OELP's Training of Trainers Workshop Makes a Big Impact

On June 12-13, 2008, 24 teacher trainers and SEP coordinators from nine states (Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Nuevo Leon, Jalisco, Mexico D.F) came together at the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City for the OELP's Training of Trainers Workshop. The goal of the workshop was to share OELPs Teacher Training Anthology CD (a CD with teacher training workshop materials from English Language Fellows in the region), U.S. Dept. of State materials "Shaping the Way We Teach English" and "Teaching Jazz Chants to Young Learners with Carolyn Graham" with Mexican teacher trainers from all over the country in order to strengthen English teaching in Mexico. In addition to the electronic materials each participating institution received a set of reference materials including H.D. Brown's Teaching by Principles, Richard and Lockhart's Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms and Martin Parrot's Tasks for Language Teachers. In addition to demonstrating the materials to the participants, workshop facilitator and E.L. Fellow Brigitte Miller, led discussions on such topics as "trainers beliefs" and "working with peers: supervision and observation". Finally the participants put together tentative teacher training proposals based on the needs of their teachers and presented them to the group for feedback. The proposals of each institution varied alot in their size, topics and focus. The scope of this project was much bigger than expected. Ultimately, these materials should impact 5022 teachers and at least 407,500 students (that's only from 4 of the nine states).
The feedback from the materials and workshop evaluation was very favorable indicating that everyone will use these materials in some way to design their own teaching training programs and that as much was learned from the other participants as was learned about the materials themselves. Many participants were incredulous that teachers would share so much of their work with others. We're hoping that this will further encourage other teachers to share their materials for the greater good. Nice examples of this were also demonstrated by Coahuila's dynamic SEP team who shared their English in primary materials with the group and Hidalgo's SEPA Ingles team who also offered to share the software they developed.
Thanks everyone for your dedication! You were such a pleasure to work with. Most of all, good luck with all your training projects!