Talk:Yoga teacher training/Archive 1

Teacher or Tutor Training?

The noun, 'teacher' is customarily reserved for a person who teaches, usually as a job at a school or similar institution. The noun, 'tutor' is used for someone who gives private lessons to one pupil or a very small group in a more informal setting. Only when the word tutor is used as a verb, e.g. when someone 'tutors' a person or a subject, do they 'teach' that person or subject. --Yoga Mat (talk) 20:52, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

That sounds very odd to British ears, where we always speak of "yoga teachers", e.g. Iyengar Yoga Teacher Training. I note also that in the USA, where a different variety of English is spoken, "yoga teacher training" is also in wide use. For instance, Shiva Rea's Vinyasa Prana yoga runs an "Evolutiionary Global Prana Vinyasa Teacher Studies Program" which describes itself as "Our celebrated unique and effective Evolutionary Vinyasa Teacher Training programs ...". If you'd like a more general example, BookRetreats offers a choice of 100 "Yoga Teacher Training in United States". I'd say that "teacher" is the usual word for someone who teaches yoga, to groups large or small. Certainly it is common and in use in different yoga traditions in different countries. The article is in British English, but is, I think, readily comprehensible by readers from other varieties of English. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Not to mine. There is sufficient evidence that supports the use of the term 'yoga teacher' but this distinction is nevertheless maintained both in British English and American English. The definitions are from the Collins dictionary. The fact is, most yoga teachers, are (by customary definition) 'yoga tutors'. This is not about if the phrase 'yoga teacher' is in circulation, but whether or not it accurately describes the role. Using the dictionary definitions has to be the way to go in wikipedia articles. The normative vocabulary ought to be paramount. The colloquial derivation you refer to may of course be elaborated in the lede, or elsewhere. Yoga Mat (talk) 21:47, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree that "yoga teacher training" is the term in wide use; indeed, the term is effectively universal in the field. I agree that teachers (in any field, including yoga) who engage to work privately are called tutors, and may "tutor" or "coach" a private individual for an exam or other purpose, but that has almost nothing to do with yoga teacher training: a person who worked only as a private yoga tutor would still do a 200- or 300- or 500-hour yoga teacher training course. Our job is not to WP:SYNTHesise word usage into a description of a field, indeed I would have thought that was forbidden; but even if it is permitted, I can't see any advantage in doing so, as the account we are giving in the article is a description of the facts, which will not be changed whichever words we choose. On the contrary, the article will be clearer - will remain clearer - if it uses the terms of art in the field of yoga as exercise; since we agree that the term of art here is "teacher training", that aspect at least of the article is correct. However, I've added a mention of tutors in the lead as an olive branch; it doesn't change anything to do with training, but at least notes that people may work in different ways once trained. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

BTW I just came across this American byline: "Jennifer McLennan is a certified Iyengar yoga instructor who has practiced in India, Canada and Costa Rica. She is currently a private yoga teacher in the beach community of Santa Teresa, on the southern Nicoya Peninsula." Not much sign of tutoring there. Enjoy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:15, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Further edits

We seem to have different attitudes about the import of some words. To save us both time in edits and reverts to this article I suggest we reach agreement on words like 'define' standards (which to me is authoritative/scientific) and 'offer' standards, which is more appropriate for courses marketed like these. There is also an obvious bias towards Yoga Alliance and BWY here, which of course isn't justified in terms of the many similar organizations that exist that offer similar trainings. There are other reverts you made which are incorrect. OfQual is not a 'government quality regulator' but a regulator of qualification standards and so forth. You seem to have little faith in the edits I am making, in that you appear to have elected to revert my edits without much reflection? Yoga Mat (talk) 22:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

On "offer" versus "define" I have no particular preference; we can say "write" or "create" if you feel that defining sounds too much like engineering. I have no bias towards YA or BWY here, and no connection with them, but these bodies have a supervisory role, where the many schools of yoga are providing training without a supervisory role, unless indeed they claim to be the sole arbiters of their particular brand. On "other reverts", there was exactly one, unless you mean restoring the ref for OfQual which you inexplicably deleted, and I agree there had been a bit of garble there between OfQual and Sport England. I'm happy with "regulator of qualification standards" for OfQual. As for your claim in an edit comment to be "simplifying", I believe you were changing the sense rather than the grammar, and rather than try to copy-edit your many small tweaks, some of which may have not damaged the sense, I just reverted the whole thing; but your comments here imply you intend[ed?] to change the sense; if you are about to provide further citations and describe the complex field in a bit more detail, of course that would be fine with me too. Go right ahead. I shan't intervene. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:32, 13 July 2019 (UTC)