Making the Most of Observation Feedback

Image courtesy of WLC Feedback

Dave Dodgeson had a post a little while back on the benefit (or lack their of) of observation feedback.  As a trainer and manager, I also often wonder about its efficacy.  These sessions can often be charged with tension or result in few changes if not approached or conducted in the right way.  I’m sure we’ve all seen that teacher storm out of the feedback session in anger or tears.  However, observation feedback can be a fantastic tool for professional development, so what are some ways to make the most of it for both teachers and trainers?

For teachers:

-  Be open to the feedback.  Approach it as a discussion and opportunity to develop rather than as an argument.  I have experienced teachers that argue about every little thing.  The point of the feedback is to look at what worked and what didn’t, not necessarily the reason it was done.  Feedback is also not about being right or wrong; it’s about what we do with the information that helps us improve.

-  Seek to understand.  If you are unclear or disagree with a piece of feedback, try to understand where the trainer is coming from before getting defensive.  Asking open questions will help a lot here.

-  Discuss the observation in question and don’t take it personally.  For a particular piece of feedback, some teachers will say, “Well right, I usually do that, but when you were watching me I didn’t”.  You’re not discussing your lessons in general, your discussing the lesson that was observed and in that lesson you did not do X.  The fact that X wasn’t done well does not mean you are a bad teacher, it means, for that lesson, X was not done well.  As a trainer, I think the greatest potential for conflict in feedback comes from this tendency to take any criticism of a lesson as a personal attack on general character or ability.  Try keeping things in perspective.

-  Focus on what you can do to improve when dealing with corrective feedback.  One of my favorite phrases is “reasons are not justifications”.  Sure, Johnny may be really loud and obnoxious.  That’s your reason for giving him less attention in the class.  However, it doesn’t justify the fact that he’s receiving less opportunity to develop compared to others in the class.  We often have a strong tendency to use reasons as excuses to not make things better.  Instead, think about “what I can do better”.

-  Take notes or request a copy of the feedback if one isn’t provided.  Refer to these notes the next time you plan a lesson.

-  Ask for specific examples on how to improve.  If a trainer says, “You should encourage more student talking time”, make sure the trainer provides you with examples.

-  Create a simple action plan.  Choose three things you can improve starting from your next lesson and determine how you will implement those changes.  If you walk away from the feedback without making any changes, what was the point of doing it?

For trainers and managers:

-  Ask lots of open questions.  Let teachers uncover the feedback on their own rather than delivering it to them.  They will be much more receptive and the process of reflection yields much better results in terms of implementation for future lessons.  A skilled trainer can actually get the teachers to find all the highlights and criticisms on their own.

-  Prepare.  Before you meet with the teachers, sit down and think about what you will focus on and how the conversation will progress.  Think about how the teachers will react.

- Stick to the facts.  State observations and results rather than opinions or judgments.  You can’t debate or argue a fact.  For example, “I noticed you interacted with Johnny much less than with the other students.  As a result, he only produced 3 sentences the entire class and there were fewer opportunities to assess his level or correct his language.”  The teacher can make all the excuses they want, but that doesn’t change the fact Johhny was not interacted with and produced less than the other students.  It’s also not something open for challenge whereas a statement like “you need to engage the learners more” is.  This also avoids the huge pitfall of pronouncing judgment on a teacher as in “You’re not showing any improvement”, which will create large defensive reactions.  Instead try, “In the past 3 observations, I have not seen improvement on X.”  Notice how that statement sticks to the facts, localizes the issue, and focuses on what you have seen rather than on what the teacher hasn’t done.

-  Be specific.  Vague feedback is the worst.  Things like “that was a great lesson” or “you should be more clear” are extremely unhelpful.  What was great?  When and how should I be more clear?  When observing, make a note and then make sure to note down the details of the situation or exactly what was said.

-  Be flexible and adapt to the situation.  Sometimes teachers just need to hear the positives to help encourage them to continue. If a teacher had a really bad lesson, they probably already know it.  There’s no need to point it out.  On the other hand, some teachers won’t show improvement without additional pushes.

-  Give feedback as soon as possible.  It becomes less likely to have an effect the longer you wait.  Scheduling the feedback session along with the observation time is a good way to do this.

