Moderating the Cert IBET

My first contact with the Consultants-E (TCE) was in 2006 when I took a course which subsequently evolved into the now defunct Trinity validated Cert ICT course. Like many others at the time, I was soon hooked on online training and took a succession of other courses with TCE. Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney, the founders of the company, invited me to try my hand at moderating, and I was asked to cover for Lindsay Clandfield and moderate their E-Moderation course. This was was quite a challenge, especially as I’d only just taken the course myself with Lindsay as moderator.

In the years that followed, I moderated a range of courses for TCE, including a Moodle Starter course, short courses on using wikis to teach and the flagship Cert ICT course. With the expansion of the TCE team, moderating roles became more specialised and sadly I was offered only the now also defunct Cert IBET course from that time on. The main focus of this course was on helping business English trainers develop professionally in their chosen area of ESOL teaching. But the course had a healthy component of teaching with technology to keep my original interest in this area alive and ticking over.

One of the joys of moderating this course was bringing together talented teachers from all over the world and facilitating the exchange of know-how, creativity and experiences they brought with them. And watching teachers grow in confidence and developing was a constant inspiration. I was prompted to write this post by a participant’s response to one of the course tasks. In the ninth week of the course, one of the topics of discussion was goal-setting. Here’s the response the participant added to the forum in the course Moodle:

It’s difficult to know where to begin this course has been such a revelation for me.

Probably the most important element has been the focus on goal setting.
I now will concentrate my teaching on the core needs of the learner.
I suppose this is one of the key elements in moving away from being a general English teacher to becoming a business English teacher.

Now: I can use a wide range of learning platforms much more fluently; I can use a huge range of new website and tools on the Internet;
I can carry out a detailed needs analysis; I can use technologies to help me teach at distant; I feel more confident in designing and implementing lesson plans.

Another great element to the course was the exposure and links to all the learning journals.
As a teacher, I was always so busy teaching that I found it hard to step back and think about the methodology.
Now I will be more interested to follow the idea of other teachers on sites like British council or onestopenglish.

One of the interesting elements of the course was the exposure to new technology and the way that it could be used to assess, teach, feedback and follow up a students progress.”

You can imagine how encouraging it was to read this. Clearly, the course had had a significant impact on the teacher’s approach to business English training, and, to bring us back to the theme of technology in teaching, it was gratifying to read that it had helped on that front too.