Here's an edited version of the handout for the workshop I gave at the Professional Development in Language Teaching conference in Okayama, Japan this weekend. It was a great conference with lots of workshops by teachers working on their teaching. I'll post thoughts and inspiration from the conference in the next few days.
Making sense of classroom experience through reflective practice
Systematic, rigorous reflective practice is a potentially transformative method of professional development since it focuses on the classroom experience – where our beliefs about teaching meet our practice.
The steps of reflective practice…
Experience – a critical moment that you would like to understand better
Description – the video clip of the moment
• What was happening? What were the students doing/saying? What were you doing/saying?
• How did you feel? How were you reacting to the students?
• What other details will help you to understand this moment – group dynamics, institutional context, level & ability of the students?
Analysis – produce several hypotheses that could explain the situation
• Why do you think this happened?
• What beliefs do you have about learning that might help interpret this moment?
• What does your past experience (generally and/or specifically with these students) tell you about this moment?
• What do research and/or theories of language acquisition tell you?
• Can you think of other possible explanations?
Plan of action – articulate a variety of future actions to address the situation
• What would you do differently next time based on your analysis?
• What information or skills would help you address this issue?
• What information or skills would help your students address this issue?
• What else can help you address this issue?
• What questions would you like to explore?
Disclaimer
This presentation is based on materials and terminology developed by trainers in the SIT TESOL Certificate course.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Article Recommendation
This past week I stumbled across an article by Kathleen Bailey called "Promoting our own Professional Development Through Reflective Teaching Journals." It's available at the World Federation of Modern Language Associations website in the May 2005 newsletter (pages 12-22). (The following link will take you to the newsletter as a pdf file. The article begins on page 12.)FIPLV May 2005 Newsletter
Here's the opening paragraph...
"Working in the tradition of reflective teaching, over the past two decades many language teachers around the world have kept journals as a way of documenting and investigating their teaching. In this paper I will offer excerpts from several teaching journals. The dual focus here will be first on reflective teaching as a way of promoting our own professional development, and second on the insights that some language teachers have gained by keeping teaching journals."
This article is a clear and accessible overview of what is involved in keeping a reflective teaching journal. I find that reading the insights that other teachers have gained through their own reflective practice is good motivation for continuing to reflect in my teaching journal.
Read it and get motivated yourself!
This past week I stumbled across an article by Kathleen Bailey called "Promoting our own Professional Development Through Reflective Teaching Journals." It's available at the World Federation of Modern Language Associations website in the May 2005 newsletter (pages 12-22). (The following link will take you to the newsletter as a pdf file. The article begins on page 12.)
Here's the opening paragraph...
"Working in the tradition of reflective teaching, over the past two decades many language teachers around the world have kept journals as a way of documenting and investigating their teaching. In this paper I will offer excerpts from several teaching journals. The dual focus here will be first on reflective teaching as a way of promoting our own professional development, and second on the insights that some language teachers have gained by keeping teaching journals."
This article is a clear and accessible overview of what is involved in keeping a reflective teaching journal. I find that reading the insights that other teachers have gained through their own reflective practice is good motivation for continuing to reflect in my teaching journal.
Read it and get motivated yourself!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
First Reflection
Description
(What I plan to write usually changes in the act of writing. As I write I remember more details and see that the moment didn’t happen quite as I remembered in the emotional first recollection.)
This is a higher-level first-year Oral English class for English majors. There were 8 students in the class in the first semester. One other student joined from September.
Moment: a listening exercise from the textbook. Students listened to 3 people describing the contents of their fridges and checked the items they heard on a picture in the textbook. 8 students were present, so the students were arranged in 4 pairs to check their answers together.
Two students (one of them was the student who just joined the class) repeatedly were not checking their answers. After the first listening, three of the four pairs were on task and checking their answers together. The fourth pair was talking (in English) about McDonalds and how fat Americans are. After the second listening they were once again not on task. This duo had been paired up previously in the lesson and similarly had not been on task. They chatted in Japanese, spoke loudly and disturbed the other students.
After the third listening I had students pair up with the person on their other side. The two noisy students were separated and settled down and focused on the lesson.
Analysis
(I find that ideas generate ideas when I’m writing out my reflections. I might have one interpretation in mind when I start, but others pop up as I continue.)
According to what I know about these two students (since I've taught the new student in another class) Both are the kind of student who seems unaware of the effect of their behaviour on those around them. They both have quite high levels of English even though neither of them have spent as much time studying overseas as their classmates have. They seem less able to focus on a lesson after a warm-up of free chatting time.
According to what I know about control and initiative, some students can stay on task with more initiative while others drown in the freedom. They might not be used to doing what the other students are doing and tend to simply do their own thing during pair work. Higher level students to whom English always came easy in junior and/or senior high school haven’t always developed the work habits necessary to be successful in college. If they’re not used to paying attention in high school, they won’t necessarily know how to do so in university.
