deadlines, suggested reading and writing for each week, and provided links to all the course documents. I’d invested a lot of time into Module 1 resources, so it was time to put more into Module 3 as I developed a clearer idea of the problem points on the course. Most people on previous courses had dropped out while doing Part 2, the needs analysis and diagnostic testing, so I factored in a lot more time for this and told trainees right from the start that this is often where the problems are, so they were prepared.

The formalised more course plan was partly the result of a previous Module 1 group asking for a much longer Module 3 ELT Specialism course, running over 15 months instead of the usual 9. To help me figure this out, I needed to plan things out in more detail, and I realised this would be a helpful document for trainees to see, not just me! I set up a closed group for 5 trainees on request because this group wanted to stay together, working around times which were available for all of us. Having a closed group felt more sustainable as I knew the group would support each other and hopefully fewer of them would drop out (that’s true so far, as they’re the only group currently running which nobody has left!)

I’ve continued to invest in my own development, completing Jo Gakonga’s VoiCE course (Video Creation for Educators) from September to December 2024 and launching my own YouTube channel in January 2025. I also spent five days participating in Rachael Roberts’ LinkedIn visibility challenge in November 2024, which raised my awareness of how LinkedIn algorithms worked and increased the number of people looking at my posts. Since then I post much more regularly and write a wider range of post types, though I’m still working on this!

I also set up an alumni community, as one of the best things about Take Your Time DELTA is the live meetings with teachers from all over the world sharing their experiences with each other. Anybody who has completed a course, even if they didn’t do the exam or submit their assignment, is part of the community and can come along to a 60-minute session each month. They can also ask each other questions in a WhatsApp group and continue to give and get support. The alumni community has been one of the best assets for TYTD, as word-of-mouth continues to be one of the most reliable ways people find out about the courses.

Statistics

(as of April 2025, so courses not finished yet!)

• M1
  • 3 groups
  
  
  • 2 trainers
  
  
  • 26 trainees started
  
  
  • 7 dropped out (so far)
  
  
  • 2 won’t take the exam
  • 17 mock exams submitted (everyone submitted for the first time = the new course format works!)
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 12 trainees started
  • 5 dropped out (so far)

Lessons

• Don’t go away just before your courses are due to start! Block time in your calendar for course setup when you don’t take on other commitments.
• Back up your documents and your data regularly!
• Have a plan in case your computer stops working.
• Think about document formats, how you present information and how you share resources. Get feedback on whether these formats make sense to learners and other stakeholders, and think about how to save yourself time. What makes sense to you may not make sense to other people!
• Hand over to learners whenever possible, giving them opportunities to support each other. This helps them to clarify their own knowledge, as well as reducing the pressure on you.
• Make sure course dates, deadlines and (if applicable) time changes in different time zones are easily available to everybody.
• Notice crunch points on your courses: when do people tend to drop out or get most stressed? How can you adjust the course to provide support at these points, if possible?
• Consider whether closed groups are feasible: how many trainees do you need? They might be more consistent than open groups, especially if they know each other.
• Invest in your own development.
• Keep working on your marketing. If you don’t tell people about your courses, they’ll never know about them!
• Keep in contact with alumni. They’re the best source of word-of-mouth marketing and repeat business.

March 2025

This cohort took me completely by surprise, in a great way! 34 new people signed up for Module 1 courses, compared to in the past where at least some of the people joining the cohort were returners from previous cohorts. This was in addition to Module 3 ELT Specialism and ELT Management trainees. Most people signed up five or six weeks before the start date for the groups, meaning that for that time period I was either teaching, planning, or dealing with applications. I’d stopped most other work but was still doing one day a week of training for another school and an hour every couple of weeks – this was too much, and I’ve now said I won’t do this work any more as I need all of my time for my own courses. What a great problem to have!

However, it’s meant that September 2024 trainees have had to be patient with marking as I haven’t been able to fit this in. I kept them informed throughout the process, and thankfully they have been very understanding. I also paid another trainer to do some marking for me so they’d have at least some feedback while I was so busy. As soon as the new courses were up and running and I no longer had other training or applications to deal with, I then spent all my time marking, working until 9pm the night before my holiday to get everything done before IATEFL and meet my commitments.

I took on an editor for my YouTube channel as I couldn’t manage this as well, and the problems with my computer meant videos have been less regular than I wanted. However, they’d already paid dividends as I’ve had one trainee join the course because they came across the second ever video I posted! As with the mailing list, this will be a slow burn, but over time it will build up awareness of TYTD.

The new groups have got off to a flying start. They’re all very active on WhatsApp and are supporting each other well. I’ve simplified all of the documents for Module 1 and started simplifying and rewriting Module 3 documents for both courses, and I can already see how much this is helping trainees to find their way around. I also asked about SEN requirements during the application process, meaning that trainees are more aware of how we can support them during their DELTA courses, and we know what support trainees need during sessions and in documents.

For Module 3 ELT Specialism, a trainer is shadowing the course so they can take over a group from September 2025 onwards. I’ve also organised marking training for a few trainers I work with so we’re all more aware of how Module 3 assignments are assessed. This provides the support I wasn’t able to offer in March 2024 and lays the groundwork for these courses continuing to grow in the future.

Statistics

(as of April 2025, so courses not finished yet!)

