Beyond the pale in the Cambridge DELTA
… but perfectly okay in real life?
After putting a poor DELTA candidate through the torture of being observed by me when I was a Regional DELTA Tutor last term, I had my own formal observation to go through last week so that they can see me teaching before they start writing job references. When I opened the suggested lesson plan format, lo and behold it was almost identical to a DELTA one. Life will have its little jokes!
Having spent hours marking three of them, I know how to write a DELTA lesson plan (when I can be arsed). The problem was that the class being observed was one called Storytime English, based around the very sensible idea of a content-based course for young learners built around picture books. Nice idea, and apart from a few books that don’t really go down well for one reason or another, the lesson plans more or less write themselves. Don’t fit in no DELTA LP template though!
The problem is that one very sensible approach to lesson planning which is used in this course is completely taboo in the Cambridge DELTA. Given that the most important predicator of our students’ progress is motivation, the most sensible approach to planning a lesson or course seems to be to choose the topics, texts and activities that they will find most motivating, all the while keeping their level, needs etc at the back of your mind. You then exploit those topics, texts and activities for as much and as good language as you can get out of them. Right?
Wrong. Or at least wrong if you want to pass the Diploma in English Language Teaching to A*. If you want to do that, you have to identify a piece of language or skill that your students especially need to improve and then find the best way of doing so, conveniently ignoring the fact that you can justify nearly anything as the best way of doing it if you are good with words or search for quotes long enough.
Any other thoughts on the DELTA/ real life clash?
* Apparently it no longer stands for Adults. In keeping with Cambridge ESOL’s philosophy of basing itself on the stonemasons, you have to reach the level of grandmaster and go through some odd initiation ceremonies before you are allowed to find out what it now stands for.
September 30th, 2010 at 3:05 am
Hello there,
I think it’s been changed to Delta… (not DELTA) and the letters no longer stand for anything. Tis just a name of a qualification.
Of course…you’re right. I gave my final assessed class a questionnaire pre-last lesson and the answers were bound to justify the skill I wanted to teach….(or, in fact, could have justified anything I wanted to teach) for my last lesson.
Still, hoops and jumping through…
I take another point too. It’s hard to teach 18 x four year-olds something they’re not motivated by! (whether it’s what they need Delta-style or not!).