Archives: June 2022

Concluding Post

The first thing that came to my mind while writing this last post of this module TE719 is why? Why is this module not imposed on all the learners in the MA course? I chose this module without really knowing what it entailed. It was not a walk in the park, but I can admit that it was worth doing it. Before diving into my take regarding this module, it might be necessary to recall the expectations I set for myself before starting this journey. The first challenge was to increase my self-confidence as a second language English teacher. The second area was to better my teaching practices and make them reflect the UK standard. The next one was to Become an eclectic teacher (who can adapt and modify his techniques regarding teaching affordance and learners’ expectations) and finally help my learners go beyond the ideal native speaker and own their accent. I also wanted to analyse my strengths and my weaknesses as a teacher and go back to my country with an effective process of how to design a curriculum. These expectations seemed to be unrealistic, and at a point, I thought I would not make it, but the unconditional support of my tutors and my classmates proved me wrong.

Self Confidence
Before taking this module, I was always worried about how to teach proficient English learners confidently. I was battling with my self-esteem as a non-native English teacher. I was afraid to work with intermediate (B1), upper-intermediate (B2), and C1 learners because I wondered what they could take from the class and if they would find it challenging enough to learn something from it. This feeling seems to be common to most non-native English teachers despite their number of experiences, their high level of English, and their certifications (Ene, 2019). There is always this fear that one learner will mock our accent, or we would make a big mistake without realizing it. Or, we might not have an answer to learners’ preoccupations. So many ideas go on in the mind of the non-native English teachers, and I was always struggling with them even if my learners did not perceive them. Today, I challenged myself to work with the C1 learners, impressed by their reactions. I think I prefer working with proficient learners now, it is less challenging than working with beginners, and this would not have been possible if I did not have the gut to complete this module.

Class management
In hindsight, I can say that I made tremendous progress. When I look back at the first feedback I received from Theresa and Nancy, I understand this quote that says a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. And my first step was to build on her feedback and improve my teaching in the next class. Below is what she told me:
1. Your lesson plan needs to be more detailed and accurate
2. Instructions need to be clear
3. Make sure your prompt questions and any modelling of TL are accurate so they can mirror your use of TL.
4. Make sure ss feel they are learning while reporting back/listening to each other
5. Share the chat in the recording. Put new words in the chat for records.

For my second observation, I had Nancy as my observer, and she was happy with the detailed lesson plan, which shows that Theresa’s suggestions have fallen on receptive ears. However, she asked me to improve some areas like narrowing my aims and experimenting with different online whiteboards to smooth the online learning process.
1. The plan is much improved from last time but continues to work on narrowing your aims
2. Only present your assessor with a plan for 1 hour, even if your lesson is longer than that.
3. Think very carefully about the coherence of the tasks you ask the students
4. Factor in some pair or group work. If you have a larger class, make sure you use breakout rooms (and record one or two of the rooms with the student’s permission). If the class is much smaller, then turn off your video and mic to allow the students to do the pair/group task
5. Unless there is a competitive aspect to a task, try to give students more space to answer and don’t always hurry them to answer quickly. This can be stressful and anxiety-inducing for certain students. Also, give all students equal time to prepare for a task such as an individual presentation so that there is parity between them.
6-Experiment with different online whiteboards such as Google Jamboard for recording vocabulary. They are usually more effective than a PowerPoint slide for this purpose.
This post-observation conversation was best for me because it revealed my limits regarding the technical knowledge that I needed for an effective online class. Unexpectedly, it fell into the time I was attending a class on sound and vision regarding module TE714. I had the opportunity to explore a range of materials suggested by Paul to select the web-based applications that could help teach online. I did lots of research and learned about different platforms I could use to make the online class different, interactive and efficient. I learned about Jamboard, Vocaroo, which is a recording service that offers both teachers and learners the opportunity to record their voice and share it on web pages through an embed code, to name a few. This module impacted me significantly, and I applied everything I learned in my classroom. I became more comfortable with the digital applications to bridge the gap between the way learners are trained and the real-world issues (Zoom, Microsoft teams, google Docs, vocaroo). These applications and platforms facilitate the learning process, and I started using them after this post-observation with Nancy, and my learners were all impressed. In short, the other modules on the MA consolidated my knowledge regarding the technical skills I had to develop to better my online teaching performance.

