From No­vem­ber 17 to No­vem­ber 22, I was able to com­ple­te my training cer­ti­fi­ca­te (AdA cer­ti­fi­ca­te). Du­ring the first 3.5 days, we were taught the most im­portant ba­sics that fu­ture trai­ners need to know. This in­cluded to­pics such as plan­ning training, deal­ing with trai­nees ap­pro­pria­te­ly, de­sig­ning lear­ning pro­ces­ses, and va­rious me­thods for con­vey­ing con­tent in an un­der­stan­da­ble way. Alt­hough this may sound ra­ther theo­re­ti­cal at first, many of the to­pics were made un­der­stan­da­ble and tan­gi­ble th­rough clear ex­amp­les and prac­ti­cal explanations.

Fol­lo­wing the theo­ry, the­re was a writ­ten exam co­ve­ring the key con­tent. Af­ter that, it was time to start pre­pa­ring for the oral exam. For this part, you could choo­se bet­ween pre­sen­ting a short tea­ching con­cept or plan­ning a prac­ti­cal im­ple­men­ta­ti­on, i.e., a short lear­ning unit in which you de­mons­tra­te how you would teach a to­pic to a trai­nee. Af­ter the pre­sen­ta­ti­on, the ex­ami­ner as­ked a few ge­ne­ral ques­ti­ons. The gra­de for the oral part is gi­ven im­me­dia­te­ly af­ter­wards, while the writ­ten gra­de ar­ri­ves a litt­le later.

This cour­se not only pro­vi­des in­sight into how training is struc­tu­red, but also al­lows par­ti­ci­pan­ts to gain in­iti­al ex­pe­ri­ence in di­dac­tic and me­tho­do­lo­gi­cal are­as. Over­all, it was an in­ten­si­ve but very in­for­ma­ti­ve week that gave me a good im­pres­si­on of the re­spon­si­bi­li­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties that come with be­ing a trainer.