I’ve come to the end of the TESOL Diploma course now and what a year it has been. I never thought I’d be spending the last two months of the course in lockdown because of a global pandemic, but it seems the 21st century keeps throwing curveballs at mankind!

When I began the course, I wrote about a ‘knowledge gap’ to bridge. It’s important to keep learning in any profession but particularly in teaching and I have learnt a lot over the past nine months. It’s particularly satisfying to rekindle my joy of learning for its own sake, as that is probably the greatest pleasure of education.

The module in Language Awareness with Simon Wilkinson helped to cement my linguistic knowledge and covered some areas that I knew very little about, especially analysis at clause and phrase level, as well as a better knowledge of phonetics.

The methodology module was probably my favourite module of this course. I particularly enjoyed Paul Slater’s classes and really enjoyed grappling with different perspectives on teaching and the discussions these prompted in class. Studying alongside a lot of very passionate teachers has been a highlight. Teachers such as Jack, Adam, Nico, Jo, Jane, Rossa and others have all inspired me in different ways.

It has been very useful in the module assessments to investigate more deeply the issues that Arabic learners have in ESL. These students make up the bulk of my classes at present and I have feel I have gained a broader and deeper knowledge of the challenges they face as a result of my research for the methodology and second language acquisition modules.

I said in my opening statement that I considered my strengths to be an ability to entertain and activate classes but I realise that is me on a good day, not every day. It was quite a chastening experience to video myself on a bad day when students had not done their homework and there were discipline issues in class. We can’t be balls of energy all the time but this uncomfortable truth prompted me to evaluate the effort I was putting in to activating classes, and I was pleased with the results in following classes.

I have grown in confidence as a specialist in writing and EAP through this year. I was particularly pleased with my second teaching observation in which I focused on teaching paragraphs and counter arguments. I felt in full flow in that class and in my element. However, it has also been positive to gain a better understanding of other areas of ESL. I feel I have a more solid knowledge of teaching vocabulary. I recall in particular the peer observation of a colleague at the college, which I considered a model lesson in teaching and developing vocabulary usage.

The materials module has been particularly interesting. As a writer and author I’ve always had an interest in writing materials and have developed some of my own over the years. This module and the lesson observations enabled me to take a far more critical view of both textbooks and when, how and why to supplement and modify them. I am particularly interested in materials that help to scaffold knowledge. I’m also mindful that I have used too many materials in one class on occasion. I recall an observation by my manager over a year ago when I gave students no less than six handouts! The observation of my colleague teaching vocabulary was particularly eye-opening because he used just one handout and built on it over the course of an hour. Doing more with less is a solid teaching principle in my view.

I want to continue to challenge myself to improve in areas I am less strong. I know I can teach higher levels well and I know I’m strong at writing, study skills and communication skills. I’m less experienced in recent years with intermediate levels and below and it’s been good to rediscover the value of all those nuts and bolts that I learnt in my CELTA many years ago: eliciting, drilling, checking for understanding and in particular, knowing when to correct. I am aware of my tendency to over-correct and also my tendency to overload students and move too fast. Being aware of your own shortcomings is important and a first step to working on them.

An issue for me on this course has been that I strongly dislike being observed. I have discovered though that I mind far less when I know the person well, and felt far less nervous for peer observations than assessed course observations. It’s unfortunate that I often don’t show the real me in lesson observations because I feel a need to stick to a lesson plan and not improvise. This improvisation is a strength of my teaching but I haven’t shown it much in observations. In a class immediately after an observation I did a lot of improvisation including a spontaneous introduction of teaching and drilling pronunciation pairs when a student had trouble distinguishing between ‘want’ and ‘won’t’. This kind of spontaneity would be less likely to happen in lesson observations. There’s little I can do about that, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be documented in an assessment for me to know what works and what doesn’t. I can reflect on that myself.

