My second peer observation as an observee was with an intermediate class that are planning on taking the IELTS exam. The class has eight students, and there are five different nationalities in the class. My observer is a currently studying for the DELTA, so I thought it would be interesting for us to discuss not only my lesson but also what we had gained from our courses so far and the positive effects it was having on our teaching.
My observer said that she wouldn’t be looking for anything specific but was very interested in the lesson content and hoped to learn a bit more about teaching exam classes. The lesson was an IELTS listening lesson which was taken from a book called ‘IELTS Trainer’. The aims of the lesson were:
- To show the learners how to predict what type of word will go in the gaps of the listening task.
- To teach the learners how to listen for distractors, and choose the correct answer based on the keywords in the questions.
Lesson materials
I had taught this lesson many times before so already had a list of words which I had predicted the learners might not know. This was the first time since I had started the dip course that I had taught it, though, so I had a few things I wanted to focus on:
- My use of Instruction Checking Questions (ICQs)
- Making sure that my transitions between tasks were clear
- To try to reduce my teacher talking time and make the lesson more learner-centred
I was pleased with how the lesson went. Although, I still felt I could have lowered my teacher talking time, especially when we were looking at the distractors.
I sometimes think that I am a bit too relaxed in class and one of the things this course is helping me to do is to try and tighten up my teaching while still trying to maintain my style of teaching. I think that this is one of the areas I was pleased with in this lesson as I felt my transitions between activities were much better, and the learners had a much clearer idea of what they were supposed to be doing.
The feedback I received from my observer was:
‘The lesson was both challenging and interesting and made good use of the materials. Your instructions were clear, and the lesson had a nice pacing to it, although at times, some students were left doing nothing while they waited for the slower students to finish. I liked how you scaffolded the lesson and thought this was an effective way of approaching this area of learning. I enjoyed the lesson and thought that you did well to achieve your lesson aims in a way that was engaging and enjoyable for the students.’
I think what she said about ‘students left doing nothing while they waited for the slower students to finish’ is a valid point and one which I have noticed previously in my lessons. I think an action point for future development would be to try and think more about the range of levels in the class and to think more about differentiation when planning the lesson. For example, by providing extra support for the weaker learners with support strategies such as reducing the number of questions or making open questions multiple choice. Conversely, I could think about extension activities for stronger learners, such as giving them optional extra questions. I think I could also think more about how I put the students in pairs or groups by not having any strong-strong pairings and putting strong students with weak ones.
Differentiation in the ESOL classroom
I think a significant point for reflection after this lesson is that the feedback I am getting from my assessed and peer observations is prompting me to look more at what I’m doing in class and how I am doing it. I think that after so many years of teaching, I may have become a bit complacent in certain areas of my teaching and by focusing on these areas, I am already beginning to see improvements.
Materials source
- Hashemi, L. & Thomas, B. 2011, IELTS trainer: six practice tests with answers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- https://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/differentiation-esol-classroom