For the third Assessed observation, I was completely down. I thought that my supervisor would see how amazing I implemented all their suggestions. Yet, it was not the case. I messed up everything. After the post conversation with Nancy, I started doubting myself, but I did not give up. I decided to observe an ESL class in the UK to figure out what was wrong with my teaching. I was thrilled and excited to observe different teachers teaching C1 and C2 learners in a language school in Brighton, and all of a sudden, I admitted that Nancy was right. I took some notes and watched lots of videos https://www.iselanguage.com/en/page.php?id=842 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdRlZ4EpYU/ https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/online-tutoring
to nail my final observation with Barbara. The peer observation with Lucy and her colleagues was thought-provoking, and I learned more than I was expecting. The last assessed observation being decisive for me, I decided to apply all the knowledge I learned from this module.

Barbara’s feedback about my last assessed observation doubled my self-confidence. She did not complain about the aim of the lesson nor my technical abilities to deliver online classes. I explained my choice of the materials critically and why I decided to implement them differently while trying out new controversial ideas ( pre-teach vocabulary). It was a big step in the right direction. Because mistakes are inevitable for building a professional career as an English teacher, I allowed myself to make some, and here I am. Even if there is always room for improvement, I think that I am ready to take the next step. I am TESOL qualified teacher, and I plan to take the CELTA in august 2022 before leaving the UK. I am so grateful for the support I received from Theresa, Nancy, and Barbara, which increased my thirst for knowledge, and I will not stop learning no matter how tedious it can be.

Reference list Ene, C. (2019). Are native teachers better? Non-native teachers and self-esteem. [online] Tefl.com. Available at: https://www.tefl.com/blog/article.html?are-native-teachers-better-non-native-teachers-and-self-esteem&document_

No commentsAdd a comment

At the chemist (last peer observation as an observee)

For my last peer observation, I was observed by Lucy, who is a CELTA qualified teacher in a language school in Brighton. The lesson was taken on the British council website At the chemist | LearnEnglish (britishcouncil.org), and the aim was to equip the learners with some listening strategies and introduce new lexis related to ‘At the chemist’
Before the observation, my observer Lucy received an email from me where I mentioned the aspects of my teaching, I would like her to focus on: Time and classroom management, Giving instructions clearly, and the accuracy of my language. Then she watched my recorded video and met with me for feedback.

Classroom management
The first aspect of my teaching she highlighted was the respect between my learners and I. They were all men of a certain age, and she was so surprised how I successfully involved them in the learning process. Some learners were lying down on their sofa, and others were facing connectivity issues; two of them were in and out, but I succeeded in creating the right environment where no one fell aside despite their personal problems. A possible explanation could be related to the fact that I spent one month teaching them, which allowed me to get to know them and have a clear-cut idea about how they want to be taught and the issues they face whenever we have class. I remember mentioning this aspect in my first reflective essay as an observer. The classroom accommodates students from different backgrounds and expectations, and I think it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure they feel a sense of belonging despite their different challenges. In his book How to teach English, Harmer (1998, p.37) encourages teachers to ’empathize with the people they are talking to by establishing a good rapport with them,’ and I work toward that. My rapport with the students has changed since I started taking this module. I am more tolerant than strict with them.

Use of online and technical aids
The second thing that impressed my observer Lucy was my ‘excellent use of tech and powerpoint’ to quote her words. I should admit that the previous post-observation conversation with Nancy pushed me to develop the technical skills needed for an effective online class. Back in my country, I used to teach face-to-face, but I had to readjust my teaching materials when I started this module. Several teachers find it difficult (Suherdi & al, 2021). It can be challenging and daunting at first, but you become more confident as you progress.

In delivering classes online, I realized that teaching online does not equate to opening your coursebook and following the sequence of activities. It requires adaptation of the content, anticipation regarding the issues they might face online, consideration of the layout, colors, the visual element of your PowerPoint, the recordings, and the classroom set up, which is most of the time new to the learners. The teacher should navigate between the screen and the learners and have to stick to the time allocated to the class at the same time. In short, I could say that about my three last assessed observations.