-  Keep it simple.  While you can discuss a number of points if you want, the meat of the feedback should stick to 3 highlights and 3 areas to improve.  Anything more and the conversation will lose focus.  Teachers are much less likely to make changes if there is too much as well.  They could become overwhelmed or they could focus on the least important areas.

-  Always finish with an action plan.  Ask the teachers what immediate changes they will make regarding their planning or teaching after the session is finished.

-  Follow up.  Make notes on what should be improved and then check in with teachers to make sure they are following up.  Also, by noting down what your teachers are great at, you know who to send people to with questions in a particular area.

Do you have any other tips for either teachers or trainers when it comes to observation feedback?

Related Posts:

Observation on Observation

Getting Classroom Observation Right & Misfires in Classroom Obs (6 parts)

A Personal Misfire as an Observee

Nurture Learning, Not Activities

Image courtesy of Beneath the Cover

Sometimes we teachers have a habit of preparing a lot of activities. We all dread that moment when we have ten minutes left in the class, but realize we don’t have anything else planned. So what do we do? We plan a bunch of extra activities just in case.

Here’s the problem though, a classroom isn’t about doing activities, it’s about learning. A successful lesson is defined by the amount and quality of the learning that occurred, not by how many activites were completed. Sometimes it’s a good idea to step back and look at our lesson and our lesson plans. Are they just a series of activities or can we visualize the learning occurring? Is our goal to take up space in the lesson or maximize the quality of the education delivered?

The next time you plan an activity for your class, take a moment to really look at it. Is it just a space filler or is something really valuable being done?

The Number One Priority

Image courtesy of nightmaremode.net

As a learning director of a private language institute, there is one question I ask myself over and over again every day: “Is what I’m doing right now the best thing I can be doing to help our students learn?”. It’s such a simple and obvious question, but I’ve found that we don’t ask it nearly enough.

I have tons of competing priorities every day. Often I have to make a choice between such things as supporting an upset teacher, helping a learner whose parents lost their book, cleaning up a classroom, or filing some paperwork every ten minutes. When all these issues constantly crop up at the same time, I just ask myself that simple question and make my choice.

This question doesn’t just focus on the students though, even though at first glance you might think that. It encompasses every choice and action throughout the day. Should I spend extra time planning my lesson or use that time to read a research article on teaching? Is complaining about my day making anyone else feel better about being here and will that in turn help the students in all of our classes? Is staying out for that one or two more beers going to affect the quality of my lessons tomorrow? Will going out of my way to welcome a new teacher have a positive effect on their teaching?

As a teacher, and especially as a manager, we affect the quality of learning at our school far more than just in making choices involved in lesson planning and delivery. Every choice we make at our school whether it affects other team members, the students, or even the cleanliness of the school all contribute to creating a quality learning environment for everyone. Often, even many of the choices we make away from our schools affect the quality of learning, too.

How do you prioritize your day? How do you make choices between all the competing demands on you? Do you always make the choices that benefit your students?

Who’s Responsible for a Child’s Education?

Image courtesy of UpwardAction.com

Perhaps an obvious question, but one I find is not often thought about. As teachers, there are a lot more people involved in the education of a child in our classrooms than just us. Education has many stakeholders. Perhaps the most important are the learners themselves and, in YL classrooms, the parents. Then you have the teachers, the administrators, and the curriculum developers as well.

We don’t teach in a vacuum and, as teachers, to do the best we can for a child, we need to align all interested parties. We may think we teach the best way, but if the parents don’t believe it, they won’t support you at home. If an administrator doesn’t believe it, you’ll face a lot of conflict in the school. If you don’t believe in you’re curriculum, you won’t be enthusiastic about the material you teach.  All these people want what’s best for the learners.  Everyone will have differing ideas on what that is and part of our job is to foster cooperation and support so that children can get the best education possible.

As a teacher, how do you involve others in the lives of your learners and your classrooms?  Could you foster more learning by thinking about the wider circle outside your classroom?

Save Time – Make the Students Do It

Wanna here a funny story? I thought so. Well, this one is about a trainee on a TEFL course. We all know many of us make quite a few blunders during that time and nights are lost stressing and sweating over our lesson plans.

Well, this particular trainee seemed far more worn out than most. She was almost ready to quit so it was time to step in.