• M1
  • 3 groups
  
  
  • 3 trainers
  • 34 trainees started
• M3 ELT Specialism
  • 2 groups
  
  
  • 1 trainer + 1 shadowing
  • 11 trainees started
• M3 ELT Management
  • 1 group
  • 2 trainees started

Lessons

• Know your limits. It’s worth paying other people to do work you can’t fit in if it’s financially viable for you – I’ve already lined up an admin assistant to help with the next cohort. Work with others and build a network.
• Clear communication is vital to maintain stakeholders’ trust, whether they’re learners, fellow trainers, or other people connected to your courses such as parents or HR departments.
• How big is too big? How many learners can you definitely support in your groups? How many trainers can you work with? At what point should you start saying no to potential clients or changing your offer so it’s less work for you?
• Give your courses time to grow and invest time and money in marketing: with time and patience, you should be able to turn down other work and fully focus on your own courses.
• With simplified documentation, learners can support each other.
• It’s important to find out about SEN during the application process so you can be realistic about the support you are able to offer and so everybody is fully informed about your courses.
• Think about how to provide professional development for other trainers too.
• Build for the future, not just for now.

The future

I’ve got so many ideas for how I want to continue to improve and grow Take Your Time DELTA. I’m working with five great trainers, plus other professionals as needed to support the business as it grows. I have ideas for marketing in other places, ideas for rewriting the existing Module 3 courses to make them more supportive for trainees, and ideas for other products to offer. Thanks to everyone who has supported me in growing my business and learning about how to run group courses to far, and in particular, thanks to all the trainees who have trusted me and Take Your Time DELTA with their DELTA preparation. It’s been a fascinating journey so far and I’m excited about the future and about what I’ll learn then!

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

This talk was part of the TDSIG (Teacher Development) showcase

The paradox of CPD: completed vs. ongoing

How can we use a past sentence / a past action to describe something which is ongoing?

We have to talk about CPD in appraisals, job/promotion interviews, inspections, or quality reviews. If somebody says ‘maybe you need to develop in this area in the future’, you might feel you aren’t good enough.

But your professional development, should be based on your autonomy to develop in areas you want to.

A critical incident model of learning cycle

The three reflective theories Cherry used:

• Learning by doing (Dewey, 1933)
• Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984)
• Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 1994)

• Is there always ‘a problem’ or a ‘misconception’ to drive us to learn? Can this deficit mindset motivate us in the long term?
• Experiences are crucial. But what types of experiences are the most beneficial to our development?
• Reflection is crucial. But how can we use this reflection to help us to develop?

Critical incidents for reflection

Flanagan (1954) came up with the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) as a reflection method.

Cherry used critical incidents to help her reflect on teaching. She thought a lesson was useful for learners, but students disagreed with her: they said it was the same thing as always. She noticed learners had lost their motivation, so she asked her colleagues about it. She changed how she taught this area, and the feedback was much better. She used the 4 lenses to go through this process.

How to find critical incidents?

Reflection can be the bridging action to bridge the critical incident to the action. Does it have to be a problem though? We can change our mindset. If an experience can bring impact, then it can be crucial and be considered as a critical incident.

Critical incidents are significant moments or events which can have a positive or negative impact and the experience can be analysed:

Cherry categorises them in 6 ways:

• Recognition
• Opportunities
• Challenges
• Problems
• Conflicts
• Changes

Questions to help you decide if something is a critical incident:

If you use the questions to run an analysis you can decide if something is a critical incident:

A new critical incident model for teacher growth

This is Cherry’s example of how she has used this new model in her own CPD:

Before the incident she felt very worried about the new appraisal system, but after it, she felt much more determined because of feedback she got from her line manager. This made her think more about what she wanted to do in her own CPD to act on the feelings she experienced in response to the incident.

You can use the model to identify critical incidents, keep your curiosity going and keep your development going. Managers can use it to support bottom-up development rather than top-down development.

References

Q&A:

As she was coming up with the new model, Cherry was thinking about whether it’s best to decide on PD based on what you want to learn or what you want the final result to be.

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

This was part of the ESOL SIG Showcase Day. Lesley is based in New York working in a state university, teaching English to beginners and teacher training, as well as running a voluntary organisation which works with immigrants and refugees in the city.

The students who Lesley works with have often had incomplete or interrupted education, so there are lots of challenges for learners. Their speaking skills tend to develop fine and this is their focus, but writing is more challenging. But what underlies the ability to speak is an awareness of syntax, and writing helps with this.

We started with a piece of paper and were challenged to produce the longest sentence we could in two minutes, starting with the word ‘Edinburgh’. Our pair managed 25 words, but the longest sentence was 45 words. This activity encourages learners to move from simple to complex sentences.

An introduction to developing writing skills

What are some of the challenges of developing writing skills in beginning level students?

These are the

• Limited vocabulary
• Low self-esteem – it’s seen as a more academic thing, it’s a written record that stays and can be measured
• Challenges with spelling
• Difficulty with phonemic awareness
• Self-directed learning – learners often do their writing outside class, do they understand why they’re doing, do they have the motivation to sit down and do it
• Differences between home languages and English, for example word order, different protocols
• Interrupted or incomplete education – this can also mean that some learners feel like imposters in the classroom, or they might think their own education is secondary to their childrens’ education
• Writing is two-dimensional – when we speak we can pause, check understanding…for learners, how do they know if people can understand what they’re writing?

A curriculum for writing needs to be staggered. You need to slowly integrate what Harmer calls the ‘writing habit’.

Strategies – broad sweeps

1. Take an Asset-based mindset and be aware of our own positionality. Look at what learners have and what they can do, rather than what they don’t have and can’t do. Learners may have literacy in their own language. Learners have a wealth of life experience which can be leveraged to support their environment.

