24
Training
We learn in four main ways: by watching others, by studying theory, by trying things out and by full-scale practical experience. In fact, the activities are linked together. The process of observation leads us to draw conclusions about what appears to work and what doesn't; we can then test theories before launching out in practice. We monitor ourselves as we do that and the cycle starts again.
Figure 24.1 (after Kolb)
Unfortunately, most people are not equally disposed to these four ways of learning. Someone strong on observation, reflection and theory will learn a great deal from visiting studios, watching professionals at work, asking questions and reading the literature – and they may be reluctant to try a practical exercise until they think they have mastered the theory. Someone else – the practical activist – will be anxious to get on with ‘doing it’, impatient of the principles.
It follows that a good training scheme for producers should contain all four elements in proportions suited to the participants and, in practice, to the facilities and expertise available. There's no point in throwing someone in at the deep end (‘that's the only way to learn, that's how I did it’) without the essential guidelines. Nor is it sensible to insist that new producers watch someone else without any opportunity to ask questions and try things out for themselves. Giving ‘on-air’ experience too soon can induce in some a real sense of fear, from which recovery may be slow and painful. On the other hand, preventing people from doing anything ‘for real’ is likely to lead to acute frustration. It is this aspect of motivation that those responsible for a producer's training must monitor most closely. Is the new person enjoying learning? How do they think the training process is going? Are there signs of their being ‘over-challenged’ or bored? If they are slow to finish work, is it because they are aiming at too high a standard for their present level of skill? If the work quality is low, is it because of a lack of understanding of what is required or an inability with a particular technique? Learning how to interview, for example, will certainly take place during practice and real interviews – but the key to understanding interviewing will occur during a session of expert feedback on the end result. The critical analysis of programme material by someone experienced in the craft is an essential part of the learning process. Neither is this confined to the new producer. Established producers also need to grow; their development should not be overlooked simply because they can do a day's work without supervision. New challenges, techniques, programme formats and roles will help to keep regular output producers from going stale. They may even be good enough to enthuse and train the next generation.
Triggers for training
Training used to be regarded as a one-off event experienced early on in a career. However, with continual technological and organizational change, it has to be a lifelong process. For managers and trainers, the events which trigger training include the following:
New legislation, changes in the law
The organization's own appraisal process
High staff turnover bringing new recruits
New equipment or procedures
A high error rate, or listener complaints
New programme methods
Expansion of the broadcasting service
Multi-skilling of staff and freelances
Staff promotion
Downsizing, where staff assume greater responsibilities
New markets, programme areas or services
Changed organizational or departmental structures.
Trainers will be continuously aware of new training needs, but in a truly innovative organization senior management will be the driver of visionary change, asking the training department to help implement it.
Learning objectives
What is important in all this, of course, is not the training but the learning. What is the intended effect on the learner's attitude, knowledge or skill – and does it happen? We should therefore start with a clear idea of what we are trying to do by writing a series of statements which describe the intentional outcomes of a training event or course.
For example, at the end of a radio news production course an already trained journalist will be able to:
Select news stories appropriate to the target audience
Put stories in order of importance and write a programme running order
Write bulletin material to time using accurate, clear and engaging language
Research news leads and follow up existing stories
Commission and brief reporters to cover news stories, including those remote from the newsroom
Package news material, interviews and actuality in audio form in appropriately creative ways
Produce and run a studio for a live news transmission
Present news on-air
Analyse and critique a news programme, giving professional feedback to contributors.
Once the trainer is sure of the skills – or competences – that have to be mastered, the course can be designed by breaking it down into individual sessions, each with its own objectives. Training outcomes, applied even to a single session, describe what the training is designed to achieve in terms of what the student will either know or be able to do. The success of the training/learning process can then be assessed against these objectives. Even so, it is crucial that the training is closely relevant to the trainee's own environment so that the skills learned are readily transferable to the real work. In this respect, the argument in favour of on-station training is undeniable.
A special word about computer training. It is of the utmost importance that people, especially older people used to more traditional methods of programme making, are given sufficient time for training. The cost of this is an essential component of the total capital investment. It takes several weeks for staff and freelances to become familiar and comfortable with equipment of this nature. This is partly to do with the requirement for a quite different psychological approach. Understanding is no longer based on knowing or at least seeing how things work – as was the case with the older tape recorders. With a computer, knowing ‘how’ is not necessary – knowing what it does and recognizing its potential is the new learning. Not fully understanding a new process produces anxieties for many people, and such anxieties often inhibit learning.
Course organization
The trainer is the enabler, developer and promoter of others. He or she is always giving away their own abilities, requiring a generosity of spirit that does not constantly show how clever they are. There are subtle differences here between the performer and the trainer. To be successful the trainer with insight sees things from the learner's point of view, knowing the needs of the trainees – their present levels of skills and knowledge – and where you want a particular training event to take them. This should help to determine whether the training is to be full-time, part-time, day-release, block-release and so on. However, whether the event is a half-day module or a three-month course, it will require five areas of attention:
1 Aim. The purpose of the training should be clear. What insights, skills and abilities are people to take away with them? The trainer needs a vision of what is to be achieved, and from what starting point.
