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PFT stands for Prepare Feedback Train in the context of this website. It is a learning system. It is conducive to both blended learning and to the more traditional classroom training schemes. This learning system solves one problem in the current state of blended learning by naturally integrating learner training into online pre-classroom work while providing consistency of message without uniformity in the delivery of live face-to-face training sessions. On this website, this is done by

• building up expectation in the trainee’s mind about what will happen during the event.
• providing detailed knowledge of criteria by which they will be assessed.
• making suggestions about how to practice beforehand in order to maximize success in front of the assessor.

This learning system is not new. The following situation may be recognizable.

Think about the way you learned how to teach formally. There are a million different ways a teacher trainer can help a trainee, but if you have the Cambridge English Language Teaching to Adults certificate (CELTA), you probably did something like this on the first day:

Morning: Introduction and Orientation Session (Find Someone Who playing to Eddie Rabit “I love a rainy night”).
Lunch: Stress out about all of the administrative documents.
Early Afternoon: You receive teaching practice notes and instruction from the teacher trainer about what you will do during the first teaching practice (TP) session, which is in 2 hours!
Late Afternoon: You teach your class, which may range from 3 students to 25 students depending on if it’s raining in Vancouver and if the assistant tutors have done their volunteer job of phoning all of the TP students a million times pleading with them to come to class after thinking about what the teacher trainers said to you an hour earlier.
Early Evening: You sit with your teacher trainer and receive assessment feedback both verbal and written (the blue piece of paper that you get and that belongs in the portfolio and not be taken out the center ever that says “To standard” at the top).

This is Prepare Feedback Train without a computer. The focus of the entire preparation session is directed towards the the TP. However, other skills are practiced but not emphasized on the first day because the criteria for Week 2 have not kicked in yet. Thus, a game of Tic Tac Toe as a feedback activity to a conversation activity may receive a Pass in Week 1 because the instructions are delivered clearly with graded language but not in Week 2 because the content did not lead to the clarification of the language.

Since Cambridge Teacher Trainers are among the best in the world, they use relevant knowledge and experience to sequence these criteria to become active in a step function manner over the 4 week course. This is completely up to the center, but it must be consistent within a certain standard. Otherwise the external assessor will pick a fight with one of the trainers and somebody will end up doing extra photocopy duty.

This course uses green flags as the objective assessment criteria to be delivered subjectively by the teacher to the student. The feedback comments are based on the IELTS Public Speaking Band Descriptors available on the official IELTS website. There are two types of feedback comments on this website. First, preparation feedback comments are selected by the teacher in response to student preparation. This provides scaffolding for the student and a starting point for any teacher who is familiar with the contents of the training session module. Second, assessment feedback comments are delivered immediately following the training session. These comments are both verbal and written. The teacher may choose how and when to deliver the former, but the latter must be written down on the PFT Assessment Sheet.

During their preparation, students use a number of resources to prepare for their live classes. They are exposed to language in a way that contains enough structure to produce a familiar and comfortable framework in their minds with a constant reminder of why they are doing these lessons, which is to prepare for class. This message is consolidated at the end of every lesson when the student is directed to consider the assessment comments and how the contents of the lesson will help them achieve the green flag comment as a goal for a particular task during the training session.