According to what I know about people and their differing personalities, coming into a new class (as R did) or having the class members change (S) in the middle of the school year can cause insecurity that results in “acting out.” S has always had days when she’s been rather hyper and unaware of the effect of her actions on others.
According to what I know about setting up tasks, people process information in different ways. Just giving instructions verbally will probably not reach all the students – especially if they’re used to “tuning out” the teacher because of their previous classroom experiences. But I did give the instructions verbally and visually as the students were looking at their textbooks as I explained the task and the other pairs knew what to do.
Plan of Action
(based on the analysis of the moment)
Keep R and S apart during pair work. They get along fine, but don't work together very well.
Make sure that the tasks are clear in two ways: what the students have to do & why they're doing it. I know that I'm more motivated to do something if I know why I'm doing it. "This activity will help you to see if you understand the difference between countable and uncountable nouns." It wouldn't take much to state the purpose of the activity. It would also help me make sure that I'm not making the students do "busy work" that doesn't help their learning.
Help the students connect the content of the lesson to the goals they made at the beginning of the semester. Have them look over the page/unit and note what they know about the vocabulary, grammar, structure or other content of the lesson. Find out what they want to learn/remember/review.
Learn more about the students' learning styles by giving them a VAK (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) self-assessment test that will help them determine their preferred learning style. Knowing their own learning style will help them make plans to reach their semester goals and it will help me plan lessons that will engage each student.
Description
(What I plan to write usually changes in the act of writing. As I write I remember more details and see that the moment didn’t happen quite as I remembered in the emotional first recollection.)
This is a higher-level first-year Oral English class for English majors. There were 8 students in the class in the first semester. One other student joined from September.
Moment: a listening exercise from the textbook. Students listened to 3 people describing the contents of their fridges and checked the items they heard on a picture in the textbook. 8 students were present, so the students were arranged in 4 pairs to check their answers together.
Two students (one of them was the student who just joined the class) repeatedly were not checking their answers. After the first listening, three of the four pairs were on task and checking their answers together. The fourth pair was talking (in English) about McDonalds and how fat Americans are. After the second listening they were once again not on task. This duo had been paired up previously in the lesson and similarly had not been on task. They chatted in Japanese, spoke loudly and disturbed the other students.
After the third listening I had students pair up with the person on their other side. The two noisy students were separated and settled down and focused on the lesson.
Analysis
(I find that ideas generate ideas when I’m writing out my reflections. I might have one interpretation in mind when I start, but others pop up as I continue.)
According to what I know about these two students (since I've taught the new student in another class) Both are the kind of student who seems unaware of the effect of their behaviour on those around them. They both have quite high levels of English even though neither of them have spent as much time studying overseas as their classmates have. They seem less able to focus on a lesson after a warm-up of free chatting time.
According to what I know about control and initiative, some students can stay on task with more initiative while others drown in the freedom. They might not be used to doing what the other students are doing and tend to simply do their own thing during pair work. Higher level students to whom English always came easy in junior and/or senior high school haven’t always developed the work habits necessary to be successful in college. If they’re not used to paying attention in high school, they won’t necessarily know how to do so in university.
According to what I know about people and their differing personalities, coming into a new class (as R did) or having the class members change (S) in the middle of the school year can cause insecurity that results in “acting out.” S has always had days when she’s been rather hyper and unaware of the effect of her actions on others.
According to what I know about setting up tasks, people process information in different ways. Just giving instructions verbally will probably not reach all the students – especially if they’re used to “tuning out” the teacher because of their previous classroom experiences. But I did give the instructions verbally and visually as the students were looking at their textbooks as I explained the task and the other pairs knew what to do.
Plan of Action
(based on the analysis of the moment)
Keep R and S apart during pair work. They get along fine, but don't work together very well.
Make sure that the tasks are clear in two ways: what the students have to do & why they're doing it. I know that I'm more motivated to do something if I know why I'm doing it. "This activity will help you to see if you understand the difference between countable and uncountable nouns." It wouldn't take much to state the purpose of the activity. It would also help me make sure that I'm not making the students do "busy work" that doesn't help their learning.
Help the students connect the content of the lesson to the goals they made at the beginning of the semester. Have them look over the page/unit and note what they know about the vocabulary, grammar, structure or other content of the lesson. Find out what they want to learn/remember/review.
Learn more about the students' learning styles by giving them a VAK (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) self-assessment test that will help them determine their preferred learning style. Knowing their own learning style will help them make plans to reach their semester goals and it will help me plan lessons that will engage each student.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sometimes little things make all the difference...
Last year after the first Canadian Studies lesson of the second semester, I was very dissatisfied with the lesson. It was disorganized, boring and irrelevant to the students. (At least that's how I remember feeling about it!) Today's lesson went much better and generated lots of comments and questions in the students' written feedback. At one point I looked out and saw all 57 students on task and working. Wow – what a beautiful sight!