Trainer: “What are you so stressed out?

Trainee” (almost in tears) “I’m up until 3am every night preparing my lessons.”

Trainer: “What exactly is taking so long?”

Trainee: “The pictures.”

Trainer: “The pictures?”

Trainee: “Yes, they take forever to draw.”

You see, this particular trainee was an artist. She was hand-drawing every single picture for her lesson. Gorgeously detailed and colored owls, tigers, horses, you name it.

Here’s what she did with them for her Beginner class.

Trainee: “Class, what’s this?” (holding up a picture)

Class: “It’s an owl!”

Trainee” “Good job. What’s this?”

Class: “It’s a tiger!”

Yep, she was spending hours drawing these wonderful pictures and using them for about 5 seconds in the class.

Moral of the story – don’t spend all night preparing an activity that will last 5 seconds .

While her story is a bit extreme, many teachers do this, especially newbies. Far too much time is spent preparing an activity when it’s usefulness in the classroom doesn’t warrant the time.

And usually, someone has prepared something similar before. That’s what the Internet is for. If you can find it on Flicker in two seconds, don’t bother drawing it.

Very related to this is a point Michelle Worgan brought up not too long ago on her blog. In fact, rather than preparing anything at all yourself, have the students do it! It will save you loads of fun and actually often improves the activity.

Having the students create the material will often foster more of a need to use English in the class and the students will have a greater investment as the material being used is coming from them.

A simple example is the TEFL classic, Celebrity Heads. This is the game where students put the name of a celebrity on their back and they have to go around the room asking yes/no questions until they can guess who they are.

For such a simple activity, it can take a long time to prepare. First you have to come up with celebrity names. Seems simple, but then, as a new teacher in a foreign land, you’re unsure who the students know. And then there’s the age difference if you’re teaching younger learners. Then you probably have to go ask a local. Then you ask for some additional local celebrities to show just how culturally sensitive you are. Finally you have to type them up, call up the IT guy and wait five hours to fix the printer, and finally cut them up into little pieces. And if you’re really unlucky, it’ll turn out that the celebrities the local teacher gave you were ones no one in the class actually knows.

The thing is, this can all be avoided. Simply ask the students to do it. That’s right, make ‘em work instead of you. Bring in a bunch of cut-up slips of paper and ask them to write a famous person on it. They’ll be more interested in the activity and it’s much more likely that everyone in the class will know who it is.

I have my students come up with the material for many of my activites. I’d say a good 70% of activites in Rewards books can be improved simply by having the students come up with the language rather than being given it. Role-plays, drawings, example sentences? Again, my students usually do it.

So next time it’s 3am and you’re on your 5th cup of coffee, ask yourself, “Couldn’t I just have my students do it?”

Happy planning

The Heart of Dogme

I love dogme.  Not just because I believe it’s an effective teaching approach, but because it makes my classroom come alive, makes it breath, makes it real.  Dogme reminds me that classrooms can be real places where people interact and build relationships, not places where they come only to acquire information.

Karenne’s latest challenge asks why dogme is materials light.  Dogme is not materials light because it doesn’t favor materials (like course books), it’s materials light because it’s about the people in the class and the language they use to connect with each other.  With passion, I join Mark Andrews and say classrooms are a community, and should be approached as such!

When Scott first wrote on dogme ten years ago he asked from the heart, with this mountain of materials and resources, “Where is the story?  Where is the inner life of the student in all this?  Where is the real communication?”  EFL classrooms were and still are putting materials at the forefront of the classroom rather than the student and that’s where “we lost the plot.”

This is the true reason I am a dogmeist.  This is why dogme can be used with or without course books, with or without tech, while teaching grammar or while having a conversation.  What dogme is really advocating is that we put the relationships of the people in the class at the front and center.  Not the material.  Not the technology.  Not the subject knowledge.  Dogme’s original vows of chastity and its current guidelines are merely suggestions gently helping us remember this.  If we’re not sure how to go about this, dogme offers us what seems to me like a pretty good place to start.

Where, I ask you, is the pulse of the course book?  Can you feel the breath of the IWB?  These things are merely objects, tools to be used to mediate our interaction with each other.  But if used too much, they can become obstacles rather than aids.  By stripping away the chaf, we can find the true life’s blood of our classroom in the souls of the individuals present.

