Student Number - TTXAW20 Module – Learning to Train XX4W15

Implementation of Reflective Professional Development

Strategies for Teachers in District (A) Office of Education

Alexander Walsh 02/09/2012

Contents

1) The Teaching Context................................................................................1

2) Theoretical Framework..............................................................................1

i) Defining Reflection....................................................................................2

ii) Levels of Reflection...................................................................................3

3) Forms of Reflection.....................................................................................5

i) Journal Writing via an Online Blog.........................................................5

ii) Self Monitoring via Peer & Student Feedback......................................6

4) Effectiveness of the Reflective Techniques............................................7

5) Implementation of the Reflective Strategies.......................................11

Appendix 1 – Full Journal Articles...............................................................16

Appendix 2 – Reflections on Student and Peer Feedback.......................27

Appendix 3 – Example Evaluation Form.....................................................30

1) The Teaching Context

The South Korean public education system has observed a large increase in native English

teachers (commonly referred to as NETs) employed as part of an ongoing project to improve the

communicative competency of Korean English students and teachers. The duty of hiring as well as

initial and continuous training of NETs is distributed to the regional departments of education for which

the teachers are employed. This report will be concerned with District (A) Office of Education.

NETs’ responsibilities include designing, implementing and conducting lessons, producing

speaking tests and, at times, entire syllabuses for the school in which they are assigned. NETs

undergo an initial two day workshop followed up by regular training sessions. Reflective practice,

however, is not currently a part of either the two day induction or the continuous professional

development workshops.

NETs are mostly in a very unique teaching context. One reason for this is the effect the

standardised testing system employed in Korea has on a NETs role. Exams in Korea are not

separated according to student ability, meaning all students participate in the same level lessons. The

result of this is that NETs will teach the same lesson multiple times in a week, presenting NETs with a

unique opportunity to engage in reflective practice between and after teaching the same class multiple

times; a type of reflective practice referred to as ‘reflection-on-practice’ or ‘reflection-on-action’ (Schön,

1983).

This report will evaluate the use of two forms of reflective practice carried out during the first

semester of the academic year. The first, which was a continuous form of reflection throughout the

semester, was a reflective online journal. The second, carried out at the end of the first semester, was

a self-monitoring evaluation report via student and peer feedback, compiled at the end of the last

teaching semester. The student evaluation reports will not be included in this report, instead, I will

report on the reflective self-report I produced in response to the evaluations (appendix 2).

This report will present a critique of the theoretical framework underpinning these two forms of

reflective practice, evaluate their practical usefulness, and discuss the problems that will need to be

overcome if they are to be introduced into an NET’s job role.

2) Theoretical Framework

The subject of reflection in education is one that has undergone a long and complicated history of

definitions, classifications, commentaries, guides, research and practices (Fendler, 2003). In this

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section I will attempt to untangle this historical web of reflective theory to present a neat summary of

why and how a teacher may want to engage in the reflective practices highlighted above.

i) Defining Reflection

Dewey (1933) is often seen as a figurehead of reflective practice literature. Dewey (1933)

sees reflective practice as a means to professionalism, an opportunity to “convert action that is merely

repetitive, blind, and impulsive into intelligent action” (1933:17). Thus, for Dewey (1933), reflective

practice in education is a process by which teachers can consider, evaluate, problem solve and

potentially alter their teaching behaviours by looking back upon events in light of research and

knowledge, thus it is known as ‘reflection-on-action’.

Schön’s (1983,1987) ‘reflection-in-action’ differs from the work of Dewey (1933) as it involves

simultaneous reflecting and doing. That is, thinking consciously about and adapting to an event as it is

taking place. Schön’s (1983, 1987) ‘reflection-in-action’ saw reflective practice as an art, stressing the

need for experimentation in ones teaching and reflective strategies, compared to the more scientific

approach of Dewey (1933), which emphasised the need for theoretical knowledge in one’s reflection

and progression as a teacher.

Schön (1987) also highlights the social aspect of reflective practice, explaining that, with the

coaching of other professionals, this approach can be used as a means for beginner teachers to

develop and recognise the “consonance between their own individual practices and those of

successful practitioners” (Killeavy & Moloney 2010:1071). Schön (1987) argues such social

collaboration can challenge the ideals held by a teacher, leading to increased confidence and

acknowledgement of the diversity of practices available to a teacher, potentially encouraging teachers

to experiment and try different approaches in their classroom.

The forms of reflection I have chosen for this report primarily focus on ‘reflection-on-action’.

The journal was shared online to encourage social collaboration with other teachers through a

commenting system. Although the focus is primarily ‘reflection-on-action’, it is hoped that this can lead

to ‘reflection-in-action’ as the skills and knowledge which are built up through ‘reflection-on-action’,

can, in turn, help a practitioner develop their ability to reflect while an event is taking place, or, more

simply, ‘reflection-on-action’ can lead to an increased capacity for ‘reflection-in-action’.

The next section will discuss the type of reflective practice generates in more detail, as well as looking

at how we can assess whether reflection is really taking place, and if so to what extent it is happening.

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ii) Levels of Reflection

To distinguish between the various types of reflection available to teachers, theorists have

developed what are referred to as ‘levels’ of reflection. Van Manen (1977) proposes the following three

levels, or types, of reflection:

1) Technical Reflection: Involves looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of our teaching.

2) Practical Reflection: Involves examining our means, goals and the assumptions these are based on in relation to the outcomes we achieve in our teaching.

3) Critical Reflection: As well as including the previous two types of reflection critical reflection includes making judgements regarding the moral, ethics and respectfulness of our actions

According to van Manen’s (1977) levels of reflection the progression from technical to critical

reflection requires a teacher’s reflection to gain more depth. Calderhead (1989), however, does points

out all are suitable in different contexts. Mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory linked

categories of reflection with their relationship to one’s instructional, pedagogical and curricular

knowledge of teaching.

1) Content Reflection: A descriptive reflection of the teaching process, we think about what we actually do in the classroom.

2) Process Reflection: We start to think about how we can improve our students learning experience.

3) Premise Reflection: We begin to ask questions of the strategies or procedures we use in our teaching, we examine why we teach the way we do. We are now engaged in the critical reflection of our teaching.

Fig 1. Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory. Cited from Kreber & Cranton, 2000:481)

Kreber & Cranton (2000) suggest that it is through the types of reflection shown in fig 1. that

emancipatory knowledge is created, that by engaging in this process a teacher acquires the ability for

self-reflection by becoming aware of the alternatives and options available to them. Kreber & Cranton

(2000) use Mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory to examine how teachers can use

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reflective practice to construct instructional, pedagogical and curricular knowledge. Kreber & Cranton’s

(2000) ‘scholarship of teaching’ (please refer to fig 2. below) presents an ideal way to assess the

extent to which the reflective practices undertaken in this report were truly engaged in reflective

practice and identify the type of knowledge being reflected on. This allows us to evaluate the

effectiveness of the chosen methods.

Fig 2. Scholarship of Teaching. Kreber & Cranton (2000:484) suggest that through the use of this chart a teacher can assess how engaged they are in reflecting on both experience and research based knowledge in the domains of instructional, pedagogical, and curricular knowledge.

Despite the strong theoretical framework supporting the use of reflection as a tool for

teachers self development, it has not always been widely embraced. From a theoretical viewpoint, the

conflict between the practical nature of Schön’s (1987) work and theoretical nature of Dewey (1933)

has created confusion amongst teachers regarding what they should actually be doing and why they

should be doing it (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, Fendler, 2003). Akbari (2007:196) provides a neat summary

of the confusion being described:

“Today’s discourse of reflection incorporates an array of meaning: a demonstration of self-consciousness, a scientific approach to planning for the future, a tacit and

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intuitive understanding of practice, a discipline to become more professional, a way to tap into one’s authentic inner voice, a means to become a more reflective teacher, and a strategy to redress the injustices in society. Reflective teaching has become a catchall term for competing programs of teacher education reforms.”

(Akbari 2007:196)

The next section will discuss the forms of reflection I chose for this report; evaluate why they were

chosen and whether or not they overcome the theoretical and practical problems discussed.

3) Forms of Reflection

For this report I have focused on two kinds of reflection, journal writing and self-monitoring.

They were chosen as I felt they were both practically appropriate given the context of a NET’s role in

the Korean education system and would help alleviate issues associated with the implementation of

reflective practice.

i) Journal Writing via an Online Blog

Throughout the first semester of the academic year an online journal was kept. In total, 15

posts were made over a 15 week period, averaging one a week. Richards & Farrell (2005) define a

reflective journal as:

“A teaching journal is an ongoing written account of observations, reflections, and other thoughts about teaching……which serves as a source of discussion, reflection, or evaluation.”

(Richards & Farrell 2005:68)

Bailey (1990) provides four goals one can aim for in reflective journal writing to achieve critical reflection:

1. to provide a record of the significant learning experiences that have taken place.

2. to help the participant come into touch and keep in touch with the self-development process that is taking place for them.

3. to provide the participants with an opportunity to express, in a personal and dynamic way, their self-development.

4. to foster creative interaction- between the participants and the self-development process that is taking place- between the participant and other participants who are also in the process of self-development- between the participant and the facilitator whose role it is to foster such development

(Bailey, 1990, Powell, 1985 cited from Richards, J. (unknown date) Towards Reflective Teaching [online]. August 28th 2012. Available from World Wide Web http://www.tttjournal.co.uk/uploads/file/back_articles/towards_reflective_teaching.pdf)

There are several reasons why I feel online journals provide a suitable form of reflection for

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NETs in Korea. Firstly, due to the nature of an NET’s role, they generally have fewer commitments

than Korean teachers. They are not weighed down by duties such as paper work, home room classes,

student monitoring and compulsory faculty meetings. Despite having fewer commitments they are

required to remain at school for the full working hours, affording them time to engage in other office

work as they see fit. Journal writing, by nature, is time consuming yet potentially very rewarding. The

time required could be offset by the number of office hours required of NETs that are currently unfilled.