I acknowledged in my opening statement that taking on this course would be a big challenge alongside two jobs at university and being a single parent of two children. It has proved to be challenging but until the Covid 19 crisis, I felt I was balancing things quite well. My tutors gave me some flexibility and I kept my schedule clear enough to do the necessary work. The biggest challenge has come since lockdown happened and I found myself struggling with getting to grips with teaching online in the middle of a pandemic with my children at home and all the demands of home life. This definitely affected the quality of my final two teaching observations. It’s a little unfair to have to tackle mastery of online teaching from a standing start while being assessed, but we live in unprecedented times that nobody could have foreseen. I can be quite hard on myself with high expectations so I need to take a step back and appreciate that I’ve done well to do the course full-time in far from ideal circumstances.

Overall, considering the current situation, I am pleased with a merit in my lesson observations. Two out of four classes went very well and the other two were strong passes. I feel I could have aimed higher if lockdown had not happened with all the accompanying stress and upheaval. I probably would have submitted a fifth lesson, but it can’t be helped. 65% was my target grade for teaching practice and I was pleased to achieve this more than once.

One of the most eye-opening pieces of feedback I have received on the course was following my second lesson observation, which went well overall. My tutor Paul mentioned that I was working very hard, perhaps too hard, and I should get my students working harder.

That was a lightbulb moment for me. I have been university lecturing for a long time and I have a tendency to take over proceedings. Especially when I’m being observed I’m putting in a lot of effort in classes. This is all very well but am I sometimes working very hard and not demanding or allowing the students to work as hard as they can? After all, it’s the students who need to be working. I am teaching them but the main aim is to facilitate learning.

I realise that, being schooled in the communicative approach, I place a lot of emphasis at times on the class being interactive, busy and full of life, when there is a crucial place at university level for students getting their heads down and doing the work – planning speeches, studying long texts, researching and drafting essays. I also realise that a cornerstone of the communicative approach is to reduce Teacher Talking Time (TTT), so I need to keep an eye on that in particular.

Now I am teaching online, I’m particularly aware of how hard I’m working and my enjoyment levels  dropped initially. I’m starting to bounce back now I realise I need to get my students working harder, both for my own wellbeing, but especially because that is what they need to do. So the conclusion on this point is: less TTT from me, and more facilitating. This could be the most important of my transformative reflections.

I finish the course grateful to have learnt a lot but also keen to learn more. That’s the way it should be.

This post focuses on critical incidents and their value. The inclusion of analysis of critical incidents in the course is very positive in my view. In my previous teacher training, I have carried out and received peer and assessed observations but I’ve never documented reflection on teaching incidents outside these observations.

All teachers know the feeling of returning to the staff room feeling that a class hasn’t gone well and reflected on why. In a similar way, all teachers have moments in class that catch them off guard, whether it is the class finding something far harder or easier than expected or an individual student’s behaviour. Reflection on critical incidents is just as important as receiving assessed teaching practice and feedback. For the vast majority of teachers, it is the teachers themselves who need to reflect on their own practice rather than being told to do so.

Farrell (2005) defines a critical incident as “unplanned event that occurs during class” while Brookfield (1990) deems it a “vividly remembered event which is unplanned and unanticipated”. The important point is that teachers are able “to think about what happened, why it happened, and what else could have been done to reach their goals”. (Cruickshank and Applegate, 1981). In other words: describe, explain and then evaluate and reflect.

Farrell’s article documents the results of a study of trainee teachers in Singapore. All incidents recorded by the trainee teachers were negative incidents, but incidents don’t necessarily need to be negative as long as there is something interesting to be analysed and reflected on. It’s an interesting point that a largely positive incident can be just as valuable – perhaps trying something new and seeing it succeed or witnessing students become very enthused by a particular subject or technique.

In the Singapore study most incidents were related to language proficiency, class participation or behaviour or a combination of these. One of the problems of the research was grouping incidents into a single category. For example if a student is refusing to do a task then it could be because of a lack of understanding, and therefore could be a problem of both proficiency and participation.

There were many interesting critical incidents described in the study. Most commonly these focused on problems where individual students were not participating or showed behavioural problems such as shouting out in class. One of the most relevant incidents to my own teaching was related to gender dynamics. I teach a lot of Chinese and Arabic students and it is very common for students to split themselves along gender lines, and it’s an interesting topic to reflect on whether this should be challenged by the teacher or accepted. It is a difficult issue to address when there is the capacity to cause offence or embarrassment.

