Job Discussion Forums

[Justin Trullinger]

Happy end of course! I think that students of all ages can offer feedback on their courses, though the nature of it is different. On our last teacher training course, a participant offered me some truly touching feedback in the form of a bottle of Glenlivet. It wasn't a feedback option on the questionaire, but I'm not complaining. I've been in Ecuador so long I'd nearly forgotten that licor can be smooth and still have flavor!

But I digress. Design your own questionaire, Koot! You may not have those students again, but in many ways, students are students. You really may be able to learn things from this lot that make the next lot easier to handle. Maybe we should all have a questionaire share? What do you all use?

But I realize I'm in a privileged position, in that I'm not going to get yelled at in the DOS's office. In fact, I'm in the DOS's office right now- when I'm not teaching, it's where I usually am. (I am the DOS.)

Which does bring up an interesting idea- I find student feedback, in many forms, to be invaluable to me as a teacher. But I'm less comfortable with them as an administrative tool. As director, I get class evaluations roughly every couple of months from students, and in the case of children, also from parents. But I'm a teacher, first and foremost, and I understand that student responses aren't always literal. If someone says "more talking/less grammar," it probably does mean that the teacher is somehow failing to engage them in the grammar, and they are finding it boring. Or it may meaning that the teacher has exceptionally good speaking activities, which the students love. Can mean a lot of things- all of which are useful to a teacher. But no need for yelling.

On the other hand, an administrator who isn't a teacher isn't going to know how to interpret all of this- hence the yelling, perhaps.



best,
justin

[Kootvela]

Sometimes, it's not the DoS but the boss who yells. Does complicate things, really.

If I had to design a questionnaire, I would have problems with the formulation of certain items. For example, when I worked for a company, they have 'How well did the course fullfill your expectations in terms of grammar/ vocabulary/reading/ listening, etc' which I found horiffic! I mean, beginenr students would always write 'poor' because they have higher expectations than can be achieved during 42 clock hours! Or 'would you like more grammar/listening/vocabulary/ speaking/ reading' is just like a menu in a cafe! As if my students are experts in teaching and their WANTS are their real NEEDS!

[Jetgirly]

One of the nice things about teaching K-12 is that when I do questionnaires, I do them solely for the benefit of the students. Sometimes I don't even collect them. I use them to get students thinking about what they've learned (and not learned), and how they learn best. Frankly, by the end of the class I already have a good grasp of what the students liked and didn't like, as well as which learning objectives were met and which weren't.

When I was teaching K-12 in Mexico, they had our students rate us based on nine criteria, like "always show up for class" (ummm... if it's that big an issue, shouldn't admin stop by and look in the classroom to see if we're there?), "seems prepared" (again, nobody from admin ever asked about anything I was doing in my classroom), "is friendly" and "class is fun". They tallied the score and had an awards ceremony for the teachers with the highest scores. Needless to say, the more movies you watched in class and the fewer assignments you gave the higher your score. For the entire semester I taught there, that was the only way admin ever sought feedback on my work. They never asked what I was teaching, they never observed any lessons, they never asked to see lesson plans or materials that I had created, nada. If I had been a real employee at the school, 50% of my professional evaluation would have been based on the students' scores, and 50% would be based on the tidiness of my attendance sheets. I kid you not.

[LongShiKong]

Designing effective feedback questionnaires
I think it's possible to write a questionnaire for kids (and adults) if you tailor your questions to avoid simplistic subjective opinions. To get more in depth feedback, you'd need to write the questionnaire in the students' native tongue.

For example, you can change this type of subjective question...
How did you like the textbook? __ Excellent __ Good __ Average __ Poor

...into something that gives us more information about the students:

Is the English in the coursebook.. __ a bit too easy __ just right __ too difficult

If it's too difficult, what could you do to try and understand it?
_______.

What could the class do together or the teacher do to make it easier to understand? __________.

Here's some ideas for questions designed to gather specific information:

Complete the sentences (this could also be a multiple choice):

After we close our books to practice the language from picture or word prompts, I _______________.

When I stand up to answer a question in class and I'm not sure of what the teacher expects, I ___________.