Time Management
However, everything was not perfect. The area the observer wants me to work on is time. I was supposed to teach for an hour, but I exceeded the time by 20 minutes. It would have been better for her to spend 8 minutes on the warm-up activity instead of 20 minutes. It took longer than usual, but I decided to spend time on this activity because it was my last class with them. It was a pleasant conversation where the learners were required to describe an image and guess the content of today’s class. I succeeded in engaging them in the negotiation of meaning, and some of their classmates even helped the weaker learners. I also provided immediate feedback regarding their mispronunciation (ache, lozenges, cough). It was worth doing. I did not feel the urge to rush them up, but Lucy made a point. I could have done better if I had chosen another image of a pharmacy, which reflects the type of pharmacy they are likely to find in their home country, for them to easily describe it and allow me to move to the next stage. This feedback regarding my time management was valuable, and I will carry it to my next class.

Power of images
Another suggestion was to use images whenever the learners seem not to understand a word. This reminds me of our class on vision and sounds, where Paul appealed our attention to how visual aids can facilitate the learning process. The visual material (images, illustrations, photographs) could make comprehension easier or more complex, and this idea reflects what happens in my class. I will consider it next time, even if I had to admit that I wanted to challenge my learners to an extent.

Instruction Checking Questions (ICQs)
Moreover, the observer recommended using the instruction checking questions (ICQs) whenever I give my learners a task. I could have used the following questions (are you going to work in pairs or individually? Are you going to read the transcript while listening or do it separately/) instead of popping in the breakout rooms and fixing their misunderstanding of the instructions? Nancy gave me the same idea, and I think I should work hard on it and implement it in my classes.

In hindsight, I can now say that teaching online is a process that requires the total commitment of the teacher and willingness to learn and use technical aids to facilitate the learning process. My three last observations helped me develop effective use of online materials (PowerPoint, jam board, an interactive whiteboard, and breakout rooms). I can admit that I feel comfortable with these tools. Having Lucy’s feedback regarding my class doubled my self-confidence, and I was thrilled when she commended me on the accuracy of my language, and how I praised my learners whenever they got something right. I was elated to have Lucy as an observer, and I thank her for her insightful and honest feedback. Below, you will find her voice recording

Lucy Feedback
Listening 3 cough
worksheet 3

Reference list
Harmer, J. (1998). How to teach English. Harlow, Essex: Pearson/Longman.Suherdi, D. (2021).
EFL Teachers’ Considerations in Developing Online Teaching Materials. Journal on English Language Teaching. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/73976409/EFL_Teachers_Considerations [Accessed 5 Jun. 2022].

No commentsAdd a comment

A writing class (Peer observation observing)

My third peer observation with me observing was a face-to-face classroom delivered by Lucy in a language English school in Brighton. I thought it would be valuable to observe her because of the quality of her intervention whenever we have a seminar or a given class. I could see that she is an experienced teacher from whom I could learn and improve some aspects of my teaching practices. She is a CELTA qualified teacher with almost three years of experience in the UK.

My aim for this observation was to challenge and question my underlying assumption when it comes to teaching and to enhance my teaching performance for my personal and professional development. Moreover, I have never had the opportunity to teach advanced English learners or observe that. I was, therefore certain that observing will give me fresh insights into facilitating the process of learning in my classroom instead of just transmitting the knowledge. Also, the context being different from mine, I will be able to reflect on my own practices critically and, as mentioned by Peel (2005, p.496), develop my ‘own discursive understanding’. In other words, the multiple experiences that I will gain by being exposed to different ways of teaching in different contexts will widen my understanding of how things should be done and, at the same time, lead me to question my own beliefs and habits for new perspectives.

The ESOL class consisted of 12 students (11 young ladies and one man), C2 level coming from Sweden for an immersion in the UK. The lesson aimed to equip them with a range of fixed expressions they can use to write a formal email. The language focus of the language was writing. The teacher followed the coursebook of the school and this lesson was meant to be taught on this particular day. Overall, it was a lively and engaging lesson, but, in the following, I will flesh out the different aspects of the lesson that really stood out for me and the potential areas that needed improvement.