Having already analysed two critical incidents, I’m finding the process rewarding and hopefully it will help me identify areas where my teaching can improve.

References:

Brookfield, S. D. (1990). The Skillful Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Cruickshank, D. R. and J. Applegate. 1981. Reflective teaching as a strategy for teacher growth. Educational Leadership 38/7: 553–4.

Farrell, T. (2008). Critical incidents in ELT initial teacher training. ELT Journal, 62(1), pp.3-10.

I’ll be honest: I don’t like being observed. It’s not the feedback that I mind. In fact, it often comes as a relief in terms of a positive focus and helpful tips for the future, but when someone who is not a student actively watches my teaching, it’s impossible not to feel awkward.

When being observed by a line manager, the obvious area of concern is that I might not measure up and it could affect my standing or employability in the school. But how does this differ when it is a peer doing the observing? In some ways, the pressure is off in terms of the potential effect on my employment. I would hope that a peer is a friendlier face. However, for some people peer observation can be worse. Consider how famous performers often say that they feel more nervous if their parents come to watch or if they are doing a concert for friends. For some people, a closer relationship with an observer can lead to a heightened desire to perform well and therefore worsen performance anxiety.

For me personally, I feel that being observed by a peer is less nerve-wracking than by a line manager, but I cannot assume that is the case for others. The process of setting up peer observations has so far been a bit tricky with my busy schedule and I have felt it important to downplay the importance of the observation to colleagues to reduce risk of causing any anxiety. Some are clearly more receptive than others to being observed, and it’s important to respect this.

Jill Cosh’s paper on Peer Observation (1999) gave me much pause for thought. In the introduction, Cosh argues that judgements resulting from peer observations can be “detrimental to teacher confidence”. I was rather horrified to discover that there was a scheme in the USA to link peer observation to pay and not surprised that the scheme collapsed due to union opposition. Similar schemes in the UK have been linked to teacher’s job appraisals, which were similarly poorly received.

So the problem is: firstly, is peer observation of value? If so, how do we make it valuable without it being viewed negatively by the teachers being observed? Cosh points out that training is necessary to give feedback. Just because we are fellow teachers does not mean we are necessarily equipped to give feedback on the teaching of others. Of course, the potential to give offence to a colleague can be compounded by the assumption that the observer is not actually qualified to judge the teaching of others.

Another issue is the obvious eventuality that colleagues end up teaching a ‘model lesson’ that is not reflective of the reality of their day-to-day teaching. This is very tempting and a normal reaction to a pressurised situation.

Cosh suggests various ways of improving the peer observation process – for example, pairing up teachers and working to agreed objectives. However, the resultant problem is that learning is restricted when only two people are involved, rather than a broader cross-section of the teaching staff.

Another way suggested by Cosh to improve the process is to pre-select a problem area or area of particular interest to the observer prior to the observation and focus on that as a means of focusing the observation.

The article concluded that the ideal situation would be the following: “Observation becomes not a vehicle for the judgement of others on the basis of our own assumptions, but instead an assessment of those assumptions on the basis of their teaching” (Cosh, 1999).

From my own point of view, watching a peer should not be an opportunity to critique their teaching but to learn from different approaches, and then feed that learning back into my own practice. Similarly, being observed by a friendly face, without the pressure that a line manager brings, should assist the objectives of self-reflection and self-improvement.

Reference: Cosh, J. (1999) Peer Observation: a reflective model. ELT Journal, Volume 53. p22-27

For my first post, I will respond to a journal article Reflection as a visible outcome for preservice teachers (Ward, McCotter, 2004).

The first point that I found interesting was the authors’ analysis of what most commonly hinders teachers from undertaking deeper reflections on their own practice –  the focus on assessment as an indicator of success. This is certainly a key focus in my practice, teaching mainly EAP for foundation students to ready them for university education.

I would add another focus for many teachers – student feedback, which often focuses on students’ enjoyment of the class and opinion on whether they are learning. Of course, enjoying the class and learning do not necessarily go hand in hand. A teacher can be very entertaining but students may learn less, while on the other hand a teacher could have a rather dry manner that leaves students either bored or overworked, while covering more material. In my view, the ideal is for a teacher to keep lessons interesting as a means to the end of having a “positive impact on student learning” (NCATE, 1999). However, it is unsurprising that the focus is all too often on test results because students are in my classes to pass specific exams to progress their education. That is the expectation of the institution as well.

