Leading a workshop for the first time . . .a good learning experience.

Last week I led my first workshop for teachers in my school. I have to admit that I was very nervous, but I was comforted by the fact that I was fairly confident in the topic as I had studied it so much over the last few months.

I was asked several weeks ago if I would lead an in-service workshop. For my Developmental Research Project for the diploma, I chose to explore how to integrate the phonemic chart into my lessons. I fell in love with using the chart and phonology. In fact, I think it's the area of my teaching I developed most during the course and also, the area that I was most terrified of before I started! It was because of this that I decided to base my first workshop on using the phonemic chart.

I started to plan the workshop using a suggestion from Ducan Foord's The Developing Teacher. I went through the steps and planned what I felt would allow people to build on top of what they already knew while also including ideas that would be new, so that they would feel they were learning. I wanted to make sure the session was enjoyable, which the phonemic chart is, especially when you use some of Adrian Underhill's discovery activities! I also had to be careful of the time as the workshop was only an hour long and I didn't want to be over-ambitious or leave myself short either.

From the beginning, I found it a little difficult to find the balance between levels of experience. There were teachers with years of experience, but didn't know anything about using the chart or teaching pronunciation,  those that were more familiar with it and then those that were newly qualified. By the time my plan was ready, I felt happy enough that it was going to cater to the needs of everybody, or that everyone would go away with at least one new thing that they could use or would like to try in their lessons.

Of course, it didn't going exactly according to plan and we didn't have time to go into as much depth as I wanted. However,  I was happy that it generated discussions about the advantages of using the chart. We achieved examining the different sounds and how to read the chart as a map of the mouth. We then had the opportunity to look at some sample learner errors and, in pairs, the teachers decided how they would use the chart to correct learners in class. Finally, I gave the teachers a handout with some suggestions of further reading.


I had intended to ask the teachers to fill out a feedback form, but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to make one. However ,  some teachers approached me to give me some informal feedback. It was all more positive than I thought to my delight! One teacher said that she learnt more in 10 minutes of my workshop about the chart than she had in her entire career (she's been teaching for 15 years!) Many others have to come to me to ask me to do a follow-up workshop so that we can continue to look at more ways of integrating pronunciation.

This first workshop was a great learning experience for me. It hasn't put me off doing further workshops. I definitely recommend that everyone tries it at least once during their career.