My first peer observation as an observee was with an ESOL Entry 3 class (CEFR Level B1). I knew the group quite well as I had covered for their teacher on several occasions before and had developed some rapport with them. My observer is an experienced DELTA qualified teacher who has taught at the college for over 20 years. I asked this person to observe me because I not only respect and admire them as a teacher but also because of their knowledge of the ESOL syllabus.
The class has 16 students and has a mix of government-funded and paying students. There are 11 different nationalities in the class, and their ages range from 19-48. A few days before the observation I met with the teacher, and we discussed my key objectives of the observation and the areas of my teaching that I would like him to focus on, which were:
- My classroom management
- Interaction patterns during the lesson
- My use of error correction
The teacher also wanted to add my use of the interactive whiteboard to the list as he said this was an area he would like to improve in, and he had heard from colleagues that I was a proficient IWB user.
The lesson was an ESOL lesson taken from the Education and Training Foundation’s bank of resources. The theme of lessons that week was ‘The health service’, and the lesson was split into two 45 minute parts, each focusing on a different area of using the health service in the UK:
- Describing symptoms and using NHS Direct
The language aims of the symptoms and NHS direct tasks were:
- to present and revise specialist key words;
- to practise listening for specific information;
- to recognise the role of punctuation to aid understanding
2. Entitlements
The language aims of the Entitlements activities were:
- To practice scanning to locate specific information
Materials Source – https://esol.excellencegateway.org.uk/vocabulary/EGaudience/learning-materials
Although the lesson aims are about the language, both parts of the lesson inform the learners about valuable and relevant information that they need in their lives in the UK. I think this is one of the reasons that I find teaching ESOL students so rewarding. Teaching students about topics such as ‘what health benefits they are entitled to on the NHS’ highlights the differences between EFL and ESOL for me. (I go into more detail about this in the critical incidents section of this blog)
The lesson went well, although the lively discussions the topics provoked threw my timing out of the window, which is something that often happens in my ESOL classes. The lesson aims were achieved and I believe, so were the learning outcomes. The students were engaged throughout and participated well in the activities and tasks. From my point of view I thought the lesson wasn’t perfect and of course having an observer in the room makes you acutely aware of any mistakes you make, or learning opportunities that you miss, but overall I was happy with how it went.
When I sat with my observer after the class, he spoke about the rapport I have with the students and how he thought this was reflected in the way I managed the classroom. He did point out that I seemed reluctant at times to interrupt the learners when they were discussing the topic and that as a result, some of the activities overran. However, he didn’t see that as a negative as he thought I adapted to the situation and responded well to issues as they arose.
With regards to interaction patterns, he liked that there was less teacher speaking time than student speaking time. However, he thought I could have mixed up the groups a bit more as some students were in pairs and then were in groups together later. The result was that some of the students potentially repeated information unnecessarily.
One of the areas that I had asked my observer to focus on was error correction. During the speaking tasks when the students worked in pairs or groups, I tried to stand back and monitor the students while making notes of any mistakes I heard. Then I put the errors on the board and focused on them with the students after the task. My observer liked this and said that he does the same, but also suggested that I could get the learners to peer correct at this stage as this would keep the lesson student centred. This was interesting as I had written an essay on peer correction for the Methodology module but haven’t as yet been able to incorporate it into my teaching as much as I would like.
My observer’s aim for the observation was to look at my use of the interactive whiteboard, and he said he was impressed at how I had integrated the smartboard technology into my lesson. He particularly liked how I got the students using the smartboard to express their ideas or fill in gaps saying that that was the area he struggled with most; getting the students involved rather than just using it as a presentation tool. We discussed the idea of me giving an inset to him and some of the other teachers, which I agreed to do.
Overall, I think this peer observation was a very positive experience for both the observer and me. I have gained some valuable feedback on areas of my teaching I feel I can improve on but also feel like I have earned the respect of a peer that I much admire as a teacher.
