Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Typical feedback? No torture, ha! There were times I was sorely tempted to employ it myself during feedback, but no, chickened out in the end.

Advice I have given most frequently depends on the experience of the teacher. With newbies, the obvious point is TTT and language grading. They need real support in these areas and using real situations from their lessons as examples helps to make these areas of teaching less theoretical for them. Setting achievable lesson aims is another constant, part of overall lesson-planning, as is listening to the learners. Sometimes new teachers lack some confidence and need reassurance that they are on the right track � so encouragement forms a large part of feedback.

Even more experienced teachers may need support with some of the issues here, but more usually areas concern setting up tasks effectively, allowing �thinking-time� before students speak, varying feedback methods and patterns of interaction, exploiting materials effectively. Rapport and L1 awareness typically become less of a feature of feedback. Pacing, staging, and student engagement are normally strong areas.

For very experienced and skilled teachers, feedback , apart from being a formal validation of what they are doing in the classroom, is usually just an informal discussion on furthering skills and techniques displayed during the observation, pros and cons of such and such an approach and referrals to whatever literature is available. This feedback is usually much more two-way than with other teachers, and, incidentally, more fruitful for me the observer!

However, in none of the areas mentioned above does �the observer effect� make observations useless. This is a regular comment made by some teachers I have worked with, but I really do not believe the argument holds water. It is true that an observer will have some effect on the class � student dynamics, as commented on previously. But my presence as an observer does not influence a teacher to dominate the class and monopolise talking time, forget how to correct errors, or suddenly sap his ability to organize a whiteboard. At the same time, the extra prep and planning an observed teacher does, or should do, in no way indicates that I am observing a �staged� lesson which reveals nothing about the teacher�s real abilities. Of course an observed lesson is not �typical� of other lessons, as writing up a full, �reconstructable� plan attests. But it does show the observer that the teacher is capable (or not) of the logical planning and staging of any lesson and has basic classroom management skills. Quite useful to know.

The dichotomy between plan and execution, mentioned earlier, is not so clear to me. Most observed lesson plans include a section on potential mishaps to watch out for and the planned solutions, and so include some flexibility to compensate for what actually occurs in the lesson. The skill of �thinking on your feet� to respond to classroom situations is prized much more highly by observers than sticking slavishly to a plan.

That being said, I am sure I will hear evermore the plaintive defence � ..but the lesson really improved as soon as you stopped observing it.�

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

"But my presence as an observer does not influence a teacher to dominate the class and monopolise talking time, forget how to correct errors, or suddenly sap his ability to organize a whiteboard.:

And you know this - how?


"At the same time, the extra prep and planning an observed teacher does, or should do, in no way indicates that I am observing a �staged� lesson which reveals nothing about the teacher�s real abilities."

Extra prep and planning would seem (to me) to indicate that the lesson you're onserving is atypical. So, what would constitute a "staged lesson", then?

Regards,
John

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

"But my presence as an observer does not influence a teacher to dominate the class and monopolise talking time, forget how to correct errors, or suddenly sap his ability to organize a whiteboard."

And you know this - how?


"At the same time, the extra prep and planning an observed teacher does, or should do, in no way indicates that I am observing a �staged� lesson which reveals nothing about the teacher�s real abilities."

Extra prep and planning would seem (to me) to indicate that the lesson you're onserving is atypical. So, what would constitute a "staged lesson", then?

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Johnslat,

A teacher who has TTT issues or cannot use a whiteboard even during an observation is certainly going to have the same issues in an unobserved lesson. This is just common sense, in my opinion. I would also know this from experience and also from student feedback.To blame the observer for any shortcomings is merely to shift blame. Possible observation-nervousness on the teacher's part can only account for so much.

A 'staged' lesson is one where the observed teacher has rehearsed the lesson with the students beforehand 'to look good' in front of the observer, or even, as I experienced, planting special 'students' in the class to perform various roles, again to attempt to falsely enhance the teacher's prowess.

This is in no way the same as putting a little more effort than usual into a lesson.

[DIPTESOL]

It wasn't team teaching with the Chinese teachers, they would just sit in the classroom. I've just got some of the feedback from one middle school and the Chinese staff there (who obviously think they have better oral English than me and that they are more qualified!) decided that my lessons weren't active enough and that the class of 30 kids weren't speaking enough.

The Chinese love using that word 'active' - unless the teacher is prancing about like a clown and the kids utter a memorised phrase it's not active enough for them. Do you know what the Chinese teachers' idea of testing oral English is? The kids line up in the staff room and recite a passage from the text book! and they have the nerve to say my kids weren't speaking enough!!

At least my lessons were real and I taught them about culture differences as well as allowing them to have fun. I would also make an effort to speak to the kids one to one inside and outside of class and not make them recite any passage about Bob and his dog!!!

Sorry, just need to let off steam as I feel utterly disgusted that Chinese teachers think they know best when they clearly don't judging by their teaching methods!!

[Justin Trullinger]

Sometimes being experienced and well qualified lets you off the hook for observation, sometimes not. Depends on where you work.

Where I work, observation is minimal for most teachers, maybe 1-3 times a year, which I hardly consider onerous. I get observed more, and observe more, because I'm a teacher trainer, and I think, as most everybody here seems to agree, that early in a career, more observation is more helpful. This means that I spend a lot of time watching trainees teach, and they watch me.

Not everyplace does and observation, but I suppose most do. Why might this be?

