Thoughts from Nik Peachy

This was posted on the IATEFL ttedsig group  - digest number 1206  - 9th Feb 2011.  Thought it was interesting.
"Teaching is (broadly) a transferable skill and a good face-to-face teacher will
usually (not always) find that they are able to transfer
their good practice to new environments; their ability to reflect will enable
them to deal with the
difficulties / obstacles they encounter. "

This one I tend not to agree with. I think there are some teachers, possibly
exceptionally good ones, who will work best because they have a very direct face
to face connection to their students in class and for these teachers I think it
can be very difficult to transfer that to the online environment which can seem
very 'cold' and devoid of the kinds of paralingusitc 'clues' that many teachers
depend on. Teaching online can also undermine many of the very physical gestures
and techniques that classroom teachers use. It can be difficult and take a long
time to rebuild these and develop the same degree of comfort with expressing
yourself through your computer and digital tools.

These are just a few examples. I think it's a bit like saying that somepone who
is a good cyclist can tranfer those skills to become a good lorry driver. Well
yes, many of those skills are transferable, like respect for other road users,
knoledge of the rules of the road etc, but they also need a lot of support and
training to develop new skills and techniques too and time to adjust to a very
different environment with very different sensory indictators and connections.

best

Nik Peachey