The nature of a teaching portfolio

A teaching portfolio is a collection of documents and other items that provides information about different aspects of a teacher's work. It serves to describe and document the teacher's performance, to facilitate professional development, and to provide a basis for reflection and review. Like many of the procedures described in this book, it is another form of teacher development that is built around self-appraisal and teacher-directed learning. Evans (1995, p. 11) characterizes the nature of a portfolio in the following way:

A portfolio consists of a set of different types of documents and artifacts that have been selected on a principled basis (see below) and that are organized to tell a story. The collection is updated and revised when needed and is accompanied by the teacher's account of the rationale behind the collection. The portfolio can both serve as the basis for self-appraisal and be a component of the teacher's assessment.

Purpose and benefits of creating a portfolio

Teachers we have worked with find that a portfolio serves a number of purposes. First, it provides a demonstration of how a teacher approaches his or her work and presents evidence of the teacher's thinking, creativity, resourcefulness, and effectiveness.

This book is about how teachers can continue with their professional development as language teachers once their period of formal training is over. It also examines how supervisors and administrators can provide opportunities for such development to take place. The need for ongoing teacher education has been a recurring theme in language teaching circles in recent years and has been given renewed focus as a result of the emergence of teacher-led initiatives such as action research, reflective teaching, and team teaching. Opportunities for in-service training are crucial to the long-term development of teachers aswell as for the long-termsuccess of the programs in which they work. The need for ongoing renewal of professional skills and knowledge is not a reflection of inadequate training but simply a response to the fact that not everything teachers need to know can be provided at preservice level, as well as the fact that the knowledge base of teaching constantly changes. The following vignette is an example that shows the approach a teacher in Korea is taking to manage his own professional development.

Vignette

After teaching in Asia for 2 years without any qualifications and no teaching attributes beyond rough reflection (why didn't that lesson work?), I did the RSA CTEFLA in England (I'm an American). The course was frustrating because so much of what was taught seemed Eurocentric, with little relevance to teaching EFL in Asia. But it gave me tools and reference points for class reflection, and started me off with independent reading. Seven years later, I have begun a master's course in teaching foreign languages. It was the intervening time, however, that provided my principal opportunities for professional development.

Second and foreign language teaching provides a career for hundreds of thousands of teachers worldwide, and the vast educational enterprise of English language teaching could not operate effectively without the dedication and effort of such teachers day by day and year by year throughout their careers. Maintaining the interest, creativity, and enthusiasm of experienced language teachers in their profession is one of the challenges faced by program coordinators, school principals, and teacher-educators. Teachers need to expand their roles and responsibilities over time if they are to continue to find language teaching rewarding, and it is the responsibility of schools and other educational institutions to provide opportunities for teachers to develop longer-term career goals and opportunities over time.

The field of language teaching is subject to rapid changes, both as the profession responds to new educational paradigms and trends and as institutions face new challenges as a result of changes in curriculum, national tests, and student needs. As a result, teachers need regular opportunities to update their professional knowledge and skills, that is, their opportunities for professional development. Teachers need to be able to take part in activities such as:

• engaging in self-reflection and evaluation

• developing specialized knowledge and skills about many aspects of teaching

• expanding their knowledge base about research, theory, and issues in teaching

• taking on new roles and responsibilities, such as supervisor or mentor teacher, teacher-researcher, or materials writer

• developing collaborative relationships with other teachers

This book provides a survey of current approaches to professional development for language teachers, particularly for those newto teaching or those who seek opportunities for in-service teacher education.

The nature of critical incidents

Acritical incident is an unplanned and unanticipated event that occurs during a lesson and that serves to trigger insights about some aspect of teaching and learning. Critical incident analysis in teaching involves the documentation and analysis of teaching incidents in order to learn from them and improve practice. The following vignette from a teacher in Japan is an example of a critical incident that occurred during a teacher's class.

Vignette

My students in a lower-intermediate listening/speaking class were assigned a pair activity. The first part of the lesson had focused on examples, working through the language needed. I gave them a handout, with clear step-by-step instructions.We had gone over the instructions on the handout, and I asked them if they understood what they were to do. I answered a few questions and the class started to work. I walked around to check that everyone was on track, and to answer any other questions. It looked like the pairs were off to a good start but, as I got to the back of the room, one pair asked, “Sir, what do you want us to do?”

Mark Wilkinson

Reflection

• What part of this incident made it “critical” for Mark?

• What do you think caused this incident?

This incident can be called a critical incident because it prompted the teacher to stop and reflect on the meaning of the event and perhaps to consider its longer-term implications. Documenting and reflecting on incidents of this kind can serve as an important part of the process by which teachers learn more about their teaching, their learners, and themselves.