Also, the social collaboration afforded by online journals is desirable as often there is only one NET in

a school. Over the course of the semester the online journal received 42 comments (excluding replies

from myself), ranging from suggestions on how to improve classes, sharing theoretical knowledge on a

subject area or simply providing reassurance when facing difficulties.

Richards & Farrell (2005) highlight other benefits of journal writing as allowing the teacher to

step back from an experience they have had, allowing a greater understanding of classroom events.

As Akbari (2007:197) explains, ‘the view is that by looking back at their own practices, teachers will be

able to develop a sense of what works and what does not.” Several research studies have highlighted

the importance of reflective journal writing for a teacher’s professional development, especially its

ability to allow teachers to explore their values and beliefs in an educational context and issues

concerning their students and classes (Lee, 2007, Mansvelder-Longayroux, Beijaard & Veerloop 2007,

Kabilan 2007, Lee 2007).

ii) Self-Monitoring via Peer & Student Feedback

At the end of the semester I engaged in self-monitoring with the aim of evaluating my

effectiveness in the first semester and allowing me to constructively reflect on necessary changes for

semester two. Richards & Farrell (2005:34) define self-monitoring as “activities in which one’s teaching

is documented or recorded in order to review or evaluate teaching.” At the end of the first semester,

25% (150) of the students were asked to fill in forms that encouraged them to assess their

experiences on the first semester’s English conversation course. The students were informed that the

information was not part of an official assessment or evaluation of me, the course, or the school, but

would only be seen by myself to aid me in developing changes for the second semester that would

improve their learning experience. The evaluation was conducted completely anonymously and the

data collected was transferred onto a spread sheet. The objective of this process was to learn what

the students felt I had done well as their teacher, what they thought I could improve on, what they

did/did not enjoy, what they felt they had/had not learnt and how they felt they learnt best. To support

the students’ data, all of the co-teachers were asked to freely write anonymous comments on my

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performance over the semester, again focusing on things they thought had gone well, or areas

needing improvement. This information was then evaluated so that changes could be made to improve

the learning experience for the students in the second semester.

Self-monitoring via peer & student feedback was chosen to complement the online reflective

journal. Firstly, it removes the level of control that the journal afforded me regarding topics of

discussion, placing it into the hands of the students and co-teachers. Also, the reflective process was

no longer analysing events from the main teacher’s point of view, but that of the students, as well as

the co-teachers. It opens up the teachers mind to perspectives and concerns that may not normally be

considered.

4) Effectiveness of the Reflective Techniques

Both the reflective journal and student feedback demonstrate evidence of a high level of

engagement in the reflective process. Looking first at the online journal there, when evaluated using

Kreber & Cranton’s (2000) ‘scholarship of teaching’ there is evidence of a progression from technical

and practical reflection, thinking on a micro level about what has happened in the classroom or about

a specific event, why it happened and what can be done about it, to a more critical reflection, thinking

on a macro level about what our role is as a teacher and even questioning the ethics of teaching itself.

To provide examples from the journal one of the first entries, entitled “Inevitable? Reflections on

Beating Exam Time Fatigue” it discusses how we can adapt our teaching methods to get maximum

involvement from our students at exam time, demonstrating technical reflection:

[...] As teachers, what can we do to adapt to our students around exam time? One thing I’m certainly not willing to do is have ten students falling asleep in my class, or even one for that matter! So I started reflecting on my lesson planning and the range of activities I used today (I taught exactly the same lesson in exactly the same way as one I taught last week and received a very high assessed score for and had some extremely engaged students) and I came to a few conclusions about what I can do to adapt to my students:

1)    Their attention span is extra super-low, so my instructions have to be shorter and easier to understand. No complicated genius activities on my part!!

2)    Receptive skills (reading and listening) are probably not a good choice; I read to help myself get to sleep when I’m in bed, and on 3 hours sleep I certainly couldn’t concentrate on a 5 minute listening exercise. Perhaps I could have replaced that short description with a picture. Perhaps they could have even chosen the picture from a selection. (Walsh, A. 2012 Inevitable? Reflections on Beating Exam Time Fatigue [online]. August 28 th 2012. Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com See appendix 1 for full entry)

A later post, entitled “Why I Think EFL/ESL Teachers Are Special” resonates with van Manen’s (1977)

level of ‘critical reflection’ in its questioning of the nature of the EFL teaching industry:

[…] We are not bound by the same rules. Often we don’t have national curriculums telling us what we have to teach and how we have to teach it, we’re not bound by cultural stigma that absolutely forces us to teach in a certain way in order to get the educational system higher up the PISA league table and the students into the universities of their choice. Our often lack of accountability in national assessments that will absolutely determine a student’s future allows us to give the students the chance to relax, to express themselves, to be creative, to think divergently, and, most of all, to enjoy themselves while

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learning. Our institutions might not always like it, but if we want to, we can do it.

In the past two weeks my students have watched a wonderful video (Caine’s Arcade, if you haven’t seen it I recommend going to you tube and watching it), they have learnt 8 key expressions and then spent over an hour making comic strips predicting Caine’s future that had to use these 8 expressions. It's such a simple activity, but every student has been awake, actively participating, and I’ve been reliably informed, had a great time. Although I would say this as I'm their teacher and I think they are awesome, it seems to me they produced some really creative and fun work. I asked the students if they have ever made comic strips before, and every one of them answered ‘no’. Second year high school students have never made a comic strip or poster before, as, in the view of the Korean education system, it is not worthwhile. But what can I expect when education systems are, and the ranking they are judged on, reward rote learning over critical and creative thinking? Although there were other less creative methods and less time consuming methods I could have used that would have involved the students both practicing how to use the 8 expressions and creating language, I passionately believe that sometimes, some things, are just more important. What I am trying to get at is that, as their EFL teacher, I can give them this time and opportunity that their other teachers, for one reason or another, simply can’t. This is why we are special, and this is what we need to take advantage of.

This isn’t about me or my students or Korea though; this is about the opportunities I think we have as ESL/EFL teachers throughout the world to do something different. (Walsh, A. 2012 Why I Think EFL/ESL Teachers Are Special [online]. August 28 th 2012. Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com See appendix 1 for full entry)

There is also evidence to suggest the online journal helped develop instructional, curricular

and pedagogical knowledge as well as premise, process and content reflection. Again, to provide

examples, an article entitled “The Confessions of a Grammarphobic ELT”, which is one of the later

journal articles, demonstrates the development of an awareness of premise reflection in pedagogical

knowledge in its discussion as to why teachers grammar knowledge is important, both in terms of the

way students learn and the way we teach:

Over the course of my education I have never been taught why we structure the English language the way we do and my career, meanwhile, has happened to allow me to hide my grammarphobia. The problem is that the longer I’ve hidden it the more fearful of it I've become! A teacher of one month not knowing his grammar, no big deal! A teacher of over 3 years, that is embarrassing! Now, at this point I should probably state that, despite my lack of knowledge, I’ve always tried to be as professional as I can, I will never guess a reason if a student asks me, and I will never just not give them an answer. I always reply with the same answer, “come and see me in the morning, you research it, I’ll research it, and we’ll see if we come up with the same answer.” It definitely does have some negative effects on my teaching though, for example I’m fearful of open and outright error correction, I always try to structure it in a way that avoids me having to explain complex grammar structures as I don’t want to deal with that embarrassment in front of my forty 16 year old students of having absolutely no idea why we use what might be a common structure!

So why have I decided to publicly embarrass myself by openly admitting my grammarphobia? Well, there are a number of reasons; first of all, I think grammar is important, it is something students want to be taught, need to be taught and that I absolutely want to be confident teaching them. If we are professional English language teachers we should be able to confidently explain more than just the common structures of the language. Secondly, I don’t think I’m alone, in fact, I know I’m not alone. I have met many other professionals in the EFL/ESL industry who have the same feelings towards grammar as I have.(Walsh, A. 2012 The Confessions of a Grammarphobic ELT [online]. August 28 th 2012. Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com See appendix 1 for full entry)

To provide a further example an article entitled “Learning from Success: A Lesson for the

Teacher” describes why a lesson that had previously been less successful was adapted into a very

successful lesson, and what could be learnt from this, offering evidence of instructional knowledge and

process reflection:

So why was this activity so successful and what can I learn from it?

1)    Multiple Skills - Allowing the students to work in groups on two tasks, one utilizing English skills

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and the other encouraging creative skills meant that all the students could get involved. If it was purely English based then whoever was the best at English would most likely have taken over the group’s project. In future projects I’m going to use this to really encourage the students to utilize a number of different skills in order to foster participation.

2)    Positive Reinforcement – Allow the students to show their creative talents presented students who may not be confident in their English with an opportunity to show off a bit and receive positive reinforcement for the time and effort they put into their work…(Walsh, A. 2012 Learning from Success: A Lesson for the Teacher [online]. August 28 th 2012. Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com See appendix 1 for full entry)

Although it was time consuming, some real benefits were gained in both my knowledge of,

and skills in, teaching. The process of sitting down and really considering what was happening in my

classroom and why it was happening helped me to develop strategies that could be tested in future

classes. It allowed me to break down how my students learned both individually and collectively.