2 Logistics. Technical, financial and other practical arrangements have to be made for the desired number of people attending the event. Teaching space, accommodation, working space together with equipment for practical sessions, administrative effort and office support, e.g. computers, scanner, printers, word-processing and copying, transport, catering, visual aids – OHP, digital projector, whiteboards, flipcharts, books and folders, etc. – have to be predicted and provided. Even the best training should be supported by well-produced study packs, handouts and notes, preferably in audio-visual as well as printed form.
3 Design. What topics need to be covered in what order? The flow should accommodate the different learning styles, the balance between theory and practical, and between individual and group work. The sessions after a midday meal should either succumb to the convention of siesta or be vigorously participative, and anything in the evening should be different again. Courses are frequently so full of input that there is little time for reflection, to process what is learned. Lectures should be modified with discussion ‘buzz groups’ and questions, and practical work given time for debriefing and individual feedback, encouragement and critique.
4 Lesson plans. Each session needs its own written outline, starting with its aim. What is it to achieve? How will it do it? A plan, preferably drawn up by the trainer who is to lead the session, will detail the content of the session, giving approximate timings for each section and how it will be organized. It will list the training handouts to be distributed, equipment needed, aural and visual aids required: DVDs, CDs, videos, films, cassettes or sound clips to be used, etc.
5 Evaluation. The initial aim will give you the success criteria for the training, but has it worked for each individual? Described in detail later, evaluation of and by trainees and tutors is part of the quality control process – and if there are standards to be met and examinations passed, these should also be with regard to the four learning styles.
The following training ideas can be adapted to suit specific conditions and represent the principles of learning by seeing–understanding–trying–doing. Observation, theoretical principle, group discussion and working in the ‘safety’ of a training environment are combined with ‘on-job’ learning. In each case the trainer should clearly indicate what is required, by when, to what standard, with what resources.
Stretching imagination
Write a one-minute piece on a colour (see p. 192). Members of a group take colours out of a hat – black, purple, red, grey, etc. Provide access to music, poetry, Fx, and compile a recording for discussion and evaluation by the group. Invite a blind person to sit in and comment.
Editorial selection
Provide each trainee with the same recording of a five-minute interview, to be edited down to two minutes. Use a transcript to mark what has been used and what cut. With a group, each person says why he or she chose certain parts and omitted others, and which parts should be rewritten as the cue. Analyse the reasons for selectivity. Does everyone stand by their own decision, or recognize that other choices may be better?
News priorities
List 12 basic stories. Choose three as the lead stories for a five-minute bulletin. With only room for nine, decide which three to drop. Analyse and discuss the reasons given:
1 Police chief presses for stricter measures against all forms of civil terrorism, including up to 28 days’ detention without charges being made.
2 Farmers fear price rises of staple foods in the coming six months due to poor harvesting conditions.
3 Popular national youth movement announces plans for international rally to be held in the capital.
4 The country as a whole has attracted more tourists than ever before. Income from tourism reaches multi-million record.
5 Important political figure – in the opposition party – claims wasteful government spending on road-building programme.
6 Plane crash in desolate region involving internal flight of domestic airline with 75 people on board. Circumstances and casualties not yet known.
7 Famous local sportsman wins premier prize in an international competition.
8 Country's political leader announces new government policy for welfare facilities for the old, disabled and poor.
9 Small bomb explosion in a store in centre of the capital. Part of a continuing campaign of protest by a dissident minority leader who claims responsibility by phone call to the radio station.
10 Rural region suffers a suspected outbreak of cattle disease which threatens the destruction of livestock under a government order.
11 Industrial dispute over a pay claim threatens the shut-down of major car plant.
12 University department of medical research announces a breakthrough in its search for a drug to alleviate arthritis in the hand and knee joints.
News exercise
An excellent ‘real’ news exercise is to provide a training group with the same sources as those available to the working newsroom. Alongside the professional team the trainees independently compile a five-minute bulletin for comparison with the actual output. Invite the editor to listen and comment – discuss the differences of selection and treatment.
A further exercise is to listen on the same day to bulletins from different stations or networks, analysing the reasons for the variations between them.
Voicework
When giving feedback – especially critical feedback – it is always wise to remember that the trainer is commenting on the work, not the person. However, with voice training the work and the person come very close together, and it can be almost impossible to separate them. Listening to a trainee newsreader you may feel that he or she is acting, not being themselves. So who are they being? Do they have a mental image of a newsreader that they must live up to? Are they in effect impersonating a newsreader? If so, what is wrong with being him or herself? These can be difficult questions that in the end only the individual concerned can answer. Before going on to specific technical skills, any newsreader or presenter must be comfortable with themselves. If they do not like their voice or accent they will try to change it and the whole effect may sound false, for if they are too concerned with their own performance they will not have sufficient care for the listener, and communication will suffer.
The first step therefore is to record and play back some newsreading and ask the reader to comment on it. If it is very different from their normal talking voice, record this conversation and play it back, comparing it with the newsreading. Why the difference? Many readers have to be assured that their normal voice – or at least something very close to it, that works for them throughout the greater part of the day – is perfectly OK for radio.