The nature of peer coaching

Peer coaching is a procedure in which two teachers collaborate to help one or both teachers improve some aspect of their teaching. Robbins (1991, p. 1) defines peer coaching as follows:

In peer coaching, a teacher and a colleague plan a series of opportunities to explore the teacher's teaching collaboratively. One adopts the role of coach or “critical friend” (someone in whom one has trust and confidence and who can offer constructive feedback in a positive and supportive manner) as some aspect of teaching or of classroom life is explored. During and after the process, the coach provides feedback and suggestions to the other teacher. The type of feedback the coach provides will depend on the goals that have been established. We prefer feedback to be nonjudgmental and nonevaluative in most cases. The coach offers observations and suggestions, but the other teacher makes his or her own decisions about what, if anything, to change as a result of the peer-coaching relationship. In other words, each teacher still has the main responsibility for his or her professional development and does not hand over control to a colleague. There may, however, be situations in which more direct input and evaluative feedback is required, such as when a novice teacher has been receiving very poor teaching evaluations or is experiencing difficulty with a teaching assignment and asks to work with a more experienced teacher to help address the problem.

The nature of action research

Action research refers to teacher-conducted classroom research that seeks to clarify and resolve practical teaching issues and problems. The term “action research” refers to two dimensions of this kind of activity: The word research in “action research” refers to a systematic approach to carrying out investigations and collecting information that is designed to illuminate an issue or problem and to improve classroom practice. The word action refers to taking practical action to resolve classroom problems. Action research takes place in the teacher's own classroom and involves a cycle of activities centering on identifying a problem or issue, collecting information about the issue, devising a strategy to address the issue, trying out the strategy, and observing its effects. The nature of action research, however, with its cycle of observing, analyzing, acting, and reviewing, indicates that it is an activity that takes time to carry out and hence requires a considerable time commitment. For this reason, it is often more usefully viewed as a collaborative activity. The practical improvements action research seeks to bring about are not its only benefits, however. Through the process of planning and carrying out action research, teachers can develop a deeper understanding of many issues in teaching and learning as well as acquire useful classroom investigation skills.

Action research has the following characteristics:

• Its primary goal is to improve teaching and learning in schools and classrooms and it is conducted during the process of regular classroom teaching.

• It is usually small-scale and is intended to help resolve problems rather than simply be research for its own sake.

• […]

The nature of peer observation

Peer observation refers to a teacher or other observer closely watching and monitoring a language lesson or part of a lesson in order to gain an understanding of some aspect of teaching, learning, or classroom interaction. In Chapter 3 we examined how teachers can observe their own classrooms. In this chapter the focus is on observing another teacher's classroom and what two teachers can gain through observing each other's teaching. In our experience, many teachers have a negative reaction to the idea of someone observing their classes. For many, “observation” calls to mind a coordinator or visitor coming to a classroom to carry out a supervisory or evaluative observation as part of the process of performance appraisal. Observation tends to be identified with evaluation, and consequently it is often regarded as a threatening or negative experience.Williams (1989, p. 86) has summed up some of the problems of traditional classroom observations:

• The teachers did not like it. It was threatening, frightening, and regarded as an ordeal.

• It was prescriptive.

• The checklist focused on too much at once.

• The teachers had no responsibility for the assessment. It was trainercentered.

In this chapter we wish to separate evaluation from observation and explore how observation can be a part of the process of teacher development rather than focus on it as a component of appraisal.

Purpose and benefits of peer observation

Observation is a basic part of the learning of many occupations, particularly in vocational and technical fields, but learning through the observation of practitioners at work also plays a role in other fields, such as business, law, and medicine.

Many of the activities discussed in this book may be unfamiliar to teachers or require some degree of planning if they are to be successfully implemented. In our experience, a workshop is often the best way of exploring what a particular professional activity, such as action research, consists of, what its pros and cons are, andwhether it might be of interest to teachers.Workshops, however, are often hit-or-miss affairs and are sometimes thrown together without a great deal of preliminary thought or planning. In view of the important role workshops can have in preparing teachers for different kinds of professional development initiatives, in this chapter we will examine the nature of workshops and suggest ways in which they can be used to support some of the activities we discuss throughout the book.

What are workshops?

A workshop is an intensive, short-term learning activity that is designed to provide an opportunity to acquire specific knowledge and skills. In a workshop, participants are expected to learn something that they can later apply in the classroom and to get hands-on experience with the topic, such as developing procedures for classroom observation or conducting action research. Workshops can also provide opportunities for participants to examine their beliefs or perspectives on teaching and learning, and use this process to reflect on their own teaching practices. Workshops can address issues related to both institutional improvement and individual development and they are led by a person who is considered an expert and who has relevant experience in the workshop topic. In our experience, workshop-based learning is particularly suitable for teachers because workshops can be scheduled outside of class time (e.g., on a Saturday).

This book examines a variety of approaches to professional development for language teachers. In most schools and institutions today, language teachers are expected to keep up to date with developments in the field, to regularly review and evaluate their teaching skills, and to take on newteaching assignments according to the changing needs of the institution. Some teachers may also be expected to serve as mentors to new teachers, to plan workshops and other professional activities, to present papers at seminars or conferences, and to write for journals and teaching magazines. Language teaching institutions are also expected to maintain high professional standards, to provide opportunities for their teachers to pursue professional development, and to provide conditions where teachers cooperate to achieve higher levels of learning among their students.