When I think about the changes I made to the lesson they really were quite basic...
• I redesigned the handout so that the instructions for the different tasks (graphing population statistics about immigration to Canada) clearly matched the graphs they pertained to.
• I set up the unit on immigration in a way that connected to what the students know (Japan's birthrate is falling and its population is decreasing. Canada's birthrate is falling and its population is increasing. Why? A student says "immigration".) Most Japanese would never dream of immigrating to another country so students are generally quite curious about what would motivate others to leave their countries of birth.
• I connected to the students’ prior knowledge by using a K-W-L worksheet for students to write down what they already know about immigration, what they want to learn about it, and (at the end of the lesson) what they learned so far. (Google K-W-L for lots of resources that explain the K-W-L technique.)
• I didn’t ask the students to do what they’re generally not comfortable doing. They didn’t have to share their answers with the whole class. If they wanted to work with a partner they could. If they wanted to work by themselves, that was all right too. Basically, in a large class, students are going to do what they want to do – it’s too difficult to monitor them all the time. So why not give them permission to work in their preferred style sometimes?
What small changes can you make in your lessons? Sometimes they can lead to big results!
Last year after the first Canadian Studies lesson of the second semester, I was very dissatisfied with the lesson. It was disorganized, boring and irrelevant to the students. (At least that's how I remember feeling about it!) Today's lesson went much better and generated lots of comments and questions in the students' written feedback. At one point I looked out and saw all 57 students on task and working. Wow – what a beautiful sight!
When I think about the changes I made to the lesson they really were quite basic...
• I redesigned the handout so that the instructions for the different tasks (graphing population statistics about immigration to Canada) clearly matched the graphs they pertained to.
• I set up the unit on immigration in a way that connected to what the students know (Japan's birthrate is falling and its population is decreasing. Canada's birthrate is falling and its population is increasing. Why? A student says "immigration".) Most Japanese would never dream of immigrating to another country so students are generally quite curious about what would motivate others to leave their countries of birth.
• I connected to the students’ prior knowledge by using a K-W-L worksheet for students to write down what they already know about immigration, what they want to learn about it, and (at the end of the lesson) what they learned so far. (Google K-W-L for lots of resources that explain the K-W-L technique.)
• I didn’t ask the students to do what they’re generally not comfortable doing. They didn’t have to share their answers with the whole class. If they wanted to work with a partner they could. If they wanted to work by themselves, that was all right too. Basically, in a large class, students are going to do what they want to do – it’s too difficult to monitor them all the time. So why not give them permission to work in their preferred style sometimes?
What small changes can you make in your lessons? Sometimes they can lead to big results!
Sunday, September 24, 2006
The “it” that I continually mention in the poem below refers to keeping an online teaching journal. The goal and challenge is this: to reflect regularly on my classes at least once or, if possible, twice a week and post those reflections online.
In the past I’ve tried to keep a teaching journal, but haven’t been very successful at doing so for any length of time. I’ve also tried to find actual examples of reflection on language teaching on the internet and haven’t had much success. There seems to be a lot of resources about various theories of reflective practice (I’ll add links to those I think are most useful to the language teaching context), but not many examples. So I’m hoping that this blog might be a useful resource for teachers who would benefit from reading actual reflections on teaching. And imagining that there is an audience out there who will read my reflections creates the incentive to add new content.
Maybe I’ll find out that I’m the only one who is interested in reading examples of reflection – and that’ll be all right. “Way leads on to way” and this is the way I’m being led right now.
Happy teaching!
In the past I’ve tried to keep a teaching journal, but haven’t been very successful at doing so for any length of time. I’ve also tried to find actual examples of reflection on language teaching on the internet and haven’t had much success. There seems to be a lot of resources about various theories of reflective practice (I’ll add links to those I think are most useful to the language teaching context), but not many examples. So I’m hoping that this blog might be a useful resource for teachers who would benefit from reading actual reflections on teaching. And imagining that there is an audience out there who will read my reflections creates the incentive to add new content.
Maybe I’ll find out that I’m the only one who is interested in reading examples of reflection – and that’ll be all right. “Way leads on to way” and this is the way I’m being led right now.
Happy teaching!
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
What if I ran towards it
with the same energy and intensity
that I run away from it?
What if I threw myself
into this project
with the same willingness
I use to distract myself from it?
What if I worked on it
with the same enthusiasm
that I talk about it?
What if I found ways
to make it work
with the same creativity
that I dream up reasons
why it won't work?
What if I just started it
and followed where it takes me
and actually let
way lead on to way?
What if I just did it?
with the same energy and intensity
that I run away from it?
What if I threw myself
into this project
with the same willingness
I use to distract myself from it?
What if I worked on it
with the same enthusiasm
that I talk about it?
What if I found ways
to make it work
with the same creativity
that I dream up reasons
why it won't work?
What if I just started it
and followed where it takes me
and actually let
way lead on to way?
What if I just did it?
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