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The use of video in teacher trainingIt is a commonly held notion that teachers are one of the most important factors in the success of the students that they are teaching. Of course, there are always exceptions, but for the most part, the better the teacher, the more the students learn. Thinking back, the classes I not only did the best in, but also absorbed the most and felt the most successful hinged on my relationship with my teacher and how well they presented the material to me. That being said, teachers need to be taught what to do, what not to do and be given the tools necessary to handle teaching. An excellent way to prepare future teachers is to literally show them these things. One of the most meaningful units to me was unit 10, in which we watched the video of the teacher. Sometimes reading copious amounts of text just isn?t enough, and I feel that without first-hand experience in the classroom, using videos in teacher training is the next best thing. I was able to scrutinize and ultimately infer about the effectiveness of the teacher based on not just the content of his lesson, but such things as body language, excitability, poise, character and countless other things. Using video is very important in teacher training because it helped me to recognize both the good and the bad associated with this teacher?s style and ultimately give me a better idea of what to do and what not to do in the classroom. I feel that this TEFL course has greatly prepared me in many ways for teaching english, but we must all conclude that text can only teach so much, and that is why I will be going to teach, because most of us benefit the most from a physical example, and that is exactly what the video did for me. I was able to reverse my role and instead of being teacher-minded, I put myself into the student?s shoes and literally felt how they would have been feeling during the two different lessons. I was then able to conclude that because I felt much better during lesson two, and felt like I was appreciated as an individual and that the teacher was courteous, engaging, entertaining and friendly that his lesson would have been more effective to me. This taught me about the effectiveness of learning associated with attitude greatly. This video also showed me how much student participation hinges on the teachers attitude toward the students and the students attitudes toward the teacher. It is hard to have a good attitude toward your teacher if he/she does not have a good attitude toward you. And it is even harder to want to participate when the teacher does not encourage it and is not clear and concise in their expectations. But on the flipside, the students feel excited and willing to participate and interact if the teacher is engaging, clear, concise and encouraging student participation and interaction. Overall, I think that it is very important to include video in teacher training because it is a tangible resource that we will always remember and be able to fall back on, it is very hard to forget feelings associated with things which is a constant reminder to us of how we should present ourselves and our material for the best possible results of our students, which is our main and ultimate goal.