This book is intended as a practical introduction and guide for teachers, administrators, and coordinators who wish to implement a coherent and strategic approach to teacher development. Although the book seeks to provide ideas for practicing teachers, particularly those relatively new to language teaching, we hope that experienced teachers, teacher trainers, and supervisors will find much to interest them aswell. In recent years, language teachers in many parts of the world have expressed a growing interest in their own professional development. This is seen in the worldwide interest in such activities as virtual networks for language teachers, action research, journal writing, and portfolios, and the use of these and other activities as a basis for critical reflection on teaching practices.

The nature of self-monitoring

Astarting point in teacher development is an awareness ofwhat the teacher's current knowledge, skills, and attitudes are and the use of such information as a basis for self-appraisal. Often in institutions a performance appraisal by a manager or supervisor provides an outsider's perspective on current level of performance, based on classroom observation, student feedback, an interview, and other sources of information. However, teachers are also often able to make such judgments themselves based on information they collect about their own teaching. Self-monitoring or self-observation is intended for this purpose and refers to activities in which information about one's teaching is documented or recorded in order to review or evaluate teaching.

Self-monitoring or self-observation refers to a systematic approach to the observation, evaluation, and management of one's own behavior in order to achieve a better understanding and control over the behavior (Armstrong & Frith, 1984; Koziol & Burns, 1985). In everyday life, people often make use of self-monitoring, such as when a person is on a diet and makes a record of everything he or she eats and drinks each day. In this chapter we will examine three approaches to self-monitoring of language lessons: lesson reports, audio-recording a lesson, and video-recording a lesson. Like other approaches to reflective teaching, self-monitoring is based on the view that in order to better understand one's teaching and one's own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, it is necessary to collect information about teaching behavior and practices objectively and systematically and to use this information as a basis for making decisions about whether there is anything that should be changed.

For many people, doing drama work and putting on a play are the same thing: ‘Why do all those activities if it doesn't lead to a finished product? What's the point?’ We hope that the answer to that question is by now obvious. Drama activities have a value in contributing to the language-learning process quite apart from any finished product they may lead to. Yet it is undeniable that there is real value in putting on real performances – for a real audience. This option may not be open to everyone, however. Why not?

• Preparing a performance requires a great deal of time. Not every class will have enough time available, either in terms of class time or extra time outside class.

• It is difficult to do with large classes. One of the benefits of putting on performances is that everyone in the group can have an active role, even if this is not as an actor (see below). But in a large class, this is simply not possible.

• Both teacher and students have to be motivated enough to cheerfully take on all the hard work and setbacks involved in a real production. Such commitment is relatively rare, sometimes for very good reasons, such as heavy teaching loads.

Nonetheless, it is possible to settle for less than a full-length, elaborately costumed, public performance. A short sketch, if properly rehearsed, can still share many of the advantages of ‘performance’. Even a rehearsed reading is better than nothing.

We live in a web of words. They are everywhere. Without them we cannot communicate fully even our basic meanings, let alone the finer distinctions in our thinking. Words are at the heart of our first clumsy attempts to communicate in an unfamiliar language. To be ‘lost for words’ is to be lost indeed!

Words are not things, and yet they are. They are both more, and less, than what they seem. We combine and recombine them to achieve a multiplicity of effects: to describe, to persuade, to deceive, to curse, to love, to grieve, to light up our imagination, to bring aesthetic pleasure, etc. They are the stuff of magic. They give us power over things, and people. They afford infinite pleasure when we play games with them. As our experiences of life multiply, so the associations of the words with those experiences become more complex – so that meanings become personal as well as public. The words we use and the way we use them are subtly interwoven with our personalities.

In this chapter we shall focus on the rich storehouse of words to develop activities for communication and for dramatic effect.

The human voice is a wonderful instrument, and it obviously plays a critical role in communication. The more clearly and expressively we speak, the more effectively we convey our messages. What we say is often less important than the way we say it.

The voice is also a badge of identity, and an infallible indicator of mood and attitude. In a very real sense, we are what we speak, and others make judgements based on the way we sound. If we are uncertain of ourselves, our voices will ‘tell on’ us. If we are tired, our voices will betray that fact. If we are in a bad mood, our voices will let it be known!

We can, however, work on our voices to strengthen them and to make them more sensitive instruments of communication. Voicework can help build confidence in our ability to express ourselves in a clear, vibrant, natural voice. And this is surely an important part of being able to use a foreign language (or even our own) well.

Some people are fortunate in having a naturally good voice, but for most of us, it can only be acquired through hard work. The good news for language learners is that they get a double benefit: acquiring good voice habits while acquiring the foreign language.

The activities in this chapter apply to language learning some of the very wide range of techniques which actors use.