2. Create a text rich, visual environment in class which is accessible. For example, posters in the classroom, spelling rules, etc. This gives learners exposure to the shapes of the letters, passively building their knowledge and helping them to feel familiar with the script, thereby reducing the affective filter. You keep on noticing patterns and similar shapes.

3. Combine a top-down and bottom-up approach.

• Focus on sound, word recognition and patterns.
• Whole writing tasks.

4. Develop a writing habit. Getting students to begin to write as soon as you feel they’re ready. Set homework tasks which they can achieve e.g. write one sentence and I’ll start it for you. We want to encourage writing, but also control it by keeping the writing manageable so they don’t get demotivated by too many corrections. Start with 10 words, then 2-3 sentences, then move onto paragraphs later.

5. Relevant and responsive – what content is useful, what do the students need? Fill in a form? Fun stuff? What would the learners see as useful?

Asset-based approach

Don’t go in thinking the teacher knows everything. Look at the Funds of Knowledge that learners bring to class / the wealth they bring to class.

Acknowledge and leverage: Learners bring their life experience, cultural backgrounds, existing skills, etc. You can use this in classrooms, rather than concentrating on their limitations or what they don’t know.

Create: Create a safe and inclusive environment.

Foster: Foster a sense of belonging.

For example, avoid phrases like ‘We don’t say that’ when correcting – that excludes rather than includes. ‘In America, …’ (Lesley works in New York) – that excludes. Instead, ‘I really want to know about Uruguay. Tell me more…’ – that encourages sharing.

Teacher trainees sometimes say ‘I can’t teach beginners, they don’t know anything.’ – that’s absolutely not true!

Bottom-up teaching

If you’re teaching beginners, there’s no avoiding bottom-up teaching. You need to do things like working on handwriting using sheets. What script are the learners coming from? When they picked up their pen, did it look like it was a comfortable thing to do?

Build sound sensitivity. Combine pictures to letter to sound, creating a text-rich environment. When you first start learning a foreign language, you can’t hear anything. Over time you pick out sounds, then words, then sentences. Think about who the learners could practise with: could they work with their children? With a friend? With their boss? So they can get more sensitive with sounds.

Gamify it as soon as possible. Play games like looking at the page below. Close your eyes, then open them and quick as you can see how many words you can see which end with ‘og’. Then point out the sameness of the words / spellings / sounds / patterns.

You can have a poster on the wall which you occasionally point out to do opportunistic work on literacy. For example, you’re working on present simple and say ‘I go to work every day.’ and point out ‘ay’.

Bingo – this can be letter bingo, or you can change it to pictures or words which learners have to notice the spellings of:

A lesson plan Lesley taught last week

1. Ball toss: the thrower says the present and the catcher says the past.

2. Learners are primed with vocabulary. Lesley is listening and manipulating what they’re saying, trying to pull out ‘ght’. Learners will sometimes say ‘we didn’t say that’, but that can be a joke!

3. What do you spot? What sounds do you hear regularly here? Lesley wrote the sentences on the board. Teacher as scribe is important too – she writes at the beginning and the learners help her, eliciting words or letters they can do. This is an opportunity for learners to do a little writing themselves – they write down the missing words on the paper and hold them up, instead of shouting them out.

4. Lesley will read and write 3 or 4 times. In a beginner classroom, repeat until you feel embarrassed, then 3 more times. Imagine somebody teaching you an unknown language – how often do you need to hear it to feel comfortable? Slow and steady wins the race – say it many times.

5. Disappear the text. Start erasing the sentence word by word. Learners have to repeat the sentence including what’s missing. Close your eyes, erase some more. What do you have? You can disappear the text, then reappear the text by asking learners to help – they can write on the board. Deconstruct to reconstruct. (Erase, repeat and reconstruct)

Questions to ask all the time

How do you spell _____? (We’re not infantilizing the learners – they’re processing the language)

Point out patterns in spelling at every opportunity e.g. bought, taught, thought, caught. Put a pattern on the board. Find two examples in the text we just read. Say them to a partner. Write them down. Put them in a sentence.

Develop sound sensitivity and connect spelling patterns and sound. (How did you develop that in languages you learnt? Reflect on that and think about what you needed to know. You can support learners in doing this too so they realise there are differences between the languages.)

Opportunistic literacy teaching and planned

Milk texts you’ve worked on. Less is more. Use the text in more ways, rather than adding more texts.

Relevant and responsive

Where Lesley teaches, a lot of people are working on landscaping or cleaning. Convert some of the words from their jobs which are relevant to them. They can all be linked by specific sounds.

Sensitivity to sounds needs to be both audio and visual. You can show a picture/set of objects all starting with the same sound, then take some of them away, so learners notice patterns. e.g. all starting with ‘b’, all with ‘ing’ at the end.

A game

Two teams. Run and erase the word the teacher spelt from the board. Keep recycling the same words so learners feel comfortable.

Teach learning strategies alongside language development

Supporting learners with realistic tasks which they can do autonomously. For example, flick books of words which learners can use in many different ways. They can have these in their bags all the time, try and look at them as often as possible, show their children, use them on the bus, etc.

Instead of ‘do the homework and give it to me’, which feels like the homework is for the teacher, ‘do the homework, give it to the teacher, and give it back to the learner’ – this is your reward for your learner. Make the feedback have a clear message e.g. ‘This is clear.’ ‘I see a difference.’

Importance of speech

Writing builds off speech and vice versa.

Learners who are non-literate in their home language bring the wealth of their voice to the classroom. How can you help them to transition this voice into literacy gradually?

You could build up a gapfill on the board:

Don’t isolate learners with their writing until you need to. The fact that it’s teacher-centred doesn’t matter if the learners are working with you. You’ll do speaking tasks which involve learners working with you.