Although keeping journals has been criticized for its retrospective nature (Hatten & Smith, 1995), I felt

the retrospective nature of the journal better prepared me for ‘reflection-in-action’ (Schön, 1983) during

subsequent classes. I believe this demonstrates the development from being able to reflect-on-action

(Dewey, 1933) to, through practice and increased awareness, being able to reflect-in-action (Schön,

1983), being engaged in the reflective cycle seemed to create a continual progression in my teaching

knowledge and ability. The online journal also proved to be a catalyst in engaging me into a very

supportive, yet challenging professional learning network of teachers, providing both internal (from

myself) and external (from other teachers) reflection (Herring et al, 2004). This ties in neatly with the

benefits of social collaboration highlighted in Schön’s (1983) reflection-on-action. Fendler (2003)

argues a key drawback of journaling is that it can act as a defensive shield, however, by placing the

journal online I was often challenged on my reflections by teachers through the commenting system,

as the following comment regarding an article which explored my critical views on current training

methods exemplifies:

<user B>Okay I'll bite Firstly I think you miss understand what CELTA tries to do. I often compare it to a learning to drive. In my driving lessons I learnt to reverse around a corner, (a skill I have never used since) but I didn't learn to drive on a motorway, (a skill I needed to teach myself.) Initial training courses are exactly like that. Intended to give you an introduction and some basic skills. Secondly you ask - Do the people that design the CELTA and other similar course know my students, my school, my materials or the learning goals of my institution? and say teacher training is training ourselves to improve This implies to me that teacher training should only come from within one specific environment. It is extremely closed minded and not opening the eyes to other environments we can learn from.Thirdly i run a lot of teacher training and I admit that when demoing an activity a lot of it is 'perfect world' scenario. But I also question the participants and challenge them to think how it is best applied to their own teaching environments. (Walsh, A. 2012 Are Current Teacher Training Methods a Waste of Time? [online]. August 28 th 2012.

Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com)

A contrasting comment from a journal entry entitled ‘The Confessions of a Grammarphobic ELT’

exemplifies the supportive nature of the social collaboration:

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Hell, I'm still there. I'm nearly 15 years in, but I still struggle with grammar issues on a regular basis. This is particularly true with my writing classes. There's nowhere to hide when writing. They problems are generally not about what is "correct" or not (of course that's an entirely different conversation), but rather how I can describe the rules for WHY that particular structure is being used.

I feel a lot better now than I did 5 years ago (much less 15!), but I still struggle regularly to provide good rationales for grammar use. I note that 5 years ago was a turning point, though. It was around that time that I realized I didn't have to have all of the answers. I simply began telling students that I didn't know and asked them if they did. Often, our discussions would jar something loose and I'd be able to explain it better, or they would simple offer a good response (these days they are English Ed students). If we couldn't come up with a good answer, I'd do one of two things. (1) Tell them to go figure it out (again, good for use with English Ed students). (2) I'd go figure it out and talk about it in the next class. 5 years ago is when I gave up being the Sage on the stage and started being another blind man feeling his way through the dark world of grammar.

[…] I laugh at anyone who tells me they have mastered grammar (meaning an understanding of the underlying rules for constructing communication in a language). That's a joke. Grammar shifts. It's a changing beast. Regardless of the linguistic camp you are in, one can make the argument that grammar is predictable and consistent, but that is only in the abstract. Usage is a bitch and that is where pragmatics screws everything up so wonderfully.

Don't be afraid of gaps in your ability to explain grammar, but also don't be content. Keep learning and when you think you'll learned it all reconsider what "all" means :-)

(Walsh, A. 2012 The Confessions of a Grammarphobic ELT [online]. August 28 th 2012. Available from World Wide Web : www.alienteachers.com)

Self-monitoring through peer and student feedback also proved to be an invaluable tool for

reflection and development as a teacher. Extracts in the following paragraph show evidence of

process reflection, they are largely concerned with evaluating how successful I was in facilitating

student learning and achieving the course goals. In terms of van Manen’s (1977) levels of reflection,

the student and peer feedback was mainly concentrated in technical reflection with some elements of

practical reflection.

Compared to the online journal there were a number of different benefits and lessons to be

learnt. Firstly, the feedback forms and analysis can be covered in one day, thus it provides a huge

depth of information obtainable in a relatively small amount of time. The students’ feedback also

allowed me to really understand what was happening in the classroom from their perspective, I could

analyse what and how they were learning and in response refine my lesson structures and syllabus

design for the second semester in ways I could not have done otherwise. The student feedback was

used to compile a ‘self-evaluation’ of my performance over the semester, this was split into three

sections; ‘things I need to keep doing’, ‘things I need to start doing’ and finally ‘things I need to stop

doing’. The following are short extracts that I feel exemplify the type of reflection occurring:

From ‘Things I Need to Keep Doing’...

ii) Praising the Students and Displaying Their Work

It has really become apparent to me this year just how important praise is to the students. My girl classes visually show how much they want positive feedback and so it is easy to find opportunities to provide them with positive feedback and praise. At this age boys can’t really be seen to desire positive feedback from the teacher, I think this is especially apparent if the teacher is male. This means it is harder to find opportunities to provide them with positive praise and feedback. From the student feedback it seems I have done this successfully with my first grade boy classes, but not my second grade boy classes. The classes are much larger and the boys are naturally much louder and more boisterous, so it is harder to find opportunities. Next semester I really need to actively find opportunities to provide them with positive feedback.

From ‘Things I Need to Start Doing’…

i) Giving Students More Time to Complete Activities

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Although the students rated me favourably for this it was still one of my lowest scores, and I have to say that on reflection I absolutely agree with them. For the majority of the semester I was at conflict with my institution. They wanted me to teach key expressions every class, I wanted to teach skills. This meant I was trying to fit both into a 50 minute period and the classes felt a bit too rushed. I’ve now reached a compromise with my school; we are going to have spread topics over two classes, meaning half the compulsory amount of expressions and more time for skills. This will hopefully result in the classes being less rushed. It’s amazing just how observant the students are.

And from ‘things I need to stop doing’…

i) Compulsory Homework

Feedback from the students is quite clearly against homework, and on reflection I think they might be right!

Why am I giving them homework? The honest answer is ‘I’m not sure.’ Maybe because it’s what my teacher did when I was at school, maybe because I want them to see my class is serious, maybe it just felt right.

What did I achieve from it? Probably not much, the students who wanted to do it did it, and I hope gained from it (it was usually to interview someone, in English, on the topic we had done in class), but by forcing students to do it who didn’t want to meant that all they were probably doing was either copying their friends answers or making it up. Next semester I will make students aware of the reasons for doing the homework, but make it optional. This will also mean I have fewer to grade and so can do a more thorough job.

(Walsh, 2012. Unpublished. For full report see appendix 2)

On reflection, one area that could benefit further examination is the need for more time spent

critically evaluating the relevance of what was happening in my classroom in reference to published

resources and theory. Although the comments from other educators around the world introduced new

ideas into my teaching, relating my reflections to such materials could have greatly enhanced the

scope of my reflections and learning.

5) Implementation of the Reflective Strategies

Although I have no doubt that the reflective strategies used made a significant difference to

the knowledge and skills I use every day in teaching as well as syllabus and curriculum design, and

that these strategies could, potentially, benefit other teachers across District (A) Office of Education,

there are practical difficulties that will need to be overcome before implementing such strategies. One

major difficulty is training, research by Killeavy & Maloney (2010) on student teachers keeping online

journals concluded that “teachers used the blog as a diary rather than as a reflective journal”

(2010:1072). Without adequate training teachers could simply end describing what is happening in

their classroom, void of any evaluation. Before starting this project I had prior knowledge of reflective

practice as I attend regular RPSIG (Reflective Practice Special Interest Group Meetings) and have

previously engaged in reflective practice, however most of the teachers working for District (A) Office

of Education are likely to have received little or no training in reflective practice techniques.

Without adequate training as to the benefits of reflective practice motivation could also be an

issue. The journal required several hours every week, such a commitment would require self

motivation on the part of the teachers. Also, it is extremely difficult for such techniques to be monitored

or assessed. Issues such as the above could, however, be alleviated through regular workshops.

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These would give teachers a chance to discuss what they have learnt from their reflective practices,

as well as work on techniques used in reflective practice. This would also help avoid the confusion

highlighted by Kumaravadivelu, (2001), Fendler, (2003) and Akbari (2007) regarding what and how

they should be reflecting, as previously discussed in section 2.1. Such a support group would also

help avoid the instigation of defence mechanisms Fendler (2003) believes can transpire in reflective

journals.

Self-monitoring through student and peer feedback, on the other hand, would require less

specialised knowledge of reflective techniques and would only need to be conducted once a semester,

making it much more accessible to teachers than reflective journals. It is also more clear to teachers

what the practical benefits of it are and more easily monitored by District (A) Office of Education. If,

however, it was to be monitored teachers would have to be reassured that the feedback is in no way a

performance assessment by District (A) Office of Education as, if teachers feel it is, it may produce

anxiety and stress for the teacher that would not be conducive to the reflective process. Keeping the

data private could overcome issues regarding teacher confidence.

In completing this report I have no doubt that the implementation of reflective strategies could

play a major role in the professional development of teachers in District (A) Office of Education.

However, before implementation, more research needs to be carried out. My suggestions for further

research include asking individual teachers, preferably with no experience in reflective practice, to try

different reflective strategies and to evaluate whether they felt an improvement in their ability to

perform their job, as well as looking at the level of reflection they were able to achieve. Research

would also need to be carried out to assess the amount of time teachers feel would be reasonable for

an investment in reflective practice. Furthermore, if time and money are to be invested in such a

project, it is important to ask the students if they noticed a difference in the effectiveness of the lessons

on both a micro, individual level and on a macro syllabus level, or if they noticed a positive difference

in the teacher’s classroom technique. Research also needs to be conducted on a cross-section of

students, as, for example, elementary students may not be mature enough to provide constructive

feedback for self-monitoring. Akbari (2007) notes that reflective practice does not, necessarily, lead to

better learning outcomes for students. Such research is imperative as students are, after all, the

reason we teach.

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Bibliography

Akbari, R. (2007). Reflections on reflection: A critical appraisal of reflective practices in L2 teacher education. Science Direct. 35 (1), 192-207.

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Farrell, T. (2011). Exploring the professional role identities of experience ESL teachers through reflective practice. Science Direct. 39 (1), 54-62.

