Suzuki piano

book 4

Teacher Training

I have just got back from 4 days of teacher training on the pieces in Suzuki piano book 4. I flew to the North Island (Auckland) for it because training rarely runs in the South Island. The training was held at the Performing Arts Building of St Cuthbert's School. Its a huge building with wonderful facilities and so many pianos! There aren't usually so many all in this room but we rolled them through for the course: 5 accoustic pianos and one digital. Fleur Chee was the trainer and there were 3 other trainees on the course in addition to me.

Suzuki teachers in New Zealand become registered after passing a test on the first two books. After that, we can continue attending training courses, one for each book in the Suzuki syllabus. Each course involves 16 hours of training on the pieces in the book, plus 8 hours of observation of other teachers teaching students at that book level. After the course there are two main items of homework.

Firstly, we write up all the teaching points for each piece in the book (including previews, our teaching plan and polishing ideas). I have just finished this and its 15 pages long.

The second homework is to write up our 8 hours of observation including not only what the teacher did but also why it was done. I have nearly finished this and its currently 18 pages.

Because I am also preparing for my next teaching assessment (on books 3 and 4), I also have an additional 2 items of homework: to send a video of myself playing the whole book and to send a video of myself teaching a book 3 or 4 student.

As you can see, Suzuki teacher training is quite thorough!