Planning mindfully and benchmark

• Look mindfully at the curriculum and find opportunities to explore areas of literacy to work on.
• Help learners realise how far they’ve come.
• Make sure they know where they’re going.
• Brain breaks. Silence in class is fine. It allows learners to think. It gives them to process and actually learn – ‘nobody can learn at the speed of sound’.

Knowing your positionality

Don’t think that you know more. You’re not essential. You’re working with the learners.

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Peter started off with a real conversation from a bus stop which he heard:

A: Excuse me.

B: Excuse me.

A: Excuse me, I’m meant to get off first.

B: You should’ve got up earlier.

A: Excuse me.

When you add pragmatics to this conversation, you get a lot more information:

You can see there is a lot of information carried in how ‘Excuse me’ is used in each turn based on the intonation.

If you want to be really rude to somebody, you change your pronunciation of ‘Excuse me’ rather than changing the form of what you’re saying.

Wittgenstein (1953) says that the meaning of words and sentences is dependent on the language game (Sprachspiel) in which they occur.

The ‘ordinary language’ philosphers who followed Wittgenstein’s lead argued that what matters when we use language to communicate is understanding what an utterance is intended to do and what effect is has (JL Austin, Speech Act theory, 1962), and noted that utterances have occasion specific, inferred meanings (Paul Grice, Implicature, 1967). But in the classroom, we don’t really focus on the fact that when we say something, we invite an inference – this is the idea of ‘utterance meaning’ rather than ‘sentence meaning’. Most English language teacher is about ‘language meaning’ rather than ‘speaker meaning’: what speakers mean when they use sentences to do things.

Pragmatics is about the idea of speaker meaning.

Applied pragmatics is mostly about second language learning. It’s typically argued that L2 pragmatics is a deficit area which can be taught (not ‘deficit’ meaning that there’s something wrong there, but that there’s something to be taught).

Why isn’t pragmatics and applied pragmatics considered in the same way?

Peter laid out a diagram from one of the 1983 pragmatics books like this, implying there’s a hierarchy:

Socio-pragmatics: if you’re in some culture and you want to understand how it works, you have to see how people are behaving together. For example, in some cultures if you walk down the street and bump into somebody, do you pretend it didn’t happen, apologise…and if so, how do you apologise? What language do you use?

General pragmatics: speech acts and implicature: the importance of intention and ___ when using language.

Pragmalinguistics

L2 pragmatics as deficit in research: (Taguchi and Roever, 2017) “Pragmatics is closely intertwined with the knowledge of conventions and norms of speaking in the local community.”

(Roever in Long and Doughty, 2009: 568): “The main problem with discussing the teaching of pragmatics in general is that it is not widely taught in any systematic way. This is probabdly due to pragmatics not being integrated in large methodological approach, which tend to focus on grammar, vocabulary, and the four skills.” (but Peter says, pragmatics isn’t a separate thing: it’s exactly what we do when we use language, every time we use it)

Thomas (1983):

Thomas argued that if you act in a sociopragmatically incorrect way in a culture, people react to you as a person.

General pragmatics

Leech (1983): general pragmatics = “what it is we do when we use a language”

Peter says we should start again and work with the pragmatic skills our learners already have.

He gave us an example of a real conversation from a supermarket which he took part in, demonstrating that it’s hard to predict what language will emerge in the next turn of a standard dialogue. A lot of language materials try to remove the chance of emergence.

Learners can often understand sentence meaning, not speaker meaning.

Ultimately learners need to participate in, rather than observe interaction. If you have to use dialogues, collect them yourself and use real ones which real people have used. Or use activities which are meant to get people acting pragmatically in the classroom.

• The ability to infer meanings and to produce utterances that invite hearer inference
• The ability to communicate and understand illocutionary force (the intention of a speech act that a speaker is trying to get across)
• The ability to encode and recognise the encoding of indexicality by others (indexing = referring to the context)
• The ability to guide hearers metapragmatically
• The ability to cope with emergence and make use of context to determine meaning (at the heart of pragmatics is the fact that each utterance means something different based on the context in which it appears – even when you say something which you intend people to take literally, the hearer still needs to draw the inference that it needs to be taken literally)

[I feel like I probably missed some things in this talk as pragmatics is something I know little about, hence coming to this talk! If you can fill in gaps, please comment for me!]

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

This was a very workshoppy workshop so not sure how useful this blog post will be. Shaun and Lindsay are both addicted to board games.

When they talk about board games, they don’t mean Monopoly! Board games have moved on a lot since then. Board games in current ELT materials haven’t really moved on from that era of games – they want to inspire us to move on and perhaps come up with new games.

This talk also isn’t about gamification.

The magic circle: a concept from gaming. You agree that everybody in the game will abide by the rules of the game, will respect each other, listen to each other, take on roles etc. This is like the language classroom where we agree to do this.

Game 1: Colorful

Write down the six colours you see:

Shaun will show us pictures of vehicles. We see the picture and decide what colour the vehicle will be. Once you’ve used a colour Every time you match with another player for choosing you get a point.

I picked these colours:

1. He showed us a fire engine. Red
2. and 3. Black and yellow (these were the images below)

4. Green

5. White

You get 5 bonus points if you all have the same colour left.

[I was a little confused by this game so it may not make sense in my blog post!]

The mechanics of this game

A board game mechanic is how a game works. One mechanic might be ‘roll dice > move piece’.

Colorful has the mechanics of:

• Competitive
• Collaborative
• Guessing
• Speaking
• Attaching meaning to colour

Famous game ‘books’ in ELT

More modern coursebooks have taken similar mechanics e.g. dominoes, snakes and ladders.