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Killeavy, M & Moloney, A. (2010). Reflection in a social space: Can blogging support reflective practice for beginning teachers?. Teacher and Teacher Education. 26 (1), 1070-1076.

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Kreber, C & Cranton, P. (2000). Exploring the Scholarship of Teaching. The Journal of Higher Education. 4 (4), 476-495.

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Lee, I. (2007). Preparing pre-service English teachers for reflective practice. ELT Journal 61.4, 321–329.

Liou, H. (2001). Reflective Practice in a per-service teacher education program for high school English teachers in Taiwan, ROC. Science Direct. 29 (1), 197-208.

Mansvelder-Longayroux, D. D., D. Biejaard & N. Verloop (2007). The portfolio as a tool for stimulatingreflection by student teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education 23, 47–62.

Mezirow, J (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Middleton, M., Abrams, E & Seaman, J. (2011). Resistance and Disidentification in Reflective Practice with Preservice Teaching Interns. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 126 (1), 67-75.

Orr, K & Simmons R. (2011). The work based learning experience of trainee teachers in English further education colleges. Journal of Workplace Learning. 23 (4), 243-257.

Richards, J. (Unknown). Towards Reflective Teaching. Available: http://www.tttjournal.co.uk/uploads/file/back_articles/towards_reflective_teaching.pdf. Last accessed 28th Aug 2012.

Richards, J. & T. Farrell (2005). Professional development for language teachers: strategies for teacher learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking. Teachers College Record. 104 (1), 1-18.

Rodgers, C. (2002). Seeing Student Learning: Teacher Change and the Role of Reflection. Harvard Educational Review. 72 (2), 1-14.

Rodgers, C. (2006). Attending to Student Voice: The Impact of Descriptive Feedback on Learning and Teaching. Curriculum Inquiry. 36 (1), 209-237.

Rodgers, C & Raider-Roth, M. (2006). Reflective Practice in the Professional Development of Teachers of Adult English Language Learners. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. 12 (3), 265-287.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: NY: Basic Books.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Towards a new design for teaching and learning in the profession. San Francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass.

Shoffer, M. (2011). Considering the first year: reflection as a means to address beginning teachers' concerns. Teachers and Teaching. 17 (4), 417-433.

van Manen, M. (1977). Linking Ways of Knowing with ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry. 6 (1), 205-228.

van Manen, M (1991). The tact of teaching: The meaning of pedagogical thoughtfulness. New York: State University of New York Press.

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Wang, C & King, K. (2006). Understanding Mezirow's Theory of Reflectivity from Confucian Perspective: A Model and Perspective. Radical Pedagogy. 8 (1), 1-11.

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Wolfensberger, B et al.. (2010). The challenge of involvement in reflective teaching: Three case studies from a teacher education prject on conducting classroom discussions on socio-scientific issues. Teacher and Teacher Education. 26 (1), 714-721.

Wright, T. (2010). Second language teacher education: Review of recent research on practice. Language Teaching. 43 (3), 259-296.

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Appendix 1 – Full Journal Articles: Comments removed for confidentiality.

The Confessions of a Grammarphobic ELT06/21/201224 Comments

I have a confession to make, I’ve been hiding it for about 3 1/3 years, but it’s time I got it off my chest, my knowledge of grammar is absolutely terrible, just awful. Yep, that’s right, I’ve been teaching EFL for over 3 years and yet my knowledge of English grammar is appalling. Just to be safe I think I should clarify exactly what I mean here, by lack of knowledge I mean that similar to most native speakers, I know what's wrong and what's right, I just don't know why!  Now, before you judge let me make my excuses! To start with, I was never taught any outright grammar at school, and even if my English teacher tried (which I genuinely don’t think she did) I probably wasn’t listening, as I would have had no interest! From there I did my BSc Sociology & Criminology, all essay based, all essays were completed on a word processor that corrected my grammar for me, and beyond swearing at my computer for telling me I’d produced yet another fragment I just went with it and didn’t question it. 

My first classroom based teaching job was teaching elementary level students in an academy for a year, my grammar did improve a bit over the course of that year. I then did my CELTA, again my grammar improved a fair bit, however well I tried to hide my lack of grammar knowledge (I somehow swindled only doing two assessed classes that involved teaching grammar) my tutor did pick up on it, and I was told it was the reason for being given a ‘pass B’ instead of a ‘pass A’. From there, I’ve taught high school for two years in a system where not only am I not expected to, but I am discouraged from explicitly teaching grammar. That is the job of the Korean teachers, and they do a mighty fine job of it, my god they know some incredible grammar rules I would never have even been able to guess existed! I’m now coming towards the end of my M.A TESOL, which has focused much more on methodology and issues in teaching ESL/EFL than outright grammar, as (in my opinion) we shouldn't need an M.A course to teach us grammar.

Over the course of my education I have never been taught why we structure the English language the way we do and my career, meanwhile, has happened to allow me to hide my grammarphobia. The problem is that the longer I’ve hidden it the more fearful of it I've become! A teacher of one month not knowing his grammar, no big deal! A teacher of over 3 years, that is embarrassing! Now, at this point I should probably state that, despite my lack of knowledge, I’ve always tried to be as professional as I can, I will never guess a reason if a student asks me, and I will never just not give them an answer. I always reply with the same answer, “come and see me in the morning, you research it, I’ll research it, and we’ll see if we come up with the same answer.” It definitely does have some negative effects on my teaching though, for example I’m fearful of open and outright error correction, I always try to structure it in a way that avoids me having to explain complex grammar structures as I don’t want to deal with that embarrassment in front of my forty 16 year old students of having absolutely no idea why we use what might be a common structure!

So why have I decided to publicly embarrass myself by openly admitting my grammarphobia? Well, there are a number of reasons, first of all, I think grammar is important, it is something students want to be taught, need to be taught and that I absolutely want to be confident teaching them. If we are professional English language teachers we should be able to confidently explain more than just the common structures of the language. Secondly, I don’t think I’m alone, in fact, I know I’m not alone. I have met many other professionals in the EFL/ESL industry who have the same feelings towards grammar as I have. Thirdly, I’m considering changing jobs in the next year or so, well I’m considering moving countries actually. When and if I do I want to be as confident as possible in every aspect of my teaching, including grammar. But the main reason I’ve chosen to admit this now is that I have a one month holiday coming up, in which time I will have no studying towards my M.A TESOL to do, no lessons to plan, no syllabus to write and probably no blogging to do! I will have a lot of time sat on various planes, busses cars and trains though, so I want to use that time productively, I want to improve my grammar. 

This brings me to the point of this blog; I would like to know how you improved your grammar knowledge? I’m sure most native teachers, when they enter the industry, have relatively poor knowledge, so how did you go about improving yours? What tips would you give me? As native speakers are there efficient ways of improving our knowledge? Do you think it's important for us, as English language teachers, to have a good knowledge of English grammar? Can we call ourselves professionals if we don't?

We have one month to turn this grammarphobic teacher into a grammar genius! I’m ready and willing to take on any advice you have!

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24 Comments

At what point, if ever, is it right to implement an English only classroom?06/19/20125 Comments

At what point, if ever, is it right to implement an English only classroom?

Over the course of my career this is a question I’ve never been quite sure about, but luckily up until now it's been a decision that's been out of my hands! I'm now, however, in a position where I’m wondering whether trying to introduce an English only classroom is the right thing to do, and I need your help! I started off my career, as many in Korea did, working in an academy that brought in students by promising a completely immersed English environment for the students. The benefits and necessity for an immersive environment was something I just took for granted at the time, it just seemed like the right thing to do. 

After leaving the immersive academy environment I became a high school teacher, and suddenly going from 8 very cute 7 year olds in a class to 40 mature teenagers/immature adults (depending on the day!) in a class meant I had a lot more to worry about than a completely immersive English atmosphere. Quite honestly I didn’t have the classroom management skills or subject knowledge to start trying to introduce such a scheme. I’m now three years down the line, I’ve figured out my classroom management skills, subject knowledge and range of activities that can keep students interested, and I’m blessed with, on the most part, high level students. The objective of my students first semester was to build their confidence in participating in the classroom, I’m quite comfortable this has, on the most part, been achieved, and so I feel like I’m at a point where, at the start of next semester, I could comfortably introduce an English only classroom, but I’m not sure if I want to.

My current conflicting view on the topic is something like this, as long as the students are focused and motivated allowing the students to communicate in Korean helps them to help each other generate new language, I see this happening every day, I also believe that by having the freedom to check in Korean with their partner or group it encourages them to use vocabulary they might not be sure about, thus increasing confidence and willingness to volunteer in class during feedback. It also allows the students to explain activities to the student next to them who was too tired to pay attention. This all sounds great, until the little TEFL devil on my other shoulder starts making me consider the benefits of an English only classroom. By encouraging (in reality probably forcing) the students to constantly use English, although it might be difficult for them at first, they might do all the above in English, this would provide huge benefits. They would be creating and using massive amounts of English, suddenly activities such as making comics are about more than using the key expressions learnt in class, but the organization of roles in the group, even simply asking each other to borrow coloring pens becomes a production activity in itself. This, in turn, would help build confidence for using English outside the classroom, but then again, this could isolate the lower level students and really hinder their improvement if the other students feel uncomfortable using Korean to guide them in activities.

This feels like one of those lists you make when you’re 15 years old trying to decide whether to breakup with your girlfriend! Well here is mine:

Reasons for breaking up with Korean

-       If successful it would result in my students producing a lot more language.

-       Could increase students’ confidence outside of class.

-       It would encourage my coteachers to speak more English in class, something I’ve been wanting for a long time.

-       It encourages the students to think in English.

Reasons for staying with Korean

-       But would the language simply be language they already know and are comfortable with?

-       Some students might say nothing at all with an English only classroom.

-       If my coteachers ONLY speak English in class, it could prohibit them from picking up on misunderstandings my students have.

