8. Report of Sixth Meeting

[Kerala University English Teacher Educator’s Forum - KUETEF]


The sixth meeting of KUETEF and the first meeting of the academic year 2009-10 was held in the Govt. College of Teacher Education, Trivandrum on Saturday, November 21st, 2009.

Based on the intimation by Postcard mailed to forty six colleges of Teacher Education affiliated to the University of Kerala, seventeen teacher educators attended the meeting.

The proposed agenda of the meeting was a workshop on preparation of Lesson Plans based on the newly introduced issue-based curriculum.

The meeting commenced at 10.30 AM with a prayer by Ms. Anu Mukund. Then the President of KUETEF Dr. M.S.Geetha, welcomed the members and the Resource Person of the day, Mr. Jose Philip, a Lecturer of the Collegiate Education department who had associated himself with the preparation of the new Course book in English. Dr. Geetha also emphasized the need to sensitize teacher educators to the shift in paradigm and to familiarize with the ways of transacting the issued-based curriculum.

Next the members introduced themselves and the Secretary of KUETEF, Mr. C.Praveen presented the Report of the meeting held on Saturday, 13th June 2009 . He also mentioned the activities which the members of KUETEF engaged in after the meeting.

After the presentation of the Report which was approved by the members present, the Resource Person Mr. Jose introduced the participants to the strategies followed for preparation of ‘Teaching Manual’ well in tune with guidelines given during School Cluster Meetings. The RP also addressed several doubts of the participants regarding the rationale of the new procedure followed in classroom transaction.

The session concluded at 1.15 PM and Ms Meenakshi Ramachandran thanked the RP on behalf of KUETEF. During the lunch break new members registered and joined KUETEF. The subscription for the new academic year was also collected by the Treasurer of KUETEF Ms. Anila Chacko.

In the afternoon the participants had a ‘round table’ conference to finalize the format of the Lesson Plan. It was decided to rename 'Lesson Plan' as 'Teaching Manual' for plans prepared by trainees during Practice Teaching.

A few members expressed a need to have discussions to clarify ‘dark areas’ on the topics prescribed for study in the Methodology and Pedagogy papers. The difficulties they faced in finding answers for ‘Principles of testing’ and ‘concepts and principles ‘ in the Pedagogy paper was discussed. Realizing the need to find answers for such ‘dark areas’ it was decided to collect the questions through email for which answers could be given in the form of comments posted on the Blog.
Mr. C. Praveen volunteered to receive the questions by email and initiate the discussion in the KUETEF Blog.

Some members stated that they were experiencing difficulty in demonstrating ‘Models’ of teaching. It was also pointed out that the workshops conducted by several colleges failed to deliver. When a few members volunteered to demonstrate the Models, the Vice President of KUETEF, Fr. Joseph J proposed to host the workshop on ‘Models for ELT’ with assistance from his college management. The Treasurer Ms. Anila informed that part of the expenses for the workshop could be met from the KUETEF funds. So it was decided to conduct a Workshop on Models of teaching at Karmela Rani Training College, Kollam, jointly with KUETEF on the first Saturday of February 2010 (ie 06 . 02. 2010).

During the tea break Fr. Joseph said it would be a good idea to mail by post the proceeding of each meeting to the members of KUETEF. The deliberations came to an end at 4 PM and Ms. Anila Chacko thanked the participants.