Game mechanics

There’s nothing wrong with the traditional mechanics of games. Examples of traditional mechanics are:

• Roll and move (snakes and ladders)
• Guessing (pictionary, vocabulary)
• Memory (pelmanism)
• Bluffing
• Communication limits (taboo)
• Drawing cards
• Drawing pictures

Game 2: Just one

You give a one-word clue for the other person to guess the word that’s given. However, any duplicate clues are removed from the game. This makes learners think about different collocations and expand their vocabulary. It also makes them process words a lot.

Game 3: A fake artist goes to New York

Five people are playing. Four of them know what they’re drawing, but one of them doesn’t. They each get a card. One person has an X, the other four have the same word. It’s a secret who has which.

Each person can draw one line to create a group picture.

After two rounds of drawing lines, they debate who the fake artist is. The fake artist can bluff and make the case that it’s

If the group call out who the fake artist is correctly, they almost lose. However, if the fake artist can identify what the picture is supposed to be, they win. If the group don’t work out who the fake artist is, they fake artist automatically wins.

The same mechanic is used in Insider – the traitor is trying to lead people to the right answer.

Summary of newer mechanics

Here are newer mechanics or twists on traditional mechanics which you could use in games now.

• Laying out tiles (Carcassonne)
• Putting things in order / Lay out tiles (Timeline)
• Memory (That’s not a hat – a spin on pelmanism, where you put arrows on the back of the cards – you pass around 5 cards upside down in the direction of the arrow on the card, you have to remember what it is. e.g. you say ‘It’s a cake’ – if the person thinks it is a cake, they accept the card, if the person thinks it’s not a cake, they say ‘that’s not a cake’, call your bluff and that goes)
• Vocabulary/Guessing (Codenames)
• Hidden role (Werewolf, Mafia, Blood on the clocktower, Things in Rings, The Traitors TV show)

Here’s how those mechanics could be used in ELT board games:

Four takeaways:

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Aigiun is my IATEFL mentee and her presentation was excellent (though I may be biased!)

She’s an EAP tutor at King’s College, London, which is also where she did her MA in Applied Linguistics. She did research into language anxiety as for her dissertation studies.

What is language anxiety?

Guna’s study was with 45 non-native speaker teachers with at least 2 years of experience, based all over the world. One said:

“Anxiety makes everything worse. I know that as a speaker of English, I do much better when I am relaxed and not anxious. I am sure that my teaching practices could be more effective if I was less anxious.”

Causes of language anxiety among educators

Some situations which cause language anxiety called out in the room:

• Feeling like you’re a lower level to the learners.
• Noticing your own accent or having learners point it out to you.

This is how the room ranked the 7 areas:

This is what came out of Guna’s research, so you can see how it compares:

The more experience we gain as educators, the less we become anxious about facing unexpected questions and explaing complex rules.

Here are four quotes from participants:

The word “perfect” came up 26 times in those interviews. These quotes highlight external pressures like student expectations or societal expectations, but we can also impose this on ourselves.

Self-imposed perfectionism

Teachers often feel pressured to achieve ‘flawless’ performance.

“In Korea, we have this belief or ideology where all teachers should be perfect when it comes to their expertise. So we must not make mistakes, we much be perfect at everything we teach.”

But there are so many other factors in how challenging teaching is:

• Planning engaging lessons to meet curriculum standards
• Managing students with different needs and attitudes
• Meeting expectations from students, parents and administrators
• Dealing with new challenges as they come up

Combining this with language anxiety – it’s no wonder that teachers feel overwhelmed!

Impact / Effects of language anxiety on classroom practice

Read the quotes:

• How is the teacher feeling?
• How does it affect their teaching practices?
• How does this affect student learning?
• What advice would you give them?

We discussed these in the session – you could potentially answer them in the blog comments 🙂

Teachers who feel extremely anxious:

• Tend to avoid using the target language in the classroom, reducing exposure for learners
• Spend too much time on lesson preparation, leading to more stress and perhaps even burnout
• Overemphasise error correction because they’re striving for perfection – this doesn’t foster natural communication
• Avoid using language-intensive teaching practice, like role plays or debates, instead choosing gapfills, grammar practice, etc.

Coping strategies to reduce language anxiety

A quote from the study participants:

“What is I use is objective talk. When you feel that everythings’s wrong, my students understand nothing. […] I just think, is it really like that? Are you really a bad teacher? Do you really believe that your students are not making any progress? You just have to stop yourself from spiralling.“

Strategies to reduce anxiety in class (ideas from Mentimeter):

These were the strategies identified during Guna’s study:

(classroom environment = share with learners how you’re feeling)

(reflecting on experiences = noticing how much progress you’ve made)

You don’t need to do all of these things, but if you choose two or three of these it could make a real difference.

References

[Extra note: if you’ve read this blog post, you might be interested in the book Learning while teaching by Daria Vaskova.]

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

“I am a product of those who taught me, impacted by those who teach alongside me, and because I will teach others about the many reasons for learning at least one additional language, the cycle continues.” By Harbon in Barakhuizen.

Generation cohorts

Here are six cohorts according to sociological definitions, lasting about 16 years each:

Gen Beta are those born 2025 onwards…

Language teacher identity (LTI)

There are various perspectives on this. Four lenses influenced Fruzsi’s research:

Pilot research

Fruzsina works in a 5-year programme with pre-service teachers. They wanted to research how these people ‘become’ teachers: at what point do they say ‘I am a teacher’? They concentrated on short-term teaching practice, when they have 5-6 weeks in a specific school with a specific mentor teacher.

