I’m sure there are a multitude of changes which I’m yet to become aware of within my outlook and practices – once you’ve found something out, it’s difficult to remember not knowing about it. I don’t think there are any final or definite answers to the questions that we ask of ourselves in the hope of continuing to develop our teaching and learning knowledge, theory and practice. However, there are certainly points at which a clear comparison can be drawn between previous attitudes and current ones, and it’s amazing to see how much can change over quite a short time, as has happened in areas across my teaching beliefs and practices over this course.
I feel that one of these points came around today, during my second assessed observation this morning, concerning my attitude to planning, and combining a theoretically principled plan with practical teaching. One development I noticed was that I saw it as a chance to sound out the principles of my plan using practice, as opposed to assessing only my teaching practice set against the principles of my plan. What I mean by this is the evaluation of the principles behind my plan aims themselves according to what happens in class, instead of the evaluation of my ability to put these aims into practice according to what happens in class. Another (slightly less tortuous) distinction I drew between my approach today and my approach in the first assessed observation was my prioritisation of lesson aims and outcomes. While, as expressed above, these things are in constant need of development, I think the learners took from the lesson far more of what I wanted them to than in my first observation. Instead of creating a performance-style lesson with a tower of interdependent aims, making unrealistic demands of learners simply to complete all of the activities, my focus was on ensuring the students left the class having achieved something useful for their langauge learning. Writing a few hours after the event, my initial impression is that they did this.
The lesson which Angela observed this morning (26/02/19, 9:50-10:40 am) at Eurocentres was with my main class, who I teach every weekday. It’s a B2 class, and some students are approaching C1 levels. I wanted to focus on listening skills, and learner training. The latter featured in the essay I wrote for the Methodologies module, and I’ve been exploring ways to employ it with my classes to try and equip them better for autonomous learning, and continued maximisation of learning opportunities in the future. The former, as well as being a generally important area of skills development, seemed like a good way of working on and improving some of the shortcomings of my first assessed lesson – in that lesson, I didn’t include enough scaffolding and preparation for the receptive tasks, and my learners didn’t benefit from them as much as they could have. I also didn’t allow for enough consolidation and development of the outcomes of the receptive tasks, leaving the lesson aims only partially completed, and depriving my learners of the chance to take full advantage of the activities. I wanted to be able to give these areas of weakness in the first lesson my full attention in this lesson, the idea being a) to correct my mistake, but more importantly b), to provide more of my own practice to reflect on, to see if these areas should concern me more than others.
This formed one of my personal objectives: to ensure lesson aims are given time to be covered fully. Another was creating a student-centred lesson, with learners relying on their own autonomous skills and collaboration with each other to achieve their learning outcomes, as well as on the teacher. I have always seen this as a strength of mine, and I consider it a very valuable and beneficial element of a lesson for a learner, enabling them, and requiring them, to fully engage their cognition and their communicative abilities to achieve their goals. It has come to my attention during peer observations that my practice does not entirely reflect my beliefs, despite what I thought, so this is an aspect of my teaching which I’m keen to investigate. My third personal objective, also emerging from the ever-rewarding peer observations, was clearly and effectively setting up tasks and giving instructions.
The planned learner outcomes of this lesson were:
1. Skills – SS will have developed their ability to listen for key information
2. Learner skills/autonomy – SS will have raised awareness of importance of note-taking, and developed note-taking skills
3. Mediation – SS will have developed their ability to collaborate to synthesise information
All of the students but one in my class are pre-university, and all are planning to take courses taught in English, having achieved the IELTS score they need. This was the motivation for choosing note-taking specifically as an area for learner skill development, as I believe it’s a skill which will serve them well in their future learning, language and otherwise, and will enable them to better exploit any opportunities for autonomous learning they may encounter.
The tables were arranged into “islands”, to draw SS focus onto each other and away from the conduit of the teacher, in an effort to create a more student-centred lesson.
The listening text was a talk from a psychologist entitled ‘Why we listen to music’, in line with the theme of this week, from English File 3rd Edition UI (see attached materials). SS were asked to predict the content of the lecture, brainstorming likely topics and key words in groups, and to use later as a framework from which to take notes. Before the first listening task, the value of note-taking as a skill, and it’s relevance to their personal goals, was elicited and discussed. Then the core concepts of note-taking were checked using CCQs and ICQs, for example, “Will you be able to write down everything?” (No!); “What kind of words should you write down?” (Key words/content words!); “Why are we taking notes” (To remember what he talked about!), and so on. SS then listened to the talk and made notes, while T put some key vocabulary on the whiteboard, colour coded according to word class. Having made notes and checked within their groups, SS groups were rearranged, so that each group included a set of notes from more than one prediciton-based framework. SS were then given the note-taking framework from the material, which the material suggested should be given to them before the task. They synthesised their notes, based on varying frameworks, into the ‘official’ framework they had been given, in their new groups. Boarded vocabulary was then elicited from the class. Instead of focusing on gaining the meaning from context, synonyms, antonyms and usage were elicited briefly from the class, to make sure there was enough time to focus and expand on the lesson aims. They listened again – with the added ‘bonus’ task of listening for the context of the boarded vocabulary, for higher SS – to check and complete their notes. SS then returned to their original groups, compared the notes they had taken, and the information was fed back onto the board by SS.
At this point, the planned activities were completed, with time to spare, but there was a supplementary activity available based on the same learning outcomes and skills. T dictated the framework given in ex.4c of the material, for the second listening task from the psychologist’s talk. SS took down the framework, and checked in pairs. T elicited the framework onto the board, before the listening task from the first listening text was repeated – SS taking notes based on the framework during the initial exposure, checking together then analysing emergent vocabulary, before a final exposure to check and complete and hear any new vocabulary in context. SS expanded on their final notes to each other, and it was fed back onto the board.
The difference between this observation and my first leads me to feel, at the moment, as if I achieved all of my aims. I’m looking forward to watching the recording and comparing it with my own perception and memory of the lesson, and discussing it fully with Angela next week. For now, it feels like a few really positive steps – the lesson aims, the learning outcomes and my own personal aims were all addressed. With all these aims in mind, I left the room feeling satisfied and upbeat, whereas after the first assessed observation I’d felt frustrated and somewhat let down by myself. Hopefully, that reflects the difference the development in my approach has made over the last few months.
Here are the relevant materials and my plan:
Observation2plan-25tnv3i note-taking framework EFUI6A-1k6ogqr EFUIp56-1mm2v4l
