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This peer observation was different from the previous ones for two reasons; firstly this was a recorded online lesson, so my colleague was not present but actually watched the lesson at a later time. Secondly this was the first time I repeated a lesson from a formal observation; that is to say this lesson was the second running of my fourth formal observed lesson, but with a different student.

The goal of this observation was based on my initial reflections on my fourth formal observation; I thought the structure of the lesson was well-considered and appropriate, but the delivery was not as effective as it could have been. So with this fresh in my mind, I wanted to run the lesson with another student (in a one to one context) to see if the lesson flow could be improved and also if there were any key differences between the two versions of the lesson.

Interestingly, the comments of my peers match the feedback I received with the grade for my formal observation; the significance of second part of the lesson was not as clear as the first. In the second part of the lesson, I switched the focus from fillers and hesitation strategies when speaking to non-defining relative clauses. Both my colleague ‘B’ and UoB lecturer ‘T’ highlighted that while it was a useful area of grammar to study, there wasn’t really a clear reason as to why this was chosen over something else, such as pronunciation or vocabulary. To be honest, I knew this when I was designing the lesson. I felt like there had to be some grammatical focus in there to ‘tick boxes’, which I think was to the detriment of the lesson. That is to say I think it was a good lesson, but I think in order to be truly excellent, some more care should have been paid to the student’s needs rather than the completing of a list of target areas.

What’s interesting about this is that I am seeing direct parallels with the module TE714 English Language Teaching Materials. Recently I read about the framework for creating materials by Jolly and Bolitho (2011) and the flowchart of progress when developing materials. They talk about identifying the needs of the student being paramount to the motivation and effectiveness of materials (p110) and that has finally clicked and made sense in direct relation to my teaching practice. If I had thought a bit more carefully about the needs of my student (in both iterations of the lesson), I would have created a truly effective lesson plan with a potentially excellent and meaningful lesson. My colleague ‘B’ said that the first half of the class was meaningful, as this lesson was designed with students who suffer from hesitation problems when speaking, so in hindsight, I would have gone back and thought about that second half of the lesson, changing it to suit the needs of the student more effectively.

I had asked my colleague to focus on my delivery of online classes, as this has been the cause of most of my teaching anxiety as of late. She was generally quite positive, praising my scaffolding and especially waiting for an answer. This is something that resonated with me from the second week of Semester One. During TE710 (ELT Methodology: Approaches & Methods), there was a podcast in the key reading by Doug Lemov on the BBC Radio programme ‘The Educators’ in which Lemov gave an example of a teacher who waited around 12 seconds after asking a question to the class before she accepted a response. This has remained with me throughout the course of the Diploma and is most definitely applicable to online teaching, where there is always somewhat of a delay between the two parties talking, so patience with the learner is paramount.

Finally, there were of course areas for consideration. As with the previous iteration of this lesson, timing was somewhat of an issue and the final stage had to be cut in order to keep time. This was picked up on by my colleague and shows to me that I am still planning too many lesson stages with my online lessons, which is a general action point for my teaching going forward. There was also the issue of recycling material, something of which I am not the best at. My colleague asked me why I hadn’t repeated sections of the lesson with my student, such as allowing for more free speaking practice in order to consolidate the language items learned. I didn’t have an answer for this but I completely recognise the effectiveness of repetition; it’s a type of drilling that encourages students to remember and recall information and I should strive to consider that in my lesson planning.

It is both relieving and sad that this is my last peer observation of the course. Even before starting the diploma I’ve always found peer observations and reflection very useful, so it has been very interesting to see just how useful this could be while studying the Diploma. I have action points from all of my peer and formal observations to implement into my teaching practice, my only thought at the moment however is; where do I go from here? I think this is the beginning of a critical incident….

References
Jolly, D. & Bolitho, R. (2011) A framework for materials writing. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed) Materials
Development in Language Teaching. (2nd edn) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Lemov, D (2016). ‘The World’s Best Teachers’,(In) ‘The Educators’ BBC Radio 4:01/06/2016