They assumed that LTI is shaped by trainees’ prior experiences and the context of their actual teaching.

They worked with 5 trainees between the ages of 23-25. The mentor teachers were all aged 40-60, mostly at secondary schools.

Research was done via interviews.

Findings and implications

Most of the findings were related to technology.

Technology 1

Mentees said:
Technology is an expectation from the mentor teachers but learners also like it as it makes boring tasks more enjoyable: e.g. coursebook quiz was turned into a Kahoot game. > They mentioned boredom a lot.
Trainees appreciated easy access to online resources (e.g. workbooks)>
Challenging situations may emerge: no internet connection.

Mentors said:
Trainees are good at using ppts and online resources.
Some trainees are better at using ICT than mentor teachers.
Trainees are not creative enough when it comes to applying online resources.
Smartboard software might not be available.
Trainees in their practicum use ICT with such ease and carelessness that I do not have to remind them of its importance at all.
Obviously they grew up in a social context that digital devices are the norm therefore their use of it and the interactie exercises is just excellent.
I really like working with pre-service trainees: I can learn so much from them in terms of digital literacy and technology. [Mentor teachers wanted to work with these pre-service trainees and learn from them.]

Assessment literacy

Mentees said:
Trainees were afraid to give poor grades – they’re afraid of pupils who are 4-5 years younger than them.
They are not sure about designing appropriate test tasks for different proficiency levels.
They play safe by using ready-made tests.
Not all trainees have a chance to give oral/written tests.

Mentors said:
Trainees have problems with giving grades and useful feedback to learners. They tend to avoid giving negative feedback.
They prefer written tests because they’re not prepared to work with oral tasks.

Overall teaching

Mentees:
Trainees were unsure about how to plan their teaching beyond the actual lesson.
They were not familiar with the coursebooks used in teaching practice.
They don’t know how to discipline, especially at first.
Teaching grammar posed problems.

Mentors:
They don’t know how to teach grammar at all.
They know a lot about theory and can’t put it into practice.

Gaps

When mentee teachers get a desk, that can help them to feel more like a ‘real’ teacher.

There’s always a generation gap between mentor teachers and pre-service trainees. But the research showed that the trainees felt like there was a big gap between them and the pupils – they felt quite different. Both pre-service teachers and pupils are like this:

Trainees were also surprised how different teenagers felt to themselves. So much has changed in 5 years, even though they’re all Gen Z. “I was surprised to see how different they are from my own adolescence, which is totally bizarre as I was at high school 5 years ago.”

Trainees said: When I give them tablets or interactive tasks, they are hectic and busy but it’s difficult to discipline them. BUt when there’s no technology, it’s difficult to motivate them.

Trainees said this about pupils: ‘They are a lot better at multitasking than we were.’ ‘TikTok and all kinds of reels are their language and content.’ ‘They [pupils] are pretty informed but can’t differentiate between fake and real news/info.’

Takeaways

One possible conclusion is that the difference between generations is speeding up. Maybe it’s not 14-16 years now, maybe it’s only a few years now. Gen Z teachers teaching Gen Z pupils showed much higher challenges than in the past. University courses need to prepare the trainee teachers for what they’re going to encounter: there will be generational differences, even if they’re only 5-6 years older.

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

Because this was a plenary, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing yourself on the IATEFL YouTube channel. Here’s the video if you want to watch it yourself (at the time of adding this it had the wrong title on YouTube, but it is the right plenary!):

Carolina is one of the Learning Scientists – if you’ve never looked at this website, please go and do it now. The downloadable materials are incredibly useful and are available in multiple languages. She points out at the beginning she points out that this plenary won’t contain ‘must-follow rules’ – the teachers knows best what works in their classroom. She wants to have a bi-directional dialogue, so do ask her questions.

What is cognitive psychology?

An area of psychology that looks at memory, attention, judgement, perception, decision making and problem solving. All of these areas can inform teaching and learning strategies.

She’s going to focus on spaced practice and retrieval practice today.

Spaced practice

What is it?

Repetition is good. We need to repeat information to commit it to memory.

The spacing effect says that our learning will be benefitted by longer spacing between one study session and the next, especially for long-term memory. This comes from Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) – if we keep the overall fixed study time, we’ll learn more by spreading out this time over a period rather than massing them (i.e. 4 one-hour sessions over a few days rather than 1 four-hour session).

Rawson and Kintsch (2005) back this up with research into single, massed or spaced practice:

These were the results of an immediate and a delayed test – those with spaced practice retained the information better:

Various other studies also support these findings, including Namaziandost et al. (2020).

Question: you want to help your students to study effectively with flashcards. Two scenarios:

• 4 piles with 5 cards each. You practise one pile 4 times, then another pile 4 times, then another…
• 1 pile with 20 cards. You practise the whole pile 4 times.

Which would you advise?

When Carolina asked us this question, 406 people in the plenary room picked the first option. Only 30 of us picked the second option. Then she told us why most people were wrong, based on Kornell (2009).

The small stacks lead to less spacing between words than the large stack.

But if you asked the learners how they felt, they thought they were doing better with small stacks. This wasn’t true – they did much better with the large stacks.

Learning is effortful, and it should be. If we put effort in, we retain information.

Here’s another study:

Why does this work?

We don’t really know! But we do have ideas…

Forgetting and reactivation: If you study information, forget it a little, then restudy it, you have to reconstruct information from memory. That reconstruction of memory could strengthen it.