The article quoted a definition of reflection: “deliberate thinking about action with a view to its improvement’’ (Hatton and Smith, 1995). The second part is the key – that the reflection should lead to an improvement and this is the difference between the lower and higher levels of reflection.

The authors had done some interesting research on teachers’ reflections, finding particularly that the most effective precipitant to getting teachers to reflect critically was when dealing with ‘struggling students’ or ‘student failure’. Clearly the most obvious indication of a problem with the teaching practice is if students are failing, although it cannot always be attributed to teaching deficiencies.

The authors split the dimensions of reflection into three areas: focus, inquiry and change, the latter being the most developed. These dimensions were in turn each split into four levels of increasing complexity. The most basic reflection was ‘routine’ – either no detail given, focusing on praising oneself, or apportioning blame to others – e.g. low ability of the students or constraints of the resources. The next level of ‘technical’ is reflection which seeks to solve a specific problem but does not go deeper into the problem itself. ‘Dialogic’ is a higher level of reflection and often addresses an ongoing problem. Questions lead to new questions – e.g. why the assessment is not aligned better to the curriculum, a factor which could explain poor grades. The authors argue that dialogic reflection may be the highest expected of a newly qualified teacher. The next level is ‘transformative’ reflection, which seeks to question assumptions and purpose more deeply, leading directly to specifically detailed changes to teaching practice.

This framework for levels of reflection is particularly useful. I realise from my education that I have never been so specifically guided on how to reflect on my own work in greater depth. It is perhaps obvious that analysis of problems and attempts to find solutions will result in more effective reflection but the detail of the framework is very helpful.

As someone who has been teaching ESL on and off for over 20 years, it is easy to get stuck in the same teaching habits that I believe are effective. And if the only ways I am judging myself (or being judged by my employers) are through test results and student feedback, these could be inadequate. For example, I might teach a group of very able and friendly students who pass exams and get on well with me, but that does not necessarily mean that my teaching practice is honed to perfection, if indeed perfection in teaching really exists. This is where peer and assessed observations will come in useful and hopefully lead to deeper reflections resulting in positive changes – transformative reflection. That should be my objective.

I’ve been teaching English for approximately 12 of the past 24 years, beginning on summer courses as an undergraduate before I did my CELTA in 1997. I taught in England and South America then moved into the media for 7 years. I then returned to mainly advanced ESL and EAP in Ecuador for 5 years before returning to the UK in 2013 and joining University of Brighton as a journalism lecturer.

I took my first EAP job in several years in September 2018 as a sessional tutor at the International College (UBIC). It is this latest job that has led me to do the TESOL Diploma. I have a BA in Music, a CELTA, MA in Journalism and PGCert in Higher Education. I feel a higher qualification in TESOL is the missing piece in terms of my CV and employability but also in terms of grounding in language, methodology and teaching practice. I am surrounded by colleagues at UBIC who have Diplomas and/or Masters in TESOL and I feel there is a knowledge gap to bridge.

I feel that at my best I am a very good teacher and at my worst I fall back on over-reliance on materials and sometimes lessons suffer from a lack of planning. My strengths are that I like to entertain, activate and keep lessons moving, while as a writing and editing specialist, I am well-equipped to teach essay writing. My weaknesses include a few knowledge gaps that need to be filled in terms of language and a need to take a more methodical approach at times.

My aims on this course are first and foremost to develop my teaching practice (and develop my reflection on my practice) and beneath that to develop my knowledge of the language, teaching materials and methodology.

I feel it is a challenge for me personally to take on this course alongside two different jobs at University of Brighton and the demands of being a single parent, but I’m hoping it will be possible to complete the course full-time. I’m looking forward most of all to the process of learning. It’s easy to reach a plateau in any profession and I feel that learning is good for motivation and for overall job satisfaction. I hope that the course will feed my fascination for language and enable me to challenge myself as a teacher.