-       In real communication in a second language, many argue it is normal to translate from your first language to the target language in your head, so why not practice this in class?

So, I guess I'm really looking for some advice/suggestions, as I'm really struggling with this. I would absolutely love any comments, especially regarding these questions:

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What do you think I should do? Why?Do you encourage an English only classroom? Why or why not?Have I missed a vital point that could help me make my decisions?

Don't forget you can follow me on twitter @AlexSWalsh

References:For quite a balanced and well researched overview please see :http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/rcd/BE019020/Reexamining_English_Only.pdf5 Comments

Why I Think EFL/ESL Teachers Are Special06/13/20125 Comments

Tonight I am angry, I mean really angry. I’m angry because something is fundamentally wrong with the many of the education systems in which we now work or experienced when we were young. Exam time is yet again here, and again I’m seeing the effect it is having on my students. To try and give anyone who hasn’t taught in Korea some kind of idea as to the effects their workload and academic routines have on them; at least five of my students were, today, so exhausted that their eyes were swollen. Their eyes were swollen to the stage where they could barely see, beautiful young adults looked like they had been hit in the eyes by tennis balls.  If you walk around any high school in South Korea all you will see are droves of students passed out on their desks (before lessons, during lessons and after lessons) literally unable to keep themselves conscious. But, without a doubt, the most distressful result of the system in which they are a part of, is that, and this is so awful I find it difficult to type, two students from my school have had what were officially recorded as ‘accidents’ this semester, These ‘accidents’ cost them their lives, anyone who is aware of the problems Korea faces knows what 'accident' could really mean, I don’t know for sure one way or the other, but what is a fact is that one teenager a day loses their life due to suicide in Korea. Yes, this is the education system in which I work. It is an extreme, and as any teacher in this system will tell you, it is something that can be difficult for us to deal with, but not half as difficult as it is for our students.

But the reason I am really, really, angry is, officially, according to the world educational ranking, I work in the number 1 educational system in the world. That’s right; according to The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) South Korea is the number 1 ranked educational system in the world. According to The Guardian newspaper PISA “is highly respected across the globe, and enables politicians and policy-makers to assess how different country's education systems compare.” If this system is the benchmark that others strive to achieve, surely we are failing the youth of the world on a global scale? Surely something is wrong? And yes, Korea is an extreme, but I don’t think it’s alone in the failing of its youth.

So what has this got to do with ESL/EFL teachers and why do I think we’re special? I think we’re special because often (but not always) we are not bound by the same rules. Often we don’t have national curriculums telling us what we have to teach and how we have to teach it, we’re not bound by cultural stigma that absolutely forces us to teach in a certain way in order to get the educational system higher up the PISA league table and the students into the universities of their choice. Our often lack of accountability in national assessments that will absolutely determine a students future allows us to give the students the chance to relax, to express themselves, to be creative, to think divergently, and, most of all, to enjoy themselves while learning. Our institutions might not always like it, but if we want to, we can do it.

In the past two weeks my students have watched a wonderful video (Caine’s Arcade, if you haven’t seen it I recommend going to you tube and watching it), they have learnt 8 key expressions and then spent over an hour making comic strips predicting Caine’s future that had to use these 8 expressions. It's such a simple activity, but every student has been awake, actively participating, and I’ve been reliably informed, had a great time. Although I would say this as I'm their teacher and I think they are awesome, it seems to me they produced some really creative and fun work. I asked the students if they have ever made comic strips before, and every one of them answered ‘no’. Second year high school students have never made either a comic strip or poster before, as, in the view of the Korean education system. But what can I expect when education systems are and the ranking they are judged reward rote learning over critical and creative thinking? Although there were other less creative methods and less time consuming methods I could have used that would have involved the students both practicing how to use the 8 expressions and creating language, I passionately believe that sometimes, some things, are just more important. What I am trying to get at is that, as their EFL teacher, I can give them this time and opportunity that their other

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teachers, for one reason or another, simply can’t. This is why we are special, and this is what we need to take advantage of.

This isn’t about me or my students or Korea though; this is about the opportunities I think we have as ESL/EFL teachers throughout the world to do something different. 

But, I think it is important for me to categorically say that I am not saying this to take anything away from our colleagues in the mainstream public education systems who are teaching to national curriculums, or teachers in academies who are having to force information into students to get them through their standardized robotic national examinations, they are absolutely special in their own right, one that I appreciate whole heartedly. If it wasn’t for them, and particularly one called Keith Hodgson, I wouldn’t be a teacher now. In fact, without him, I wouldn’t even have any A-Levels now as the education system and me did not get along too well, and if it wasn’t for the teachers in the school in which I work who do absolutely everything they feel possible to help the students through such a torrid system then my students’ lives could be much worse off.

I know not every ESL/EFL teacher has the freedom I have, but if you do, please, EFL/ESL teachers, use this special opportunity and freedom we have to help our students broaden and expand their minds and personalities in ways other teachers simply don’t have the opportunity to. This is what makes us so special, so let’s use it.

What do you think about the education systems around the world? What can we do to help our students through such a difficult and painful system? I welcome and appreciate any comments below. 

You can follow me on twitter @AlexSWalsh

You can see the comics from my first class that has finished them below.

References & Sources:http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/01/17/2012011700696.html http:// www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html5 Comments

Are Current Teacher Training Methods in ESL/EFL a Waste of Time?05/31/201213 Comments

This morning I got a text message from a friend attending a ‘teacher training’ conference that resonated with a lot of my experiences with ‘teacher training’:

“guess what? Yet again all the activities they are telling us to do are for high level, motivated kids, what a surprise”

Personally I’ve had very mixed experiences with teacher training, only last week I had a great experience (thanks to @michaelgriffin), but more than its fair share has, unfortunately, been very negative. I feel that ELT as an industry suffers from genuinely believing that there is a ‘best way’ of teaching, and that many of the training courses, such as the CELTA (which I will probably unfairly focus on here as it is the benchmark of entry level teaching qualifications and something I have firsthand knowledge of), compulsory teacher training workshops and ‘assessed lessons’ amplify this problem.

From my experience it seemed to me the entire point of the CELTA and similar courses was to train teachers to teach in a certain way, to lesson plan in a certain way, and to deal with students in a certain way. You are set up with a group of no more than 20 adult students and asked to deliver a lesson that allows the examiner to tick a certain number of boxes and then tell you afterwards in the ‘feedback’ session which boxes you did or didn’t tick and why. Well that’s great and I learnt a lot of great techniques, if for the rest of my career I'm going to be in exactly the same situation. But how about when you leave your one month training course and the teaching methods you’ve been trained to use don’t work? What about if your first job is in a public school with 35 1st grade Korean elementary students? And, what if I didn’t tick those boxes? Does that make me a bad teacher that doesn’t deserve an entry level qualification? I could have a very good reason for wanting to deal with a situation differently to my CELTA instructor, but that wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t have been the ‘CELTA way’, at least this was my experience.

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It’s not that I necessarily dislike the CELTA or other similar course, or that I don’t think they teach some excellent techniques for teaching in certain contexts, but it, as all training courses, have a responsibility to make it absolutely clear to the participants that this is ONE way of teaching, not THE way of teaching. These highly regarded qualifications are completely misguiding their customers and the industry in sending them away from the course with the belief they have just learnt the right way to teach, and there is no wonder this misinformed idea is then getting passed on to other training seminars such as the one my friend has attended above and I’m sure almost every other teacher in the industry has attended at some point. For me, what these courses have a responsibility to do is encourage reflective and post-modern practice as being absolutely essential to the teachers’ further development once they leave the course, and this is where they are shirking their responsibility.

Reflective practice encourages teachers to question what they are doing in the classroom and why they are doing it. By doing this it helps teachers find their own answers, become their own expert and develop their own pedagogy to fit their context. Something I’ve really enjoyed about my M.A course (with University of Nottingham) is that it has never suggested that there is a best way to teach, but has challenged us to consider our own teaching beliefs. For me, if a teacher can become competent in reflective practice they will continually develop and improve. I was lucky enough to attend a reflective workshop seminar with Dr. Thomas Farrell last month in which he challenged us to question how we teach and why we teach the way we do, he had us question the very concept of method and even (but this was beyond me) second language acquisition. It helped us draw on all the knowledge we have as teachers, knowledge from our classroom, knowledge from reading blogs, knowledge from training courses, knowledge from research and knowledge from our instincts and experiences to create and continually develop our own pedagogy. We were encouraged to try new things, who cares if they weren’t in a trainers ‘core’ textbook, if it doesn’t work at least you tried it and can learn form it.

I think my feelings and experiences strongly resonate with Kumaravadivelu (2012) when he described the methods such teacher training courses, compulsory workshops and assessed lessons advocate as being’ 

“non location-specific, not derived from their classroom; it is artificially transplanted into it; it can not be implemented as is”. 

We are the only people that really know our true teaching context, and so for me teacher training should be about training ourselves to improve ourselves, it literally drives me mad to be at compulsory workshops such as the one my friend was at today with someone I have never met preaching to me what I should be doing with my students that he or she has never met. I absolutely agree with the work of Kumaravadivelu (2012) and the 5 statements he makes about current teacher training:

a) any meaningful, context-sensitive pedagogic knowledge can emerge only from the classroom;

b) it is the practicing teacher who is well placed to produce and apply that knowledge;

c) current approaches to language teacher education are mostly aimed at preparing teachers to become consumers, not producers, of pedagogic knowledge;

d) the fast evolving global society with its incessant and increased flow of peoples, goods and ideas across the world is placing huge responsibilities on the shoulders of student teachers, practicing teachers and teacher educators; and therefore;

e) we need to re-view and re-vision language teacher education if we are serious about helping language teaching professionals become strategic thinkers, exploratory researchers and transformative intellectuals.(Kumaravadivelu, 2012).

