PDA - Stage 2: Research and Action

Following the diagnostic observation on October 19th, these are my reflections and comments on “the story so far”. This is only a draft, although I am pretty happy about it so there won't be many changes, after all...

Strengths of my teaching

- ability to create a friendly and stress-free learning environment
- ability to involve every student
- ability to grade tasks according to unexpected difficulties
- ability to evaluate whether a task will be successful/too easy or difficult for the class I am teaching at the moment
- language awareness
- clarity of exposition of language on board – good check questions
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All these positive points arise from the following:

- feedback during my Tesol course (Brighton 2007), where both the students and my peers would give me positive response with regards to my interpersonal skills: every time I am observed this is the first comment that I receive.
- Having been a language student myself, I think I understand what will work and what won’t, and I am very receptive to different problems connected with type of learners or different L1; thanks to this I can usually judge at once if an activity will successful or not, and I can find a way to grade tasks according to the level or to the students. At the same time, if my judgement fails me and the tasks proves to be too difficult or too easy, I am very flexible and very good at improvising (the best example of this is my last observation during the TESOL course when the listening task had proved to be too complicated, so I improvised the rest of the lesson helping the students step by step).
- Language awareness is the result of a deep and thorough study of the language for more than ten years, through middle and high school until the completion of my degree in English language and literature. It is another frequent comment in the feedbacks I have received since starting teaching ESOL; in the school I used to work to I got a reputation of being very methodical, thorough and clear when teaching the grammar, so much so that students started going to the DOS to ask to be put in my class even though the level would prove to be too low for them (I normally taught pre-intermediate then).

Weaknesses – reasons – research and action plan

1. Time and classroom management: I could be a more effective teacher if I could use time efficiently.

1.1. When? Feedback from diagnostic observation showed a tendency to rush the activities, not allowing enough time for pair-work, although having if I had had more than two students I believe I could have done better. I am aware that I struggle with the idea that silence is necessary during the lesson for the students to “digest” the information that they have received so far or to concentrate on the task before producing the target language with confidence (Krashen’s input stage). This issue also relates to classroom management, i.e. my lack of confidence on what to do in situations when a pair finishes the tasks earlier than the other students, and I cannot decide on the best course of action (giving the pair extra work? Let them relax? Stop the activity and start feedback?)
1.2. Research: peer observation with a specific questionnaire that will focus on the areas I need to analyse (see appendix), with reference to the other points mentioned later.
1.3. Action: observation of more experienced teachers in my school (to be arranged – probably during the week of November 23rd) – focused study and research of management techniques from articles and books (REFERENCE!)

2. Board work: I could be a more effective teacher if I could apply my awareness of the language to every aspect of it in my teaching.
2.1. When? Feedback from diagnostic observation praised my awareness of the language, which is one of my strengths, and at the same time focused on the way the language could have been presented in a more thorough way, by including form and pronunciation (in that case, features of connected speech as it was relevant to the listening and speaking activity that followed). I am also aware that I don’t always provide enough examples on the board which could help a faster understanding of the target language, getting stuck on the context of the lesson: this could lead (especially at lower levels) to the use of the language only in specific contexts (e.g., when I taught modals of obligations in my pre-intermediate class, we got stuck on “must” and “mustn’t”, and my students replaced the latter with “can’t” even when the best choice would have mustn’t).
2.1.1. Research: students’ questionnaires focusing on students’ acquisition of the language (see appendix) – peer observation to get data on my use of the board (see also point 2.2.1.1)
2.1.2. Actions: observation of more experienced teachers in my school as per point above. Find articles which can help me with the organisation of board work in my lesson plans – at the same time, start focusing on lesson planning which must include a board-plan for reference during the lesson.
2.2. Board work: I could be a more effective teacher if I were more responsive to random vocabulary that comes up during the lesson.
2.2.1. When? Feedback from diagnostic observation; I have also noticed that sometimes I don’t give much consideration to words that come up during a group discussion or while pairs are working on a task and I am going around the class: this is due, I believe, to a series of factors, including the insistence, during my TESOL course, that only relevant words (i.e., related to the topic of the lesson) should go on the board; another factor is confusion between the words that I sometime pre-teach in a lesson (and which arguably should be 3, or 4, or no more than 6 according to different theories), and random words which could be useful for future lessons, or simply interesting for the students.
2.2.1.1. Research: students’ questionnaires focusing on what they have learnt during the lesson, to get data on what they found interesting or relevant, and compare it to what my objectives were before the lesson (see appendix). Peer observation (including point 2.1.1 above).
2.2.1.2. Action: see point 2.1.2.

3. Instructions: I could be a more effective teacher if my instructions were clearer.
3.1. When? I often notice that I have to repeat instructions twice, or that, after the task has started, some student asks what they have to do; this can simply be lack of attention when the instructions were given, but I am aware that my delivery is not always clear. It is also a point that came up a few times during my TESOL course; I am aware that, sometimes due to lack of preparation time, the task is not even clear to me, or that I haven’t verbalised it, thus it is still more of a general idea of what the students will have to do.
3.1.1. Research: peer observation.
3.1.2. Action: peer observation; experimenting different activities that require use of instructions to get more practice; find articles or books that can help me with this area.


Deadline for research

The deadline I have set myself is December 11th, which will give me enough time to collect data and start working specifically to improve in all these areas.