Cause here's the conundrum. This thread proves that a lot of teachers don't like. As an administrator, though I know it can be positive, I also have to admit that it's a pain and a lot of work. Why can't (don't) we just skip it?


Best,
Justin

[basiltherat]

One observes a pilot to check on his work performance cos there's an agreed single right way to go about flying a plane. Same goes for bus drivers. They abide by rules which they must abide by. There are wrong ways and the right way.

IMHO, in teaching, there is no such thing as the 'right' way and no wrong ways. There are only 'good' (effective and efficient) and 'bad' (ineffective and inefficient) ways. Conducting official and conventional teacher observations is a sure fire way of upsetting people. So-called 'feedback' is subjective and very little is objective. No teacher has to justify the way he conducts a lesson to anyone else if both he and the students are satsfied with what went on and what was achieved.

In my experience, some of the best and effective teachers are those who have paid scant attention to the so-called conventions that EFL teachers are supposed to adopt and which are forced upon them both by teacher trainers and individuals who conduct these TEFL certification courses held in exotic locations around the world. The whole thing is a ripoff, abusing the gullible people who think these haughty (and often self-appointed) individuals (who, if they're as good as they say they are, should spend more time teaching thus benefitting students directly, instead of wasting their time observing others) supposedly know all and sundry about tefling.

In my view, these types of teacher-trainer observations are simply baloney in the tefl gig.

Good teachers are those who emulate the positive and effective work of other teachers and/or who then adapt these positives and whatever else ( i.e ideas) they pick up from others to their own teaching style; to what suits them and the students he teaches.

In my view, (as previously implied) we learn directly from others; not from being told what others do.

sorry but, nuff said

best
basil

[fluffyhamster]

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

"A 'staged' lesson is one where the observed teacher has rehearsed the lesson with the students beforehand 'to look good' in front of the observer, or even, as I experienced, planting special 'students' in the class to perform various roles, again to attempt to falsely enhance the teacher's prowess."

Wow - I guess i was really an "Innocent Abroad." I never encountered such a "lesson" in my over twenty years overseas, and, to tell you the truth, it hadn't even occurred to me that such a fraudulent practice existed. My observations were often unannounced beforehand.

Regards,
John

P.S. As for the "oberever effect", in my experience, when a teacher knows he/she is going to be observed (I've done those, too), the class that the observer sees is very often not typical.
I know this by having observed other teachers, and then comparing what I saw with all the feedback that I had gotten from so many students and other staff.

[basiltherat]

Just a brief addition to my last post:

The irony in all this is that it would seem that the only person who is learning to improve his / her teaching skills is the trainer/observer himself; by observing others and taking away effective ideas he witnesses in the classroom.

How ridiculous ! The whole thing has been stood on its head.

best
basil

[basiltherat]

[fluffyhamster]

Scoring a goal is ultimately a simple matter that done "right" can only "go" (be done) one way, with one outcome; there's never been a striker who has e.g. stood with his back to the goal and attempted to boot the ball in with a vision-restricted clumsy and weaker kick using his heel whilst tightening and cramping the hamstring. So you only really need to see it the once, and that only takes a couple of seconds (and not necessarily in a match, itself a relatively simple affair). Language however, whilst it is often easy enough to understand (especially for native speakers, obviously!) in little and/or select dribs and drabs, is difficult to see let alone master in all its richness and complexity unless you marshall lots of it, "lay it all out" and go through it all, implicitly comparing the various items for likeness or difference (and all that could take a native "teacher" as long as if not longer to do than a foreign learner!).

Now I am not saying that another teacher that "you" might observe won't have done the requisite reading, but the point remains that unless YOU have it will be easy for the wool to be pulled over your eyes too, easy for you to think something a good lesson due to the methodology rather than the actual language/linguistic aspects (I am often surprised by what still passes with/bamboozles some as good grammar practice). But by all means sit in on other classes if you have time and your colleagues want you to and you're prepared to reciprocate in return (but be warned, stalwarts for some -usually but not always less experienced teachers - such as bingo or scrambled sentences can be as boring to watch as to read about (if activity books rather than grammars are your thing)!).

[dreadnought v.2]

[johnslat]

Dear dreadnought v.2,

"I wasn't convinced by 'punitive' observations either, by that I mean observations done by the DoS because a teacher has received lots of complaints. Really, if a teacher is struggling, an observation is not going to turn things round, likely to only make things worse and the DoS can't exactly wave a magic wand and turn them into a great teacher. Again, it's more the school covering their backs, being able to justify firing the teacher when the time (almost inevitably) came.:

That's exactly why many "observations" were given where I worked in Saudi
(the IPA in Riyadh.) I finally convinced the director at the time to stop doing them by using a football analogy (he was a big fan of American football.)
I told him, "You know, Omar, when a quarterback goes back to pass, four things can happen and three of them are bad (yup, I know that, actually, MORE than three things can happen but I fudged to make the analogy sound better): He can complete the pass (good), or he can fumble (bad), or he can be sacked (bad), or the pass can be intercepted (bad).

So, when you fire a teacher four things can happen and three of them are bad: you can hire a better teacher (good), or you can hire someone just as bad (bad), or you can hire someone even worse (bad), or maybe you can't find someone to hire (bad.)

So every time you fire a teacher (or don't renew his/her contract) the odds are three to one against there being any improvement.

Fortunately, Omar wasn't all that good at math or logic, so he actually stopped the "excuse to fire" observations."

Regards,
John