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Teachers are Never Wrong

Have you ever been corrected by a trainee politely?

If the trainee is mistaken, I explain the point, referring to references, avoiding criticism, thanking him/her for the question and praising the observation, encouraging him/her to continue examining what I teach. I still remember my math teacher who earned our full attention saying: 'Catch me making a mistake and get an A for the day'. It means that your trainee was engaged and that should be your goal. Be loud and proud about it. Do not get defensive, embarrassed, or annoyed, it's not an attack, or a battle ground and it's not you vs. them. However, mocking, sarcasm, rudeness, interruption and contradicting over a trivial matter rather than factual errors should not be accepted or tolerated. Use your good judgement and play your experience cards or you will find your self in a room full of eyes desperately searching for an 'Aha!' to pick up on, rather than trusting you.

If the trainee is correct about a mistake made in class by me, and this should not happen often, I thank him/her with a smile, give extra credit for the person who speaks up first and repeat the corrected info. for the class to avoid any distraction or confusion, of course, don't forget to apply that old trick of pretending that you liked it and you deliberately did it on purpose and were just trying to see who was paying attention. Model good behaviour and make it a teachable moment of we all make mistakes, no one is perfect, but the most important thing is what did we learn from it?

Remember that you as a trainer had the honour of instructing brilliant graduate trainees, that you can easily learn as much from them as they did from you.  I believe all long-time trainers, feel the same if they are confident and honest with themselves. The more time they spend training, the more they will laugh about it remembering the face of the trainee who corrected them over the same point every time they teach it. In a language class, you may find yourself as a non-native speaker trainer teaching a native trainee with a wider vocabulary, better pronunciation, and an instinctive feeling for what is right or wrong. A good diplomatic trainer should see this trainee as a source of useful information rather than a threat.

Rania Alomani