SESSION 1C

Kate Randazzo and Fiskin Sears, UNSWIL
The Preparer and the Performer – engaging young learners on their new academic path

Abstract
Our presentation is aimed at newer teachers, teachers who feel they have “fossilised” and those who teach the same very challenging cohort – disengaged teenagers (reluctantly) embarking on a new academic challenge overseas. The ultimate aim is to provide even the most recalcitrant students with a learning experience at the beginning of their journey in tertiary education overseas that will inspire them to embrace it and fully commit to it.

Our “Preparer” will showcase some of her considerable range of innovative supplementary materials to issue any attender with a little more equipment to ensure a smooth, effective and interesting lesson for frequently hard-to-reach students.

Our “Performer” will then try to encourage the attenders to go a little further out on a limb, arguing the benefits of not always relying on prepared material, but instead putting greater faith in spontaneity and a teacher’s own unique skillset to establish a more distinctive rapport with the class.

We want to encourage attenders to break away from fixed ideas as to their own identity as a teacher and develop a balance of the contrasting approaches as they complement one another in every direction. In our opinion this can be key to providing our students with a transformative educational experience.

Bio
Kate Randazzo and Fiskin Sears are teachers from UNSW Institute of Languages who have both been teaching for nearly two decades. The last ten years have seen them work side by side at several language institutions in Sydney, each gaining considerable benefit from the other’s markedly contrasting teaching style. Kate is a pathologically organised, consummate “Preparer”, with a genius for creating innovative material to supplement any class. Fiskin is a chaotic “Performer” who is more inclined to enter a classroom armed with only pens and quick responses. Together they preach a balanced gospel of Preparation and Performance.