This week we had a fascinating session where we brought in short video clips of ourselves teaching and shared them with a peer in class. As a result of not having much teaching at the moment, I used a clip from my first assessed observation. The clip featured an activity that I have been doing for years as a warmer or ice-breaker, and I was looking forward to getting another teacher’s perspective on it. Also, I thought that maybe my peers might offer some ideas on how to improve the activity or potentially use it in different ways.

I was paired with Jo, which I was happy about as I had always found her comments in the sessions extremely interesting and valid and was looking forward to seeing the clip of her teaching.

Jo’s clip was of her teaching an FCE class. From the outset, you could see how comfortable the students were, which I think reflected the rapport Jo had created with her them. The focus of the lesson was emails and potential topics which may come up in the FCE exam. I think two things stood out for me watching the clip. 

Firstly, I liked the way Jo had turned something that could potentially be quite a dry topic into a lesson that was engaging and enjoyable for the learners. This is something I always strive to do but sometimes struggle when teaching exam classes. 

Secondly, I thought the way Jo continuously swapped the learners as they worked collaboratively on the writing stage of the lesson was really interesting to watch. It was extremely effective and productive and is something I may try and incorporate into my teaching.

I have always enjoyed watching other teachers in action, but what made this experience even better was that Jo was watching with me and was able to explain what her rationale for what she was doing and what she was thinking at the time. Richards & Farrell (2005) discuss what is visible to the observer and what is not so visible. Listening to Jo’s commentary as we watched her clip allowed me to understand the ‘not so visible’ elements of her teaching, such as her decision making and any teaching principles that influenced her planning process.

Watching my clip was also an interesting experience. Receiving feedback after an observation is always valuable, but I really enjoyed watching my clip with Jo as I was able to hear her thoughts on what I was doing in the clip and answer questions or add commentary. The activity I showed Jo was something I rather unimaginatively call ‘speaking in lines’. I actually can’t remember how I first discovered the activity. I think it may have been something that evolved from a piece of summer school material and that over the years I have adapted and tweaked it until it became the activity it is now. Jo’s comments on the activity were positive, and I think she was particularly interested in how it got the students out of the seat and raised energy levels. 

I think in the broader context Jo’s comments about my clip reminded me that the purpose of an activity doesn’t always have to be explicitly linked to the aims of the lesson (although I would say the majority of the time I do this activity there is some link to the language that will be studied in the lesson). It can just be about raising the learners’ energy levels and readiness to participate in the lesson.  I think this goes back to my initial training on my CELTA course where my instructor encouraged us to think of activities or fillers that could promote energetic engagement and get the learners out of their seats.

In the SLA module, we looked at Krashen’s (1982) Affective Filter Hypothesis which looked at how affective factors relate to second language acquisition. I genuinely believe that group activities that are enjoyable and raise the students’ energy levels, can have a positive effect on learner motivation, and self-confidence and help to lower learner anxiety. 

If I’m honest, I was a bit sceptical about the benefits of video clip peer observations at first, but it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the course so far. I feel like I gained a lot from my discussions with Jo and got a valuable insight into how other teachers think. Richards & Farrell (2005) describe peer observation as ‘a teacher or other observer closely watching and monitoring a language lesson or part of a lesson in order to gain an understanding of some aspect of teaching, learning, or classroom interaction.’ I think this session helped me to do just that.

Reading

Krashen, S. 1982, Principles and practice in second language acquisition, Pergamon, Oxford.

Richards, J.C. & Farrell, T.S.C. 2005,Professional development for language teachers: strategies for teacher learning, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.