The class started with a running dictation (dictogloss) where the learners were expected to listen to the teacher reading a text, try to write down the main ideas, and build back the story with the help of their classmates. Some learners swapped to different groups and were required to work collaboratively, compare their own text with their classmates, make corrections and reconstruct the full story. I heard about dictogloss during our last seminar on ‘materials’ with Paul. One of my classmates used it as a lead-in activity to activate her learners’ schemata about collocations with ‘Go’. I was really impressed, and I promised myself to implement it one day with my learners. Surprisingly, Lucy used it with her C2 learners, an opportunity for me to see how helpful it will be for her to achieve her lesson aims since the language focus is writing. Since Dictogloss has been introduced to ELT by ruth Wajnryb as an alternative method to teaching grammar (Vasiljevic, 2010, p.41), I was wondering how it will be implemented in a writing class and how effective it will be. I was pleased to see how enchanted the learners were to correct each other. This first activity fostered language decoding and encoding, cooperative learning, and a sense of achievement when they succeeded in writing the text. In short, the running dictation or dictagloss was effective in integrative form and meaning and allowed the learners to write down the text. It seems to be an effective tool for improving writing skills. What lucy may improve is to find a way to involve the shy learners in the collaborative work. Some of them were really shy to participate. What could have worked to get all of them engaged would have been to make the weaker learners work together and the proficient ones together?

After the lead-in activity that lasted eight minutes, the learners were asked to open the textbook and work on the first activity.
Textbook
The teacher followed her lesson plan, and everything seemed to work the way she predicted. What really surprised me is the content of the textbook. She is working with C1 level learners, but the activities were quite simple for them to do it. The activities were not as challenging as I thought they would be. The learners were asked to read an email written to a catering company and cross out the irrelevant and inappropriate sentences. They did it perfectly and most groups got it right. I might be wrong, but the learners easily completed all the activities. Much of the lexis was known to them, which allowed them to handle the second activity easily. This reminds me of an argument made by Ghorbani (2009) that stipulated that the educational system sometimes fails in demanding enough from the learners. The module on materials with Paul maybe turned be into a critical teacher when it comes to textbook evaluation. Besides that, it was a brilliant activity and Lucy succeeded in creating a supportive environment where they could help each other.
Email

An area that needs improvement might be the use of classroom materials. The whole session was oral. The teacher did not make use of the board. As regards to their level, it is not obvious that she could bring in more error correction because the emergent language from the learners was accurate. But using the blackboard would have helped the weaker learners to better understand the instructions. Yet, I really liked the fact that she used some instruction checking questions to clarify misunderstandings: are you going to work together on this task? What page is it on? What do you have to do?

Another area that I felt was missing in the class is the personalization of the task. The teacher was following the textbook content which is not necessarily wrong. By the end of the third activity, the learners were equipped with different types of discourse markers and useful language related to polite requests and inquiries that can help write formal emails. However, she could have made them write an email in pairs, make sure they corrected each other’s work, and use the blackboard to consolidate their knowledge about it. The class was perfect, but she could have brought in more creativity and allowed the learners to use their background knowledge to write an email in the classroom. This would have been an opportunity for the teacher to know the type of language they need to write a successful formal email before involving them in completing the rest of the task. As a teacher, I need to try out new ideas and see how they will go with the learners. During the post observation conversation, she agreed with me on this point but told me that she was running out of time because the students were to meet the school counsel, she had to free them earlier than usual.
Writing

Overall, Lucy’s class was magic. Even if she was time conscious, it was not that obvious because she allocated much time to each task for the learners to work collaboratively. It was not a race against the clock. I learned a lot about time and classroom management. I have also learned about dictogloss, and I think I will implement it in my text class.

Reference list
Farrell, T.S.C. (2017). Research on Reflective Practice in TESOL. Routledge.
Peel, D. (2005). Peer observation as a transformatory tool?1. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(4), pp.489–504. doi:10.1080/13562510500239125.
Pertiwi, D., Ngadiso, N. and Drajati, N.A. (2018). The effect of Dictogloss Technique on the students’ writing skill. Studies in English Language and Education, 5(2), pp.279–293. doi:10.24815/siele.v5i2.11484.
Vasiljevic, Z. (2010). Dictogloss as an Interactive Method of Teaching Listening Comprehension to L2 Learners. English Language Teaching, 3(1). doi:10.5539/elt.v3n1p41.

No commentsAdd a comment