Do the people that design the CELTA and other similar courses know my students, my school, my materials or the learning goals of my institution? I believe teacher training should concentrate on providing the skills for teachers to create their own pedagogy, not follow that of others. Courses such as the CELTA and compulsory training sessions such as the above can undoubtedly and essentially increase a teachers’ knowledge as to the options available to them as teachers, but they are shirking their responsibility to the industry by failing to inform the participants that this is only one way of doing things, not necessarily the right way of doing things.

What have your experiences of teacher training been? Do you think we need to develop the way we look at teacher training or have I been waaaaaay to harsh? I welcome all comments!

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If you like, or I guess dislike, this, you can follow me on twitter @AlexSWalsh

01/06/12 - Some minor edits as I feel I had unfairly tarred optional teachers conferences, paid for training courses and compulsory teacher training workshops with the same brush. For me, optional conferences are exactly that, they are a chance for teachers to choose to hear another teachers opinion on a certain topic and learn from that, and as such I should have distinguished them as separate from paid for training courses and compulsory seminars/workshops throughout this blog.

References: Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012a) Language Teacher Education for a Global Society: a modular model for knowing, analyzing, recognizing, doing, and seeing. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012b) The Word and the World. Marcoele Revisita de Didáctica [online]. 14: 1 - 9. Available at http://marcoele.com/descargas/14/kumaravadivelu-interview.pdf13 Comments

If You Don't Ask You Don't Get! Embracing The Small Changes05/30/20121 Comment

Random tediously linked to my blog picture of the day!Yesterday I had a frustrating day, I was tired after a long weekend, my class didn’t go well and I felt at conflict with my school regarding what my students should focusing on in my English class. Today, in comparison, has been a dream! Alright maybe not a dream, but certainly a success! Some small changes with some big effects have been made that I have learnt a lot from, and I would like to share them as I think they could help deal with problems all teachers have faced, are facing or will face at some point!

Change 1 – Dealing with my lesson planning

The Problem:

To give some context, my students are currently doing a lesson that involves learning some key expressions (more about this later!), the main task was to listen for the expressions in a video and put the sentences containing the expressions in the order they heard them. They were then asked to match the expressions with their meaning using the context of the sentences they had in front of them and what they saw in the video. Before the task we drilled the expressions so they could recognize the pronunciation, and then went into the video, checked their ordering and students tried to match the expressions with their meanings using the context of the sentences and what they had seen in the film to help them. When it came to the students matching the expressions with their meanings I got that feeling that awful feeling teachers get when they know something just isn't working as planned. After the class I figured there must be some kind of problem with the structure of the lesson for the students not to understand the context of the expressions, when really we didn’t think they should be able to. My co teacher and I spent a good hour trying to rearrange the activities, we thought about changing the order of activities, removing activities, or even introducing new ones to help with the scaffolding, but nothing seemed to us as any better than what we had. We ended up making no changes as we didn't see how we had time in the lesson to introduce more activities that could provide any more support than we already had.

The Change:

When I came to work this morning I still couldn’t figure it out, and then during the first class I made a tiny change. A student asked me a question during the video part that resulted in me pausing the video and rewinding it to let them rehear what was said, which gave me an idea. After each expression was said, I paused the video, asked the students what they heard, and rewound the video 30 seconds so they could hear and see it in the context again, and voila, this simple change had allowed even my lowest level students to be able to understand the contexts and match the expressions with their meanings after the video. The difference in level of understanding was massive. On reflection I can see that this provided them with the extra level of context during the film, especially by rewinding and giving the students another chance to listen and see the expression being used.

The Realisation:

Perhaps this was something a more experienced teacher would have done automatically, but I didn’t want

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to ruin the flow of a fantastic short film. But it got me thinking, how often, when that lesson I thought was perfectly planned but didn’t flow as expected, could I have just made a minor tweak to it and fixed the problem? Often, no matter how meticulous our planning is, lessons just don’t flow how we expect, when this happens I suggest we start off looking at the little things we can change. Often the structure of our lessons are probably fine, we are professionals at what we do after all, and perhaps with just a little tweak things will just come together. It also serves as another stark reminder as to the importance of scaffolding, but that’s something for another blog.

Change 2 – Dealing with my Institution (sorry, this is turning into a really long blog!)

The Problem:

Again, to give you some context, I have felt a growing conflict between my beliefs as a teacher in the Korean public education system and the expectations my school has of me, this is certainly something I expect a lot of EFL/ESL teachers feel at some point. I strongly believe that, given the limited time I have with students (roughly 22 hours over the course of the year) the most effective role I can have is to help develop my students skills in using and, especially, communicating in the English language. I think that after 10 years in the Korean school system there isn't any grammar I can teach they don’t already know, or a useful amount of vocabulary I can teach in the given time period. For me, my students need to chance to use this grammar, to create language and to explore just what they are capable of doing the knowledge they have. My school sees things differently; they would like me to teach key expressions to the students as they feel it is necessary to give the students a written and listening test, and so I’ve found myself spending almost all my time helping students to understand key expressions that, if I’m honest, I don’t think will be useful to them and I think could be taught in Korean. It’s been frustrating! 

The Change:

Last night as I went to bed I had HUGE plans!!! I was going to prepare a PowerPoint to help me explain my points, I was going to suggest that the school scraps the listening and writing test on our classes and that we do away with key expressions unless they are needed to understand an activity as well as many other changes. Instead I bottled it (which on reflection is definitely a good thing) and I spoke informally with the head of English, explained my concerns regarding the students’ development and how I felt the students could gain a lot more from my classes than just doing well in a test. She expressed her concern that if we didn't have a listening test students would not be as prepared for the university entrance exams as they could be. We ended up compromising that we will make the lessons cover two classes instead of one, we keep the keep expressions for that theme int he first class and in the second class (week 2) we would focus on the skills I had suggested.  This was a much smaller change than I had wanted, but one I think is going to make a huge difference for my students and keeps everyone happy. 

The Realisation:

As teachers we all have our students’ best interests at heart. If we really feel strongly enough that our students can benefit from a small change then there’s no harm in asking, the worst that can happen is our institutions ignore us. I guess what I'm saying is, if we really think our students are suffering and we can explain why to those who make the decisions, there's every chance they might agree and compromise. Admittedly I am lucky with the co-teachers I have and their attitude towards change, but I think it's maybe a common mistake we make (especially in Korea) that there is a conflict of beliefs with our institution and that fighting for change just isn't worth the hassle, but perhaps with a little nudge and compromise we can get what's best for our students, or at least something we believe is closer to it. I think the best conclusion I can make is a tweet from an amazingly knowledgeable and experienced professor I follow on twitter (@seouldaddy): 

“@AlexSWalsh In some situations, to be a good teacher is to be a rebel....of course, rebels are often executed.”

Luckily this time I wasn't!

Have you had any similar experiences in dealing with conflicts in teaching beliefs? If so I would love to hear any tips you could share! Also, how do you deal with those lessons that just don't feel right? It would be great to share any tips you might have!1 Comment

Learning from Success: A Lesson for the Teacher05/18/20120 Comments

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My past couple of posts have been reflecting on things that haven’t been going quite so well for me and my students and focusing on ways to improve them in the future. This week my students have managed to completely blow my expectations out of the water (and I have very high expectations) and while I was showing my students talents off via twitter I got a really lovely reply from @SophiaKhan4 (a must follow for any EFL/ESL teacher) that got me thinking about and then reflecting on how the task had been much more beneficial than first intended, and how I could use the success of this activity in the future.

The task was quite simple, we had been working on vocabulary related to tourist attractions in class and the students had been asked to work in groups to make travel guides for a tourist attraction of their choice using the expressions we had studied in class. To accompany the tourist guide they were asked, for homework, to make a poster for the tourist attraction of their choosing. Encouraging creativity is something that I think is very important and I hoped this would give the students a chance to express just how creative they could be. They would then present their tourist guide along with the poster to the class and the group that did the best job would be guaranteed to get their poster put up on the back wall of my classroom. I made the students aware that I had very high expectations, that the coloured A3 paper had been bought especially for them, and that I was really looking forward to them making me proud with some beautiful posters to go with their travel guides. Here is a selection of the posters one class produced.So why was this activity so successful and what can I learn from it?

1)    Multiple Skills - Allowing the students to work in groups on two tasks, one utilizing English skills and the other encouraging creative skills meant that all the students could get involved. If it was purely English based then whoever was the best at English would most likely have taken over the group’s project. In future projects I’m going to use this to really encourage the students to utilize a number of different skills in order to foster participation.

2)    Positive Reinforcement – Allow the students to show their creative talents presented students who may not be confident in their English with an opportunity to show off a bit and receive positive reinforcement for the time and effort they put into their work. Often it seems as though students may have not put as much time and effort in as other students as the quality of their work isn’t as high, and so they might not receive as much positive reinforcement. By allowing students to utilize other skills it gives them a chance to demonstrate that they are also enthusiastic about the class.

3)    Complete Participation - Every student had to speak, even if it was just one sentence. I have a couple of classes with one or two super low level students (don’t know the alphabet kind of students). Before their presentation my co-teacher and I made a deal with them, if they helped the group by preparing one or two sentences we would practice these with them beforehand. When it came to presenting not only did they seem extremely satisfied to have spoken some English in front of their peers, but their peers realized it is possible for everyone to be involved in classes. Moving forwards this indicates to the rest of the class that these students want to be involved, and the positive reinforcement they got from their surprised class mates at the level of their involvement indicates the class wants them involved. For me it showed how with the right scaffolding in place I can successfully get all the students involved with every activity. It also removes excuses for students not to participate in class as they have all demonstrated that they con both contribute and speak at least some English.

4)    Expectations - When I setup up the activity I told the students that I had to ask the school for permission to do the creative work in their English class, and that I had promised the English department the posters would be really beautiful, and that this means if we want to do creative projects in English class again the posters and tourist guides to go with them have to be really fantastic, otherwise we might not be allowed to do these activities again (in other words there was a slight exaggeration of the truth!) I also made the classes aware that I have been extremely impressed with all the work they have done so far this year, but this was their chance to show the other teachers how great their work is. Making students aware of high expectations definitely seemed to give them a benchmark to aim for and encourage them to try their absolute best.