Like most teachers, I try to get feedback from students periodically on my classes.  After I finished my last Upper-Intermediate class here is the word-for-word response I got from a 16-year-old girl.

When I first started to the course, I was expecting to find a class with a serious atmosphere and a teacher who teaches grammar or uses books’ stupid texts and exercises all the time. I was so glad when it turned out to be a fun class after my first day. The way you teach is definitely excellent. I mean, you were making us speak as if we were sitting in a cafe, chatting with a few friends, and you were teaching without using books, writing someting the board and expecting nothing but taking notes from us. Most subjects were fun, too. (Thanks Yaprak ) [Emphasis mine]

This is the atmosphere I aim to create in my classroom.  It’s an atmosphere where the students view each other as friends, where they feel relaxed, and where they feel like they can talk about anything. It’s a classroom that helps us remember we’ve come together for a common purpose and we can take each other by the hand and find the way together.

Relationship & Trust Building Activities:

Circle of Trust

Trust Falls

Human Knot

Tank Game

More Posts on Dogme:

Unplugged Lesson Plans

Dogme in the Mind of a Teacher:  Memory Techniques

Dogme in the Mind of a Teacher:  Banking

An Emergent Curriculum

The Road to Teaching Unplugged

Pronunciation: Let’s Get Physical

For anyone not aware, Adrian Underhill has joined the blogosphere and will be blogging on his pronunciation chart and its uses.

While I’m not a fan of pron charts as I think they are simply another alphabet for students to learn when what they really need is the practice making and recognizing the sounds, I am a big fan of his notion of making pronunciation physical.  There are some nice videos on youtube of him giving a workshop on this here (1, 2, 3, 4).

One of Adrian’s biggest complaints is that pronunciation is the Cinderella of ELT as in nobody pays it much attention.  He is not alone in this (check out Henrick Oprea’s post on the same issue here).

In my work in Turkey I have not found much need to focus on the pronunciation of individual sounds as Turks have very little trouble in this area.  For Turkish pronunciation issues see here, here and here (hit cntrl+f to scroll down immediately to pronunciation).

Two areas where Turks do have a bit of a problem is with “th” sounds and “v” vs. “w.”  One of the first things I noticed with this issue, and where I really agree with Adrian, is that the physical nature of these sounds needs to be modeled and practiced.  Things like tongue placement, vibration, and air flow all become really important.

To make the “th” sound in English we put our tongue between our teeth.  My Turkish students absolutely hate this.  They find it very unnatural and sticking your tongue out is seen as a tad rude.  To really get my students doing this, I quickly realized I had to vastly over exaggerate the tongue placement.  I would stand in front of the class and stick my tongue half way out of my mouth and appear really silly overall.  I would then get my students to follow suit.  Regular practice in this way along with consistent reinforcement through correction in the class and students pick it up really quick.

Aside from that, my pronunciation work in Turkey tends to focus on linking words and weak forms as Turks have a habit of speaking in a staccato by separating every word out in a sentence.

Where I really learned the need to focus on pronunciation of individual sounds was when I moved to Vietnam.  Vietnamese pronunciation is some of the worst I’ve ever come across.  There are two main reasons for this:  1)  Vietnamese speakers don’t use their tongues when they speak.  They generally rest on the bottom of their mouths.  2)  There are no final consonants in Vietnamese so their brains actually never developed the ability to hear a consonant at the end of a word.  Since they can’t hear it, they can’t say it.  Since they can’t say it, they can’t hear it.  It’s a pronunciation teacher’s worst nightmare.

I quickly started introducing whole lessons on pronunciation.  This involved modeling a lot and getting students to stare at my mouth, which was strange for me.  I had to do a lot of the reverse as well – staring at students’ mouths and making sure mouth and tongue placement were correct.  I also learned to draw a lot of pictures detailing mouth position, illustrate sounds with air vs. no air (a piece of paper held in front of your mouth is good for this), and vibration vs. no vibration.

As Adrian points out, rather than just having students listen and copy the sounds you are making, really get them involved with the physical nature of the sounds.  I actually found that pronunciation lessons always ended in lots of laughter as people try really hard to make foreign sounds.

