RIP Cambridge Train the Trainer

This blog post was originally written in 2021, right after I had finished the Cambridge Train the Trainer course with IH Lima. ELT professionals interested in courses leading to certificates issued by Cambridge English probably remember the following framework of teaching qualifications that previously appeared in the Delta handbook.

Cambridge Train the Trainer FAQ

In the original post, I mentioned that there wasn’t much information on this qualification available online, which I found a bit surprising. I felt that Cambridge English didn’t show much interest in promoting it. The course was retired in 2023, and since I don’t want to provide misleading information to those who stumble upon this article, I decided to update this post and describe what that means.

In short, the Cambridge version of Train the Trainer was a course aimed at teachers interested in becoming teacher trainers. It took approximately 30 hours to complete (either in-person or fully online) and comprised the following six modules:

● The training class focused on the main differences between teaching students and training teachers.
● Analysing and designing training sessions showed you how to plan a variety of input sessions.
● Delivering training sessions was the most practical part of the course. The participants were asked to plan and run a mock training session.
● Observing teachers consisted of watching a recorded lesson and analysing it as if you were the observer.
● Managing feedback helped you identify various ways of giving oral and written feedback to teachers. You analysed a recorded feedback session as well.
● Course planning and trainer development went beyond thinking of standalone sessions and taught you how to plan longer courses. You also received advice on further development options for trainers.

If you want to read more about the course, I recommend reading James Fuller’s series of eight blog posts with information about each session and Rachel Tsateri’s reflections. My own experience was pretty similar, and I thought it was a useful introduction to teacher training.

The trainees who completed the Train the Trainer course became eligible to train teachers on the CELT-P and CELT-S courses. Those two qualifications have been discontinued as well, which is probably one of the main reasons why Cambridge decided to retire the Train the Trainer course.

Now that the Cambridge course isn’t offered anymore, what exactly does that mean? According to Cambridge, ELT professionals interested in teacher training are encouraged to buy Matthew Ellman and Peter Lucantoni’s book From Teacher to Trainer. The practical element of actually preparing and delivering training sessions can’t be replaced by reading literature, so there is still a lot of demand for courses like that, and you can actually find many Train the Trainer courses offered by various institutions around the world.

Peter Lucantoni clarified the situation in this Sponge Chat: the Train the Trainer course is no longer an official Cambridge product, but teacher training centres are welcome to run their own versions of the course. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since those institutions can update the course content and provide more training in dealing with the challenges of the online environment, which was not really addressed on the original Cambridge course.

However, the lack of standardisation now means that there are numerous versions of the Train the Trainer course available, so potential trainees don’t know what to expect from the particular course they decided to attend. Another disadvantage is that course providers now have to issue their own certificate, so even if the course itself is very useful for the attendee, the qualification has nothing to do with Cambridge, which may affect the way it is perceived by other educational institutions.

I’d be interested in hearing from those who have attended the non-Cambridge version of the Train the Trainer course. If you’d like to talk about your experiences, feel free to leave a comment below this article.

Six talks worth watching

Professional development is often associated with attending conferences. In my experience, you can usually tell within the first five minutes if the talk or workshop is going to be any good. The positive effect of moving such events online is that you don’t need to worry about being spotted while trying to sneak away from a lecture that you find excruciatingly boring. To be fair to the speakers, it’s impossible to please everyone when you are talking to a group of teachers with varied experience, qualifications, interests, etc.

Fortunately, there are recordings of some useful education-related talks available on YouTube. I have already mentioned a couple of them on this blog, so I thought it would be a good idea to select a few more videos, write a short summary of each of them, and point out some moments I found humorous. If you’d like to recommend any other talks, let me know in the comments section.

Scott Thornbury: What’s the latest method?
You know that you can always rely on Scott Thornbury to deliver an engaging talk because he is an experienced presenter and skilled public speaker. This talk is an entertaining overview of teaching methods used throughout the years. There are plenty of references to literature and hilarious examples from obscure books for students. I think this talk serves as a pretty good argument against strictly adhering to a magic method that promises amazing results. The talk ends when some guy tentatively walks onto the stage to tell Thornbury that he has run out of time, which shows that issues with timing don’t affect only Delta Module Two candidates.

Stephen Krashen: The power of reading
Everyone remembers Stephen Krashen for his hypotheses related to second language acquisition. He later became involved in educational policy activism, and one of his priorities is improving access to books. In this talk that focuses on the benefits of reading, Krashen refers to relevant research and provides pretty convincing arguments for free voluntary reading. He states that reading influences more aspects of life than just academic results. The talk also includes a Bill Cosby reference, which is something that most likely wouldn’t happen these days.

Russ Mayne: A guide to pseudoscience in ELT
I wonder what strange contraption was used to record this talk because the video definitely doesn’t look like something made in 2014. Anyway, I highly recommend that you ignore the poor audio and image quality and watch this gem of a talk. It has everything you’d want from a guide on myths on ELT. Russ Mayne mentions horoscopes, refers to Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, and provides a helpful slide with names of major organisations and authors who are complicit in spreading nonsense. Brilliant stuff!

If Karl Pilkington’s superhero idea ever gets made into a movie, I will personally contact film studios with a pitch for a spin-off. Imagine that: He’s just a normal guy who doesn’t need a special costume. When he hears someone somewhere in the world promoting the use of learning styles and multiple intelligences in the classroom, he flies in and…

Philip Kerr: The return of translation
This is a very useful webinar for teachers who work in places that ban using L1 in the classroom. Philip Kerr makes it clear that we should be more open-minded when it comes to using translation because our students can actually benefit from it. I like the fact that he shows practical examples of translation activities that you can use in your teaching practice. If you watch the whole video, you will be rewarded with a funny swear word and the speaker’s heartfelt Christmas wishes. Nice one!

Rod Ellis: Using tasks in language teaching
This webinar will provide you with basic tenets related to using tasks in the classroom, including focus on form. It was nice to see Rod Ellis confirm that TBLT can be used in the online environment because the theory of language learning isn’t affected by the fact that you’re talking to your students through Zoom. There is nothing revolutionary in the webinar, but it’s good to hear everything straight from Rod Ellis’ mouth. By the way, that body part features quite prominently in the top right corner of the video because Cambridge University Press forgot to include the upper half of the speaker’s face in the recording.

Luke Meddings: 3-2-1: A classroom for everyone
One of the main proponents of Dogme gave this thought-provoking talk on the approach twelve years after its creation. Luke Meddings makes some interesting comments about this alternative to coursebook-driven teaching. He briefly mentions learning styles and multiple intelligences. I guess Russ Mayne wasn’t in the audience that day because I didn’t hear any audible groans in the recording. To his credit, Meddings says that we should try to build a community and include a variety of task types rather than pay attention to those theories.

• Follow-up post: Six ELT talks raising important questions