5)    Peer Evaluation – The students knew from the outset that they weren’t going to be presenting to me, but to their classmates. As one group presented the audience (the class) had a grading sheet (they chose in the class before what the categories would be) and they would then vote for the winner, who would receive stamps and have their poster put on the back wall. Using the peer evaluation had two effects, it made sure that the students were listening and engaging in each others presentations, but it also created competitiveness amongst the students that led to better results. This has got me thinking about other opportunities for peer evaluation, such as with homework; although this definitely needs some more thought (any ideas regarding this are extremely welcome).

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Finally, this project has demonstrated to me the importance of reflecting on our successes. Without breaking down what it was that made this quite simple activity such a success this week, and from that learning how I can use the techniques that came together to make this such a success in the future for other activities, neither myself nor my students would be gaining the real benefits of their hard work. 

I would really love to hear any other tips you could share from your experiences on how to really get the most out of group/presentation activities, such as how to set up the activities, motivating the students to get involved and to do their best in group work, and also, something I think I need to improve, how you go about giving feedback to the students or any other tips you would like to share.

Also, you can follow me on twitter @AlexSWalsh :-)Add Comment

The Reflections of My Disgruntled High School Students – A Path to Success?05/08/201221 Comments

In March this year I transferred employers and so I also had to transfer to a different high school. The high school I moved to is one of the most prestigious in Seoul, and as such I consider myself lucky to have some of the highest level students in Korea, they are motivated, polite, respectful and active in every class. They have mostly adapted to my teaching style well and seemed to have enjoyed the range of activities they have been provided with. There has, however, been one class that have not responded well, and over the eight weeks we have entered into a vicious circle of disrespect, disobedience and then punishment, which in turn has lead to more disrespect and so the circle continues. I’ve been reassured by my co-teachers that this isn’t something I should worry about, that my other 18 classes are really happy, that this particular class also has problems with all their other subjects and that their Korean English teacher had to change last year due to the stress of teaching them. I still, however, found myself leaving school every Tuesday with the feeling that not only was I failing the students, but I was failing them more and more every week as the cycle continued.

I decided this week I had to try and break this cycle, for my sake as much as the students. So I started thinking of how I could do this. My co-teachers had made some great suggestions, such as trying to bond with them more and develop rapport by either playing games for a class or taking them in a treat, but this just didn’t sit well with me as I strongly believe these are things that need to be earned, and I wanted to get beyond the carrot and stick approach. I eventually decided to have an intervention reflection style meeting with the students, I was going to ask them to reflect on the class and, in doing so, I hoped they would realise that despite how it seemed, they are just as important to me as all my other students. By treating them like the young adults they are (2nd grade high school) and giving them the respect that comes with this I was optimistic we could come together to reach a respectful agreement as to how we can move forwards as a class. I decided that no matter what complaints they made about the class and myself, I would respect them and neither disagree nor argue. If they told me, for example, they cannot complete activities as my instructions are not clear enough, I would not point out that much lower level 1st grade classes are able to understand the instructions and complete the activities, so why can’t they?! The questions I posed to the students were:

1) Respect – How can I respect them more? How can they respect me more? What would the result be?

2) Problems and Issues – What problems do they have, what are the solutions? What problems do they think I have, what are the solutions?

3) Moving Forwards – What can they achieve? How can we help each other to achieve it?

I removed all the tables and created a circle of chairs (see pic below) in order to encourage the students to get involved. I started off by asking them why they thought they were sat in a circle like this. The students very quickly figured out it was something to do with the problems we had been having in class.

We then moved onto respect, I asked them to think of two ways they thought I had been disrespectful to them and vice-versa. They came up with some interesting answers, from themselves they identified sleeping, not listening to instructions, being late for class, not doing homework and not taking the class seriously, from myself they felt I had not listened to them enough, that I take the class too seriously and that my classes were too ‘tight’. I was reasonably happy about this response, although I consider myself an extremely friendly and approachable teacher I think that in my attempts to correct the behaviour of this

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class I have become a bit more cold and stern towards them than I am in my than other classes. Regarding the ‘tight’ issue, I feel this is due to cultural expectations in the Korean education system of the role of the native English speaking ‘teacher’ as an entertainer, not an educator that takes their students learning very seriously. Something I try very strongly to disprove!

We then moved onto problems and issues. To begin with this descended into exactly what I didn’t want; the highlighting of problems (or more like excuses) that didn’t explain why they are the only class in the school that do not participate in lessons, such as not being able to understand instructions, that conversation class should just be for playing games and gaining their interest in English (this was what they meant by too ‘tight’), that they have to do too much writing and that the class is too hard. At this point I couldn’t keep to the rules I had set myself as I couldn’t resist pointing out that much lower level 1st grade boy classes complete the same lessons without any issues at all, and that by looking through the worksheets they actually contain hardly any writing at all. This was, however, the catalyst I needed, as once I said this one very brave young adult put his hand up and told me that the problem is none of the above, but that there are 7 or 8 trouble makers in the class that ruin the classes for everyone else, not only in English class, but in every subject, and that if we could deal with them, there would be no problems.  He told me that the other students were tired of being punished because of the trouble makers and it was frustrating that my punishments focused on the class rather than the culprits themselves. He was absolutely right, in the class of 38 students a large minority were forcing me to lose my focus on the class as a whole, and this minority was big enough that class dynamics didn’t allow the others to put peer pressure on the trouble makers due to intimidation, and so punishing the whole class was completely ineffective. I then asked the class how they would like me to deal with this and suddenly 7 or 8 students became very quiet, while 30 others became very vocal. Unfortunately, their solutions mainly revolved around removing the 7 or 8 from the class or giving them physical punishments and, as far as I am concerned, if my students are not in class they are not learning and therefore I am failing them, and, well, physical punishment I certainly don’t agree with, so I had to reject their solutions. I did, however, promise the class that I would deal with this problem.

Was this intervention reflection style approach a success? I think that thanks to this one very brave student it was. Those 7 or 8 students that are ruining the experience for others now know that not only am I tired of their behaviour, but their class mates are too. If dealt with correctly, it will allow myself and the majority of the class to work together to produce a more positive learning atmosphere in the class, which in itself could help to focus those 7 or 8 students. It has allowed me to reflect on this vicious circle that resulted in me becoming more and more stern, and the effect this can have on students, it also allowed my students to reflect on why I may have become more and more stern. Most importantly the students can come into class next week knowing that I care about them and I can enter the class knowing the majority of them care about learning English.

This leaves me with one problem, what am I going to do about those 7 or 8 students? Any suggestions would be extremely welcome indeed! It has certainly left me with something to reflect upon for the next 7 days!

Please leave any suggestions/comments below, and don't forget you can follow me on twitter @AlexSWalsh21 Comments

Inevitable? Reflections on Beating Exam Time Fatigue04/18/20121 Comment

My students are currently facing the last week before their dreaded mid-terms exams. It is their first set of exams of the year and boy does it affect them. In a matter of one week my students have gone from teenagers full of life, energy and optimism, ready to participate and try their best in every activity to teenagers dreading the future, sleep deprived, hardly wanting to sit up and certainly not able to maintain the concentration span of even the most dreamy of teenagers. With this being the first set of exams, things are only going to get worse throughout the year as the pressure builds, it is simply the sad ineveitable truth of the education system most of the world adopts, especially here in South Korea. Today I asked one of my sleepy students how much sleep she got last night, she replied "2 hours". Even if this is an exaggeration, which I don’t think it is, it certainly explains the change in our students! And I don't think this change only affects public school and university teachers, in academies a teacher may not be directly involved with the students public school/university exams, but his or her students are still going to feel the fatigue from them.

This time last year I saw exactly the same pattern in my students, and I thought to myself “what can I do?

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This is Korea, this is how it works here so I’ll just have to accept it and keep teaching.” This year that just doesn’t cut it for me, I’m their teacher, and this is something that is inevitably going to happen year upon year, I can’t just accept that my students won’t learn anything for four weeks of every year, and so if the exams aren’t going anywhere,  that only leaves one solution, I will have to adapt to them. Why are my thoughts different this year? Well, yes I have a year more experience, but I think most importantly I’ve also been lucky enough to be involved with some fantastic role models in reflective teaching sessions.

So as teachers, what can we do to adapt to our students around exam time? One thing I’m certainly not willing to do is have ten students falling asleep in my class, or even one for that matter! So I started reflecting on my lesson planning and the range of activities I used today (I taught exactly the same lesson in exactly the same way as one I taught last week and received a very high assessed score for and had some extremely engaged students) and I came to a few conclusions about what I can do to adapt to my students:

1)    Their attention span is extra super-low, so my instructions have to be shorter and easier to understand. No complicated genius activities on my part!!

2)    Receptive skills (reading and listening) are probably not a good choice; I read to help myself get to sleep when I’m in bed, and on 3 hours sleep I certainly couldn’t concentrate on a 5 minute listening exercise. Perhaps I could have replaced that short description with a picture. Perhaps they could have even chosen the picture from a selection.

3)    Bums on seats is not the way for me to go, two of my activities involved students standing up today and this probably wasn’t enough. I definitely don’t mean make students stand behind their chairs as they can’t sleep when stood up (yes, I have seen these techniques used), I do mean that activities that involve students standing up and moving to gather information could be even more useful than normal, and are probably a must, even if it results in some form of chaos, I reckon this is better than any form of sleeping.

4)    Drawing. Personally I don’t have students making posters etc. too often (mainly due to limited resources), but I figure if I’m going to do it, this is probably the time! I’m saving my poster making resources for this time next semester!