What kind of pronunciation work do you do in your classes?  Do you focus on the physical nature of pronunciation in any way?  Do you have any good activities for doing so?

Useful pronunciation activities:

Reverse dictation.  Students read out sentences and the teacher writes what they hear on the board.  This is often very enlightening to students as they don’t realize what they sound like.

Recording students saying a sentence in class and then comparing it to the recording of other English speakers.

Holding paper in front of your mouth to practice consonants with/without air (very useful for beginning “t” vs. final “t”, “v” vs. “f”, or “b” vs. “p”)

Tongue twisters are always fun.

The line game for minimal pairs – students stand in a line and the teacher says a word involving one of a set of minimal pairs.  For example “w” and “v”  If the students hear a “w” word they have to jump to the left, if they hear a “v” word they have to jump to the right.  Eventually, switch the teacher out for a student.

Minimal Pair Maze -  Draw a tree like below and label it with cities.  Then choose a minimal pair and writes words using the two to the left and right of the maze.  The teacher calls out a word and students follow along on their maze according to the direction on the maze (in this case, left for “t” and right for “th”)  In the end, students compare what city they ended up in.  Then get the students to do it.  (A side note:  I always choose cities that Turkish speakers are likely to goof up so they get some city vocab practice in as well).

Related Articles:

Orthographic Interference for Turkish L1 Speakers

Whose English Should We Teach (in Turkey)?

Adrian Underhill’s Pron Chart Blog

Recycling Pronuncation by Henrick Oprea

Teaching English Pronunciation to Vietnamese Learners via ELT World

Some Random Pron Worksheets

Tefltastic’s Top 15 Fun Pron Games

The Negative Impact of Course Books on Teaching

[A note on this post:  I'm referring to course books used as a course, not course books being used as a tool or resource]

Course books do NOT help teachers learn how to teach. In fact, they all too often do the exact opposite. Following on from the last post, I’d like to continue looking at some of the negative effects of course books.

Following from my last post, a number of commentators in the dogme debate often claim that only experienced teachers can do it.  There seems to be the idea that course books not only offer structure and guidance for teachers, but that they also teach them how to teach.  Nobody is claiming this, but it follows logically from the idea that new teachers need a course book and, after learning from it, they can move on to other approaches that don’t require such crutches.

I would argue that course books actually unteach teachers. Quite honestly, I have never observed a single teacher that analyzed their course book to see what it’s doing and why (although I’ve met some trainers who do). I’m not saying some teachers don’t do this, I’m just saying I’ve never observed one.

On training courses teachers learn how to create lessons from scratch. They learn to identify aims and reflect on their practice. Course books tend to destroy this. I’m not saying this because I believe in it as a theoretical construct, I’m saying it because it is what I’ve seen again and again and again at schools I’ve worked at. With course books, there is a very strong tendency to take the book as is, walk into the class, run through the activities, and then finish. How many teachers actually look at the aims of the lessons and see if they are handled appropriately by the book, especially for their particular students? Not too many I’ve met. Instead, you often hear teachers say that someone very experienced wrote this course book and so I shouldn’t question them. They must have done a good job. Suddenly all analysis and reflection is thrown out the window!

What is it exactly that course books supposedly teach teachers? If they are actually teaching teachers something, why is it so hard for so many teachers to leave the course book behind? If the course books were somehow teaching teachers how to create effective lessons by osmosis, we wouldn’t see this issue. Instead, many teachers are completely lost the first time the book is taken away.

Now, there is one thing teachers seem motivated to learn from course books, and that’s the grammar. Most course books are still designed around grammar mcnuggets and 90% of all conversations in the teacher’s room is how this grammar point works and how to teach it. In fact, course books don’t actually teach grammar to the teachers. Usually the teacher has to go to a grammar book, ask an experienced teacher, or research on the Internet to really get a hold of a grammar point. Interesting, isn’t it? If the teachers can’t learn the grammar from the books, why do we assume the students can?

Because all the course books focus on is grammar, that’s what most teachers identify as a good teacher – one who has a lot of grammar knowledge. In effect, the course books are teaching teachers the wrong thing.

