Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 1; January 2000

We know from NLP that all human beings need a mixture of procedures and options. Providing that the food is good in both situations, do you prefer to eat at a friend's house ( procedure) or to go to a restaurant ( options)? Do you always go to work the same way or do you vary your route?

If you come on a Pilgrims Teacher Training Course this Easter or Summer you will work with your main tutor from 9.00 am to 3.30pm. This is your core program.

After 4.00pm you have two more sessions and here you may have to choose between three or four alternatives.

This choice, and the attendant fear of missing three things by choosing one, bugs some of our participants. It particularly worries those people who generally prefer procedures over options.

It is hard to make a choice when given a menu, from 8.00-9.30 pm, that includes
Mike McCarthy talking about the new oral grammar
Jim Wingate teaching primary level story-telling technique
Bonnie Tsai demonstrating Suggestopaedia
and Maggie Wyles telling her mesmerising stories about her childhood in West Wales.

If you are a strongly precedural person you need to let you main, core tutor know about this because many Pilgrims trainers come strongly at the optional end of the spectrum and will offer loads of choice within the 9.00 to 3.30 core program as well, that is, if you don't stop them!

Naturally we want you to learn as much as you can in your fortnight with us., so we offer you a packed post-4.00pm program, but we also notice the way some people wilt from tiredness by the Wednesday of the second week. You should only choose as much as you can take on board - it is not sensible to be alert for the first eight working days of a course and then a whacked zombie for the last two.

One French observer of our courses once said " Vous ne faites que gaver les oies!" ( All you do is stuff geese!)

Come and work with us this summer but avoid becoming a stuffed goose!