Bearing in mind the ‘seven Ps’ (p. 116), the object is for the trainer to ‘liberate’ a voice to be natural, rather than assumed, nervous or full of mannerisms and false stresses. This may take some time, for in the end it is something which only the presenter can correct. It's good then for the trainee to begin to suggest improvements that could be tried – just experiment doing things in different ways.
All voicework has something of performance about it and it is natural for broadcasters of all disciplines to want some form of professional feedback. It follows that the opportunity for formal voice training, and for a discussion of one's personal approach to it, should be offered to both new and experienced practitioners.
Personal motivation
Using the lists in Chapter 1, write a short essay on the ideal use of the radio medium and how you see yourself being most fulfilled as a programme maker. Why and how do you want to use radio?
Vox pop
Trainees produce edited street interviews on a similar topic:
A film or television programme
An aspect of industrial or agricultural policy
Solutions to traffic problems
Views on new buildings being erected
Teenage dress.
Discuss – to what extent does luck play a part in the end result? How does one's personal approach affect the outcome? What is the most appropriate slot for these items?
Commentary
An initial exercise is for a trainee to be given a picture taken from a newspaper or magazine and, without showing it to the others in the group, is asked to describe it for 30 seconds. He or she then shows it to everyone, who comment on the differences between their mind's-eye picture created by the commentary, and the real one. What was it about perspective, size or content that was distorted? The next step is to record a piece of outside scene-set or event commentary for subsequent playback (without editing) and analysis. Did it provide a coherent picture, and a credible sense of mood, movement and activity?
Drama
Develop a short piece of personal drama based on the technique outlined on pp. 250–53. Was this satisfying to do? Does the end result reflect your original feeling of the event?
Write 10 minutes of dialogue for two to four voices, with or without effects. Using actors, produce the playlet for discussion by the group. Invite the actors to give their view of how they were produced. Could they have done better? Were the producer's instructions clear? Did the end result recreate the writer's intentions?
New challenges for old producers
Set out deliberately to do something personally never attempted before:
A vox pop in an old people's home or at a school
Produce a commercial and offer it to the appropriate agency for comment
Draft outline ideas for a documentary, giving research sources
Using the clock format, construct a one-hour music sequence for a given target audience
List 10 new ideas for an afternoon magazine
Write a public service message – road safety, community health
Reconstruct the station's morning schedule.
Without attempting to justify the result, it should be discussed with an experienced broadcaster. It should then be done a second time, with a further appraisal.
Maintaining output
Many radio training courses with access to studio facilities will culminate with a sequence of programmes as simulated continuous output. Run in real time to a predetermined schedule, a full morning's music, news and weather, traffic reports, features, etc. are watched by professional observers who report back on programme quality, presentation style, sound levels, operational faults, the management of the studio, the producer's ability to motivate and communicate with others, and so on. Some such exercises include deliberate emergencies like equipment failure, the breaking of a major news story, the unexpected arrival of a VIP or the loss of some pre-recorded material. Such ‘disasters’ should not be allowed to bring everything to a halt, since the effect may be counter-productive to good morale. However, ‘live’ broadcasters must be encouraged to think quickly ‘on their feet’.
Assessing quality
Listen to a piece of radio for subsequent discussion. What was its purpose? What effect did it have on you? Comment on content, order and presentation – the message and its style of delivery, on technique, story treatment, music selection, news values, etc. If possible, invite the actual producer to comment on the discussion.
When giving feedback – and this is a general rule – comment on the work, don't criticize the person. Critique the programme not the programme maker.
The process of discussion, analysis and evaluation is carried on continuously by professional broadcasters. It is especially important after any programme that has attracted public or government criticism. Communicators need the comments of others – and a ‘gut’ reaction may be just as valid as a careful intellectual assessment. All broadcasters, in training and the trained, need to maintain their own analytical reasoning in good order. Keep ‘quality’ on the agenda.
Training evaluation
If programmes are to be evaluated, then so must be the training process itself. Trainees can be encouraged to set their own goals at the start of any course or training period, and asked halfway through how they are doing in achieving those goals. At the end, to what extent have they succeeded in meeting their own criteria? Other ‘end of course’ feedback useful to trainers is obtained by questions such as:
Which sessions did you find most useful?
Which sessions did you find least useful?
How did you find the balance of theory and practical? Too much theory/ about right/too much practical.
Did the training come too soon/about the right time/too late for you?
How far was the training relevant to the work you are doing/you expect to be doing?
What would you like to see added to the course?
It is also useful in an end of course questionnaire to ask for ‘any other comments’. This will cover training administration and group relationships, as well as course content. The trainer needs to know as much as possible about what trainees feel about the training experience as well as what they think.
Of course, radio training in all its forms is only a means to an end – better broadcasting. Real evaluation can only take place three or six months later, involving both the trainee and his or her manager. Is what has been learned being put to practical use? Are genuine results apparent from the training effort? If not, is there a mismatch between the training approach and the workplace? Training has to meet the felt needs of the programme output; and the trainer, like the programme maker, will constantly evaluate the work done in order to improve the product for the customers.