Bad DELTA experience

[ynohamolien]

I'm sure there are better run DELTA courses out there than the one I was on but mine consisted of sitting in a classroom for three hours twice a week and muddling through the DELTA handbook trying try to figure out what exactly Cambridge wanted from us. Then we would listen to our tutors musings on language teaching and listen to him debate topics most had no clue about with the most qualified and educated teachers. Then be embarrassed and shot down when offering your opinion.

My feedback on my essays was at best demotivating and at worst completely wrong when compared with Cambridge. Here's an example from module 3 which I failed.

What I wrote:

These approaches are all well and good for developing writing skills
but students also need a lot of timed practice and they need to
realise that they will not have much time to plan in the exam.

What my tutor wrote:

THIS IS AN EXAM TECHNIQUE AFTER THE WORK ON WRITING HAS BEEN DONE AND
THE LATTER NEEDS TO BE THE MAIN FOCUS OF THIS ASSIGNMENT.

What Cambridge wrote:

The candidate understands writing methodology and has researched and
written about this effectively. Unfortunately this is at the expense
of broader considerations of exam teaching; the section is off-topic
and the comments and analysis in this section could be relevant to
more or less any literate learner. The discussion of syllabus design
is similarly well informed but equally misplaced. The writer has been
perhaps over-influenced by Module Two skills Background essays. There
needs to be more explicit discussion of the issues of exam classes in
this section in terms of principles involved in planning and teaching
them.

What my tutor wrote:

THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES. I STILL THINK YOU SHOULD DROP THE FIRST AS TEHRE IS LITTLE OR NO ACADEMIC SUPPORT FOR THIS: TEACHING WRITING THAT IS RATHER THAN EXAM PRACTICE WHICH ASSSSUMES THAT THEY HAVE PASSED MOST FO THE WRITING HURDLES ANYWAY. THE ASSIGNMENT NEEDS TO BE BASED ON THE FORMER RATHER THAN THE LATTER

And finally, what tutor wrote:

As I told you this afternoon I was shocked that you had not dealt
> with editing I had given you for part 1, content points to. These things
> tend to disappear into the long grass if they are not dealt with
> straightaway, don't show us up by putting it in with glaring errors. Re part
> 1, you need to justify your point about it being possible to improve writing
> rapidly ( par 3, p. 1) and ( re your point at the bottom of p. 2 ( before
> Types of syllabus heading) , this is a testing and exam technique issue
> rather than teaching writing skills as such.

Thanks for reading, I'm resubmiting in December

[Alex Case]

Could you at least give a hint what centre it was?