Variation of context: More spacing introduces more contextual cues that are stored in memory. More variable context cues increase chances of retrieval in the future. Those context cues could be anything: space, temperature, feelings… if you study in a spaced way, you store information with different contexts around it – more range of context cues means that our memory has more different past contexts to draw on when trying to retrieve information.

Optimal spacing

Restudying will involve multiple revision sessions.

Tip: expanding learning schedule. A bit more time between initial and 1st restudy, then more time between 1st and 2nd, then more time between 2nd and 3rd study. Though research hasn’t shown whether an expanding schedule or a regular one is better.

Learners need support to plan ahead and schedule revision of previously-taught material after some time.

Spaced practice feels hard to learners. Constant encouragement is key. If it’s hard you’re learning!

A limerick:

Retrieval practice

What is retrieval practice?

You could study, then restudy, then do a final test.

You could study, then do a practice test, then do a final test.

The retrieval practice effect shows that if you do a practice test, you’ll remember more on a final test. It allows for feedback, study allocation and motivation, which leads to better learning performance. There’s a direct path between taking a quiz and learning.

Examples of retrieval practice in the real world

• Phone numbers – the ones you know are the ones you recall more often
• Directions if you’re not using Google Maps! If you do it from memory, you’ll remember it because you pay attention to environment, and you’re retaining context.
• Lyrics

Research

Roediger and Karpicke (2006):

If you asked learners which of the following two conditions would work better, they thought repeated reading would be better, but actually testing knowledge worked better:

Other studies include Goossens et al. (2014). Retrieval practice outperforms study only.

Kang et al. (2013) shows that retrieval practice (including tests) works better than imitating (copying what you hear). Just engaging in the extra effort of trying to pronounce the word yourself before you hear it and imitate it improves your ability to produce it yourself.

Why does it work?

Desirable difficulties: The conditions that boost learning and increase your performance in the short term don’t necessarily produce long-lasting gains. Bjork (1994).

Interim testing boosts new learning. One study by Yang et al. (2017) had a pattern of study > distractor task > test on list 1, repeat for five lists. The second pattern was study > distractor task > distractor task, with list 5 having a test on just list 5.

Participants who had interim tests on Lists 1-4 did better on list 5 than those who didn’t have interim tests on lists 1-4. Those who were doing interim tests maintained the amount of study time at each point:

WHy might this happen?

Retrieval practice can be implemented in a range of ways:

Some students may need scaffolding if learners can’t retrieve. Provide cues or ask them to fill in details. Make retrieval of materials a longer activity. Retrieving material also prepares learners for future learning.

Metacognition

Research shows that it’s better to wait and delay questions to test understanding so it’s not fresh knowledge any more. First, require learners to retrieve specific details from memory, then ask them how well they understood.

Wrapping up

Aristotle already knew that repetition strengthened the memory!

What are your takeaways? What would you like to try in your teaching? (Why not let me know in the comments?!)

To follow up, you can join the TILE (Teaching Innovation Learning and Enhancement network) network. There’s a monthly webinar.

Elaboration

A final experiment. Carolina demonstrated how elaboration can help you retain information – the act of adding extra ideas in your head to supplement the information you hear can help you retain it better.

The first time we tried we didn’t elaborate, and I retained 1 out of 10 sentences.

The second time we tried we elaborated by adding prior knowledge – connecting something new to something we already know, and I retained 4 out of 10 sentences.

It’s not magic, it’s cognitive psychology 🙂

These are my notes from this talk at IATEFL Edinburgh 2025. If you’re the speaker and think I made a mistake, please let me know!

To see all of my notes from talks at the conference, go to the IATEFL Edinburgh 2025 category. The conference took place from 8th-11th April, with pre-conference events on 7th April. You can also see all of my notes related to IATEFL talks of the past.

There are three speakers:

• Robyn Stewart
• Isora Enriquez O’Farrill
• Hang Vu

Shaping newly qualified teacher identity: lessons for teacher educators – Robyn Stewart

Robyn works at ITI Istanbul, mostly on CELTA. She’s also just finished her MA TESOL dissertation. She read a lot about reflection and emotions in the classroom. She’s also worked in Malaysia and Jordan with teacher training. She had a lot of experience, but didn’t really have the theory behind it, which prompted her to do the Masters.

She often asks the question ‘Who am I?’ and there are so many different identities she could choose:

• Examiner
• Teacher
• Lifelong learner
• Mentor
• Researcher
• Imposter
• Friend
• Trainer…

Every time you go into a classroom you bring all of these things into a classroom. We have many outside influences. Here’s a diagram showing how you are a teacher within a context, not just in a bubble:

Robyn says the diagram makes it feel like the teacher is telling the world who they are, but she feels like the world is also telling you who you are. She’s adapted the diagram like this:

Her three takeaways from her dissertation research were:

Lesson 1: Don’t underestimate the role of context

The stories teachers tell when newly-qualified often break Robyn’s heart. For example, a teacher who told her about being at a school where he’s not allowed to have speaking activities in his class. The head of the school told him to stop because it looked like he didn’t have control over the class. So now the teacher thinks ‘I can’t do speaking activities’ – he went in with the identity of ‘I’m the facilitator of speaking activities’, but this has been shut down by the school.

The research says that the first context / the first group of colleagues / administrators will have a huge influence on the development of a teacher. Ideas can be squashed and teachers stop trying. We need to prepare trainees that when they go out into the world, they may be faced with a context which challenges their beliefs. If we talk about it in advance, we can help teachers manage this. Creating a Community of Practice, joining a teaching association or online community, where they can learn about how to face these problems.