5)    Short, snappy activities. Even shorter and snappier than usual, instead of having my students make 5 questions to ask one partner, perhaps I could have had them make three and ask two people.

6)    My lesson today involved 7 new expressions, that isn’t a lot (I don’t think), however, if students have been up until 3a.m memorizing vocabulary and grammar, there probably isn’t any room left. Also, effective CCQ’s for 7 expressions? Realistically that’s probably up to 10 minutes concentration needed, even if it is interactive between the students and me, which was no problem a week ago, that was too long today.

7)    Taking the students outdoors, fresh air has got to help. Next semester I’m going to think of an activity, any activity, as an excuse to get my students outside.

Some of these reflections are probably things we do as teachers a lot of the time anyway, but I think with a special focus I can beat the inevitability that lurks around every school I’ve worked at that ‘it’s the week before mid-terms, the students can’t learn anything this week’ routine. Unfortunately, I won’t be teaching a pre-exam week class for another two months, but I’ll be sure to come back to this and evaluate how successful I was second time round compared to today!

How do you beat exam time fatigue? I would be really interested to hear any tips to get the most from your classes at this time of year.

Oh, and you can follow me on twitter @alexswalsh1 Comment

Appendix 2 – Reflections on Student and Peer Feedback

The feedback from both my students and co-teachers has been unexpectedly positive, my co-teachers have enjoyed being a part of the lessons and my students seem to have really appreciated the structure of the lessons and my passion for their education. I've been overwhelmed by how constructive (both critically and  favourably) and honest their feedback has been, it has provided me with an invaluable opportunity to improve as a teacher.

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I’m going to split my reflections into three sections: firstly, I’ll look at things I need to keep doing (that I have started doing and have worked well), secondly, I’m going to consider things I need to start doing and finally, things I need to stop doing!

1) Things I Need to Keep Doing (I’m going to concentrate here on things I don’t feel I did so well in previous semesters.)

i) Use of Short Films

The response to the use of short films in class (usually between 1 minute and 10 minutes) indicates that students are really enjoying them and seeing the benefit of them. I think there are a number of reasons for this:

1) Teenagers now live in a much more visually stimulating world. Everything is on computers or T.V’s, and this is what the students are used to.2) Some of my classes are very mixed ability. Short films allow my extremely low level students to understand the general gist of what is happening, what information they get visually can help them understand and contextualize the language that is being taught. For my highest level students videos often come with very natural pronunciation and expressions, this presents a great opportunity for them to hear language how it is naturally used.3) Videos allow students to absorb culture as well as language. I find my students genuinely interested in other cultures around the world and video present a great way for them to explore that.

ii) Praising the Students and Displaying Their Work

It has really become apparent to me this year just how important praise is to the students. My girl classes visually show how much they want positive feedback and so it is easy to find opportunities to provide them with positive feedback and praise. At this age boys can’t really be seen to desire positive feedback from the teacher, I think this is especially apparent if the teacher is male. This means it is harder to find opportunities to provide them with positive praise and feedback. From the student feedback it seems I have done this successfully with my first grade boy classes, but not my second grade boy classes. The classes are much larger and the boys are naturally much louder and more boisterous, so it is harder to find opportunities. Next semester I really need to actively find opportunities to provide them with positive feedback.

We’ve done two activities this semester purposely designed to give the students opportunities to make some really great work that can be displayed all over the class. The feedback shows the students have both acknowledged and appreciated this. Other than this feedback I have noticed the students really taking a keen interest in other classes’ work that is displayed around the room. It seems to have created a kind of competition between the classes.iii) Having Clear Rules

Although I have the same rules this semester as last semester, I am working at a different school that provides more levels of support when enforcing rules. This semester has shown just how important the support of the institution is in enforcing rules. As an example, last year if a student walked into class 5 minutes late eating cake nothing was done about it, although I disciplined them, the institution itself took no interest in this. This semester there are clear consequences, both from myself and the institution, regarding the consequences of a student’s actions. It has become very clear how important having your institution on your side regarding discipline is.

iv) Multiple Intelligences & Learning Styles

Something that has been made absolutely clear in the feedback from the students is the variety of learning styles and preferences the students have. The students indicated that they recognized the use of many different forms of activities, but when asked what they would like more/less of next semester and what they enjoyed/didn’t enjoy, other than wanting more short films, there was a huge variation. For me, this clearly shows the

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importance of providing students with a range of activities and stimuli in order to keep all students motivated and interested in class.

2) Things I Need to Start Doing

i) Giving Students More Time to Complete Activities

Although the students rated me favorably for this it was still one of my lowest scores, and I have to say that on reflection I absolutely agree with them. For the majority of the semester I was at conflict with my institution. They wanted me to teach key expressions every class, I wanted to teach skills. This meant I was trying to fit both into a 50 minute period and the classes felt a bit too rushed. I’ve now reached a compromise with my school; we are going to have spread topics over two classes, meaning half the compulsory amount of expressions and more time for skills. This will hopefully result in the classes being less rushed. It’s amazing just how observant the students are.

ii) A Better Introductory Lesson

I started at a new school this semester and my directives were to start teaching my syllabus from the very first class. They asked me to only take up 10 minutes for introductions etc. and I used this time for making the rules of the classroom clear and introducing myself. I think this was a mistake and something I should have strongly objected to. The students have shown in their feedback that they weren’t sure exactly what they were supposed to achieve from the course, something that should have been made clear to them in the introductory lesson. Although almost all the classes adapted well I think this could be partially responsible for the behavioral problems one class faced at the beginning of the semester. Quite simply they weren’t sure why they were there. This is a mistake I won’t be making again.

iii) Explaining the Reason behind Activities

On reflection something I hardly did this semester is tell students why we were doing the activities we were doing, what skills were we practicing, what could they achieve from the activity, how is it useful for them in real life etc. This is shown in the relatively low score for ‘providing students with opportunities to practice creative thinking, divergent thinking and critical thinking’. Although I strongly believe these skills were practiced in almost every class I didn’t make the students aware of this. This is definitely something for me to bear in mind next semester.

3) Things I Need to Stop Doing

i) Compulsory Homework

Feedback from the students is quite clearly against homework, and on reflection I think they might be right!

Why am I giving them homework? The honest answer is ‘I’m not sure.’ Maybe because it’s what my teacher did when I was at school, maybe because I want them to see my class is serious, maybe it just felt right.

What did I achieve from it? Probably not much, the students who wanted to do it did it, and I hope gained from it (it was usually to interview someone, in English, on the topic we had done in class), but by forcing students to do it who didn’t want to meant that all they were probably doing was either copying their friends answers or making it up. Next semester I will make students aware of the reasons for doing the homework, but make it optional. This will also mean I have fewer to grade and so can do a more thorough job.

ii) Presuming I Can Motivate 2 nd Grade Boys with Stamp Sheets!

The 2nd grade boys have made it very clear to me this semester they really don’t care about stamp sheets (a technique that works very well with my other classes). So, I’m going to have to think of something new, something sports related. At this point I’m not sure what, but I have a month to figure it out!

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Notes

i) This is the first time I have performed such an extensive self evaluation and the amount I have learnt from it has been invaluable. I wasn’t required to do it by my school or regional office, and it took a lot of time to put together all the data, but I highly recommend doing it. The main reasons I have never done this before is firstly, because I’ve never been required to do it, and secondly, because I was nervous that the feedback might be negative. However, I really encourage teachers to do this once or twice a year as you will be surprised how much you will learn, both about what your co-workers and students appreciate in your work, and what you can improve. In terms of professional development, it seems essential.

ii) The low score for the ‘level of the exam was appropriate’ is something I haven’t mentioned as it is not something I had much (or any) control over. The results of that question have been fed back to the institution I work and it is something that we are going to work closer together on next semester to rectify.

Appendix 3 – Example Evaluation Form

Class Number: __-__ __ (E.g 1-13)

DO NOT WRITE NAME OR STUDENT NUMBER

Please circle a number using the following1 2 3 4 5

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree StronglyDisagree Agree

The CourseYou were given clear information about what you could hope to achieve in this course.

1 2 3 4 5

The lessons helped you prepare for the assessment.

1 2 3 4 5

The level of the exam was appropriate. 1 2 3 4 5

The Teacher (Alex)….Started and ended classes on time. 1 2 3 4 5

Provided organized classes. 1 2 3 4 5

Used different methods of presenting activities e.g. audio, visual, and written.

1 2 3 4 5

Provided opportunities for students to practice creative thinking, divergent thinking and critical thinking.

1 2 3 4 5

Provided students with enough time to complete activities.

1 2 3 4 5

Gave instructions clearly and repeated instructions.

1 2 3 4 5

Made students feel free and comfortable to ask questions and to ask for help if they didn’t understand an activity or expression.

1 2 3 4 5

Encouraged all students to participate in class.

1 2 3 4 5

Gave students a chance to practice using the key expressions in class time.

1 2 3 4 5

Was enthusiastic about teaching. 1 2 3 4 5

Had clear rules for the classroom. 1 2 3 4 5

Provided praise when students completed 1 2 3 4 5

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an activity well.Offered advice on how students could improve on their performance in class.

1 2 3 4 5

Was available outside of class hours to talk to students and offer advice.

1 2 3 4 5

Treated all students fairly. 1 2 3 4 5

Made you feel comfortable in the classroom and created a good learning environment.

1 2 3 4 5

Did not provide answers, but helped students discover their own answers.

1 2 3 4 5

Provided opportunities for individual work, pair work and group work.

1 2 3 4 5

Made students feel appreciated for their hard work.

1 2 3 4 5

The teacher displayed students work. 1 2 3 4 5

Created a bright and energetic looking classroom that encouraged learning.

1 2 3 4 5

Semester 2What would you like more of next semester?

What would you like less of next semester?

What type of activities do you enjoy the most?

What type of activities don’t you enjoy?

What type of activities do you learn a lot from?

What type of activities don’t you learn from?

Any further comments?

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