As we’ve seen, rather than help teachers develop, course books actually take away the need to become capable identifying aims, creating lesson material, analyzing material for appropriateness, and reflecting. They also give the false impression that good teaching is dependent only upon grammar knowledge.  None of this even gets into the negative impacts it has on the way students and government administrative bodies view language learning because of them.

As I’ve stated many times and places before – there are some advantages to course books but these are severely outweighed by their disadvantages.

Some reasons for using coursebooks can be found here, so I’d prefer not to rehash that too much.  I’d like to focus comments on these 3 issues:

1)  Do you think that course books can have a negative impact on teaching & specifically teacher development?

2)  In your own experience, how many teachers critically engage with their course books?

3)  Do course books promote the idea that a good teacher is nothing more than a grammar guru?

Related Posts:

More Negative Impacts of Course Books

To Use or Not Use Course Books

Is Using Course Books Really a Bad Thing?

Bare Feet = No Course Book

Some Course Books Removing Negotiation & Choice

Scheduling in Course Book Abuse

Reflections of a Teacher’s Take on the Course Book Debate

Lessons from Scratch

Once again the course book issue has raised its head in the blogosphere.  It probably started with Kalinago’s Dogme Challenge meme and now with one of Jason Renshaw’s latest post.  There is an excellent discussion there and I highly recommend checking it out.  There are a number of really important issues to come out of it that I would like to take a look at.

The first one is this old argument that dogme or any materials light methodology are only for experienced teachers.  I find this idea very questionable.  I think of my own TEFL course, courses I’ve trained on, and courses I’ve seen.  How many TEFL or CELTA courses have large segments on using a course book effectively?  Very few that I’ve seen.  Most courses teach teachers to create lessons from scratch.

If they were able to create lessons with almost no experience and no course book in training, why do we assume they lose this ability when they suddenly enter a real teaching position?  I would argue that most teachers start to learn how to teach on initial certificate courses and forget once they enter the industry with its reliance on course books, disinterest in supporting and developing teachers, and lack of a career-oriented community of teachers and many schools.

I really just don’t buy this idea that new teachers on the block cannot teach without a course book (although I would consider a well-thought out curriculum as a guide to be useful for new teachers).  If initial training courses focus on lessons from scratch and educating teachers on how to find and build materials, I see no reason why this would be a problem.

Of course at first it may take more time to be able to build lessons quickly, but that’s the case with any teacher.  Even in schools where a book is used, I still often see new teachers spending 4 hours planning a 2-hour lesson.  Having the book didn’t seem to diminish planning time unless the teacher did no more than grab the book and run through the exercises in order, which, in that case, you don’t even need the teacher there!

I remember when I first got rid of a book.  I spent hours finding material and creating lessons, but I had no guidance.  Through practice and experience I learned how to do it very quickly.  It takes me very little time to create lessons these day regardless of if I use materials in the class or not.

I am also currently running a  TESOL training course which pushes an anti-course book methodology.  None of the trainees are having undo trouble creating lessons.  Sure it takes a while, but even after their first week of practice teaching they start to get better and quicker at it.

In the end, this idea that new teachers need a course book as a crutch is not supported by the way we train teachers nor by claims that it somehow takes less work to create good lessons with them.

Your thoughts?

The Importance of Pair Work

This was originally going to be a comment on Willy Cardoso’s Blog – Authentic Teaching, but it got to be so long I decided to make it a post all its own.  As a result, it also connects to Kalinago’s dogme questions of the week, which I was going to address anyway.

A maxim we often learn (and that I push) in training courses is the importance of pair work.  Willy commented that some learners prefer to work alone and that pair work is often over-relied upon with the ESL classroom.   I would disagree.

I have had many learners that prefer working alone.  In fact, I am one of those learners myself.  But language is co-constructed; it is social.  We don’t learn language to think to ourselves in a foreign tongue.  We learn it to learn how to communicate to and with others.

This is why pair/group work is so important.  The students need to learn how to communicate with other individuals.  It’s the spontaneous nature of such communication that is of value within pair and group work.  You can learn a lot on your own, but to then access that knowledge in a split second while another person is talking is another matter entirely.

I, for one, learned a large amount of grammar and vocabulary on my own when I first started learning Turkish.  Yet, my level of conversation remained agonizingly slow and stilted.  I hadn’t acquired the skill or automaticity required to actually participate in my new linguistic world.