Lesson 2: Be a model of an ideal possible self

As a teacher trainer, you need to be an example of what the trainees could become. If you don’t see somebody who you can be, you might not believe you can do that. Using language, making mistakes as a teacher.

Lesson 3: Model the dedication to trying (Fairley, 2020)

Making a mistake and learning from it is part of being a teacher, being an adult, being a human. ‘Practice makes better’, not perfect! The dedication to trying is the best gift we can give to everyone around us.

Robyn has introduced a series of reflective tasks and training on how to do them as part of her CELTA courses. Everybody who joins CELTA has been in a classroom for years before they start teaching. We bring all of that background to our very first lessons and as a new teacher. We need to acknowledge the background of the teachers who come in.

References

Enhancing language teacher identity through educational legacy – Isora J. Enriquez O’Farrill

At the university where Isora teaches, they believe that teaching is an art and a science. Teachers need knowledge on the subject matters, on theories of learning, as well as love, passion and creativity to do their work.

Teacher identify is ‘the knitting that contributes to shape goals, beliefs and practices’.

All countries have an educational legacy which provide a context which impacts on our teacher identity. Here are four inspirational Cuban pedagogues:

By asking teacher trainees to research past pedagogues, they can understand how the importance of learning languages has been long-lasting, not jsut a recent thing.

At the university, they also ask trainees to select people from the works they read and find out about the lives of those people in relation to English Language Teaching.

They also talk about history, such as the Cuban 1961 Literacy Campaign as an inspirational event. More than 200,000 Cubans volunteered as teachers, 105,000 of them young adults between the ages of 12 and 19 known as Conrado Benitez brigadistas. Illiteracy reduced to 3.9%. They choose this because the trainees are very young, and they can see the influence that young people can have on education. They see the responsible community engagement of young educators. The Literacy Campaign also proposed a new ideal of womanhood in the wake of the 1959 revolution. By reflecting on how teachers get inspiration, they can develop their teacher identities.

They can also look at the method from the literacy campaign, thinking about the materials which were developed, grounded in the sociocultural context of the learners. This helps trainees to consider the context of the materials they create.

They also share life stories of brigadistas – the real teachers narrate their life stories and share their experiences. They also have a National Museum of the Literacy Campaign which the trainees visit as part of the experience.

After the activities, the trainees reflect on what they’ve learnt about:

They recognise that the problems and challenges of young teachers now can be similar to those in the past, and they can get inspired by these situations.

They also consider international literacy campaigns which have been inspired by the original Cuban programme.

Jeremy Harmer has worked with them on this project. This is a video they made together:

And he wrote a song about it, called ‘I am the teacher’ (Yo soy el maestro).

Isora finished by saying:

All countries have their own educational heritage, and so trainees and teachers can find inspiration in honouring the past in the process of shaping their present and future.

Navigating teacher identity in the AI era – Hang Vu

Hang was talking about a case study of Vietnamese pre-service English teachers. Hang thinks that the question of who we are as teachers can be a very challenging question. AI can teach too, so how does that influence our identities. Hang is a novice teacher, graduating last year (yay – brand new teachers presenting at IATEFL!). During her time in training, COVID-19 happened and now AI is changing everything. If AI can teach and is free, who will pay for us to teach?

Conceptualization of Teacher Identity (TI)

Here are four aspects of teacher identity:

Teachers are not just the recipients of changes, we navigate this and have agency.

What influences teacher identity:

• Personal factors
• Professional factors

There are 59 talks about AI at the IATEFL conference this year – it’s everywhere right now! Most of these talks are about how we can use AI, rather than how it influences who we are.

Here are some of the steps

Hang spoke to 10-12 21-24 year old teachers, doing semi-structured interviews.

There are 7 themes which came out of it:

Teachers are embracing emerging identities. They are AI users and collaborators. They are AI faciliators and AI instructors. They see themselves having the responsibility in instructing students in how to use AI ethically. Pre-service teachers are struggling in how to do this because they’re not getting any training in how to do this. They are also learning with AI and learning about AI – they have to self-educate themselves a lot of the time. This is motivated by three fears:

They are also teachers as AI supporters. Teachers as AI inspectors: inspecting student content – they struggle and don’t know how to do this as pre-service teachers. The last identity is teachers as critical thinkers and fact checkers.

Here are all 6 identities:

Some of them are harmonious, while others are almost opposite.

Teachers have concerns, but they believe that AI cannot replace them. The main concern was that they will become overreliant on AI. They’re worried that it will be better than them, so they don’t feel confident necessarily.

Teachers are taking proactive actions to adapt and prepare for this AI era. They do this in a few different ways:

• Self education – discussing it with friends and researching on the internet
• Developing their own AI strategies
• Seeking community support – both colleagues and online platforms e.g. facebook groups, online groups locally and internationally

How are teachers supporting themselves when their training is lagging behind?

How can we support pre-service teachers in this AI era? Here are three ideas:

AI guidelines and training should cover the following areas (according to the pre-service teachers in Hang’s study):

The final point is particularly important: helping pre-service teachers to understand how to preserve interpersonal teaching aspects.

Hang wants you to consider: ‘What does it mean to be a teacher in an AI era?’

The audience added these ideas:

• Teachers are taking on lots of roles which are less relevant to English teaching. You might need to be a parent, taking care of a students. A prompt checker. Are we still English language teachers if we’re doing all of these things instead / as well?
• Do we admit to learners that we’ve done something with AI? That we’ve created materials, that we’ve corrected essays etc.
• Should we proactively work with learners about how to do AI? Maybe we should ask learners for the whole AI conversation, not just the final result.