Pttls Ground Rules

Course: PTTLS

Date: July / Aug 2011

Candidate: Paul Croston

Theory assessment 4.
Explain the ways in which you would establish ground rules with your learners, and which underpin behavior and respect for others.
I believe ground rules are an extremely important cog in any teaching session. The ground rules function is to set out the boundaries,help to create a culture of openness, clarifies responsibility and benefits everyone.
There are a number of ways in which ground rules can be established. This may depend on the length and numbers in your teaching session.
Ideally they would be negotiated and discussed in detail. For example, someone may say "confidentiality", I think it would then be important to get a consensus meaning of confidentiality, so a small discussion may take place to establish what the group means by confidentiality, this also allows the teacher to add further sub -clauses of subjects like confidentiality.
This process could be done as individuals, small groups or a large group. This may depend on your learners needs.
What is important is that the rules are owned by the group and they can be added to and reviewed at any time. They can also be used as a tool for the teacher if the group is not adhering to basic behavior and respect.
If an important core ground rule is not raised by the group it would be the teacher’s responsibility to raise the ground rule and ask the group for their thoughts on this.
How you display the ground rules may be dependant on the group and / or the teacher’s style. However, the process of making and agreeing ground rules is an important and necessary task as highlighted in paragraph one.