CELTA TP potholes – Don’t rush through feedback — Transcript

Avoid rushing feedback in CELTA teaching practice with tips from experienced trainer Jo Gakonga to improve learner understanding and engagement.

Key Takeaways

Rushing feedback can leave some learners behind, so slow down and monitor carefully.
Engage all learners by nominating individuals and encouraging peer discussion.
Check understanding by asking for explanations, not just correct answers.
Avoid generic questions like 'Do you understand?' to get more accurate feedback.
Purposeful feedback improves learner processing and overall teaching effectiveness.

Summary

Many CELTA trainees rush through feedback on exercises, which can hinder learner understanding.
Rushing feedback often stems from not wanting to bore learners and moving too fast.
Faster learners may volunteer answers quickly, masking those who need more processing time.
Purposeful monitoring during exercises helps identify learners’ difficulties early.
Allow learners to discuss answers in pairs or small groups before whole-class feedback.
Nominate individual learners by name to ensure everyone participates in feedback.
Use online chat strategically by controlling when learners post answers to avoid fast typists dominating.
Ask learners not only for the right answer but also why it is correct to deepen understanding.
Avoid asking 'Do you understand?' and instead ask questions that require actual demonstration of understanding.
These strategies help improve teaching practice during and after CELTA training.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

As an experienced CELTA trainer, I see a lot of trainees falling into very predictable pitfalls in teaching practice. These mistakes are easy to make but also actually easy to avoid if you can see them in advance. If you want a road map to avoid

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one of the big ones, keep watching. I'm Jonga from EL Training. I've been a CELTA trainer and assessor for over 20 years, and I make videos to help people like you through what can be the pretty intense business of a CELTA

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course. If you enjoy this, I've got a whole series of videos for you on these kind of avoidable mistakes on my site, and don't forget to like and subscribe. I make a new video every week. Teaching practice can be a

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bit nerve-wracking, and maybe this is part of the reason, but trainees often end up rushing through the feedback on exercises, whether that's controlled practice for new language or maybe comprehension questions on a reading or a listening text. I completely empathize

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with this because it's a problem I had myself as a novice teacher. For me, it also stems from not wanting to bore people and so perhaps moving on a bit too fast. Now, this might be okay for some of

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the learners in your class, but what about the ones that need a bit more time to process things? So it's an easy trap to fall into. You give your learners an exercise, you get the correct answers from the learners who volunteer those

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faster processors, you ask them all, "Do you understand?" and they all say, "Of course we do." Who wants to be the one to admit, "No, I'm sorry, I'm the stupid one, I don't," and then you move on? Hmm, can you see what the problem might be

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here? But what can you do to change it? Here are a few pointers to make feedback on exercises a bit more productive. When learners are doing an exercise, monitor purposefully. This means moving around whether you're in the classroom or by visiting breakout rooms

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online and checking how easily the learners are finding the exercise. Because if they're mostly getting everything right, it's fine to go through feedback quickly, but you won't know unless you see what they're doing while they're working. Another point is to allow time

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for your learners to discuss answers in pairs or small groups before you have whole class feedback. This really helps the less confident people, especially. Next, when you have class feedback, don't just ask the whole class for the answer

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because you'll always get the same one or two answering. Nominate, call individuals by their names, and make sure that everybody gets a go. Focus on the learners who you know might take a bit of extra processing time, particularly too, and ask

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them. If you're online, you can get everybody to write the answer in the chat. Tell them not to post until you tell them so that the fast typists aren't always the first ones to answer. The next pointer is that when you

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go through exercises, make sure you don't just get the right answer but ask the learners to tell you why it's the right answer. So this slows things down a bit, gives people who didn't get it a chance to

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really understand. And finally, never ask, "Do you understand?" It's just not a helpful question. If you want to know if they understand, ask a question that will check that they do, something they have to actually answer. I hope that these thoughts help

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you with your teaching practice and your teaching after CELTA. And check out the links below for other useful material from my site. See you soon. Bye-bye.

Topics:CELTAteaching practicefeedbackELT trainingJo Gakongalanguage teachinglearner engagementclassroom managementteacher trainingonline teaching

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it a problem to rush through feedback in CELTA teaching practice?

Rushing through feedback can cause some learners, especially slower processors, to miss important understanding, as only the fastest learners tend to respond, masking others' difficulties.

How can teachers ensure all learners participate during feedback?

Teachers can nominate individuals by name, encourage pair or small group discussions before whole-class feedback, and use online chat features strategically to involve everyone.

What is a better alternative to asking 'Do you understand?' during feedback?

Instead of asking 'Do you understand?', teachers should ask questions that require learners to demonstrate their understanding by explaining why an answer is correct or by providing examples.

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