The Via Lingua approach to professional teacher training
The pedagogical approach promoted by Via Lingua is best characterized by the following criteria:
An appreciation of group dynamics
The trainer is aware of how groups work and the stages that they need to go through in order to work effectively. This is a very important factor in determining how successful individual trainees will eventually be on the course. Effective groups do not happen by chance; the style and process which are utilized by the trainer directly influence success.
Interactive learning
Training sessions are managed in such a way that you will be required to take an active part in your own education. Sessions are characterized by a high percentage of interactive activities where you will be required to consider situations / concepts / questions through performing a set of tasks. The cycle of "doing", "reflecting", "hypothesizing" and "testing" is employed in all aspects of the course. Throughout this process, you will be encouraged to make reference to the pre-course experiences of yourself and others in the group.
Academic rigor
The trainers recognize that the ideas and concepts which are explored with trainees should be firmly grounded in an awareness of established pedagogical research and practice. Reference will be made during the sessions and in recommended reading tasks to the theoretical base underpinning the content of input sessions.
Pragmatism
Trainers are fully aware of the limitations of a short intensive course and are, therefore, conscious of the need to provide you with practical guidelines, tips, strategies, materials and models which they can utilize in the classroom.
Modeling
Whenever practical, trainers model teaching approaches and activities which you will be able to replicate in the TEFL classroom. This may be in the form of instruction giving, the use of pairs and small groups, the management of feed-back sessions or strategies for introducing and exploring areas of grammar.
Opportunities for practice
Many of the input sessions will provide you with the opportunity to test out new ideas and insights through peer teaching activities.
Our Philosophy = Your Success!
- You are in charge of your own learning. You learn when you participate actively in the learning process. By doing this, you create your own understanding of new information and add it to what you already know.
- You learn better when you have to work together with other students to accomplish a task. Your trainer knows that everyone has a different way of doing things and plans opportunities for you to demonstrate your learning.
- You learn more deeply when you have to interact with other students and share the new information you’ve learned. You interact when you listen or speak to someone, read what they’ve written, or write to them.
- You won’t know if you’ve learned the new information well until you have to “do” something with it…solve a problem, develop a new way of doing something, or create an intellectual product.
- You are the center of learning. The trainer plans a learning activity and guides you through it, step by step, until you can do it yourself. The trainer is there to help and support you, to encourage you and give you feedback. Nobody can teach you; only you can learn.
- You learn best when you have to judge the work you and other students have created and think about the process you went through to create it.
You are the center of Via Lingua’s approach to learning how to teachg English. Everything we do is designed to help student achieve success. We realize that many factors can affect the learning needs and habits of our students. With this in mind, our years of experience teaching students from around the world have enabled us to build excellent programs that provide the most value and benefit to the student.