Teacher Training 1

Tenth Month 23, 2011

This has been a very busy week. The pupils were preparing for the second quarter periodical examination and I was preparing to facilitate my first teacher training at my permanent site.
The topic for this training was basically working together to make English fun. 45 of the 52 teachers, the principal, and the district supervisor participated in the training. Before we got down to the business of learning how to work together, the school Filipino Dance Troupe honored us with two performances.

Filipino Dance Troupe

Filipino Dance Troupe

I started off the day by presenting the teachers with a silent challenge. 45 teachers and the principal had to arrange themselves in a line in order of their birthdays (month and day) WITHOUT TALKING. I am proud to say that they accepted and met the challenge. It was a great fun way to start the day and it made it easy for me to segue into my expectation that throughout the day we would all  listen when someone was speaking.

Birthday Line

 We spent the first half of the day exploring ways to work together to better serve the pupils. I presented information on the Myers-Briggs Trait Indicators. We completed a cognitive inventory, analyzed the results and completed amazing personality trees. We learned about ourselves, each other, our different preferences, and the effects of our preferences in work situations. I was impressed with how each teacher approached the activities. They consistently produced conscientious and thoughtful work. The personality trees exemplify the seriousness with which the teachers undertook the tasks of the day. Each tree was unique and truly reflected the fundamental beliefs (roots and trunks), skills (leaves), achievements (fruit), strengths(flowers), and challenges (thorns) experienced by the teachers at my site.

hard at work

Personality Tree

Personality Tree

Personality Tree

The second half of the day was dedicated to strategies to make English fun. This included a lecture and presentation on library development because convincing a child to read is much easier when they have access to a variety of interesting and provocative literature. The activities that the teachers enjoyed most were human scrabble and the closing read aloud, a planned oral reading of a book or print excerpt, usually related to a theme or topic of study. I always enjoy conducting a read aloud, and the teachers enjoyed discovering all of the fun English activities that can be planned around a carefully selected book.

Human Scrabble The winning word(s) Mountain Bike

I am pleased to report that God blessed all of my planning and preparation. The comments that the teachers took the time to write were very reassuring, and I look forward to future trainings with this dedicated group of educators.