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November 09, 2005
ESL Classroom Observations
"This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer." ~ Franz Kafka
Yes, we are required to have them from time to time and they are pain in the neck. But, are they really helpful or just more red tape to cut through to keep our jobs safe? I’m talking about the classroom observations that are often conducted by our peers or, in some cases, our employers.
Speaking for myself, I’ve had relatively good feedback from these activities that have served to improve my teaching methodology. When I say “good” I mean constructive, i.e. useful, criticism. On the other hand, I’ve heard some horror stories from my colleagues. Many schools, like mine, require them as part of your job but put the responsibility of scheduling for them on your shoulders. That means you have to go look these people up (other teachers) and somehow arrange for them to sit through a whole class and then submit a signed write-up that you then sign yourself and file with the department. Time consuming to say the least!
The worst part is that very often, the “peers,” as we call them, forget to show up or schedule in other things for that day at the last moment: basically sending you the signal that your job is not important to them. I always get irritable this time of the semester chasing down various people around the campus. So unorganized!
According to a post I recently read by Lynne Wolters (found here), there now exists highly innovative software that can actually do classroom observations for you (so it claims). Have any of you heard of this (or tried it?) It’s called “eCove” and, apparently, it “removes the guess work and opinion from the classroom observation process. It captures and combines empirical data to give a far more accurate view of classroom behavior than any other software tool on the market.” Sounds like a very tall allegation! It also sounds like a person must still be involved to "input" the data. Am I wrong?
I’d love to hear your comments on the subject of peer-review classroom observations in the ESL field and the possibility of having real people “replaced” with some kind of software or robot! Especially if the end-user, i.e. our employers, are using this stuff to determine if we are acceptable teachers or not. Yikes!
With serious consternation,
Lee Hobbs
ESL Instruct, Editor-in-Chief
ESLemployment.com
Posted by lhobbs at November 9, 2005 03:33 PM
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Comments
man i just hate it when somebody goes to look in on my class.i feel so insecure when i think that my every word is being recorded or thought about.i hear some english schools in europe use cameras now so they don't have to actually come in anymore.now that's scary folks.
Posted by: TEFL Dweeb at November 9, 2005 07:02 PM
Lee e-Cove is a software program that requires human observation and recording. We use this software with our student teachers and in ed tech classroom research activities. This might also be a good tool for teachers working on their national certification.
Our student teachers find it particularly useful feedback. It gives them concrete information and removes the potential concern the observer "just doesn't like them". Our student teachers like havin data in addition to their relationships with cooperating and supervising teachers.
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Note from Lee: Thanks for that helpful information Lynne. We do like to know what's going on in ESL field on all fronts. I like the fact that a teacher can't be given a bad score due to a personality clash with the observer. That is indeed a potential problem sometimes! The feedback opportunity also sounds particulalry useful.
Posted by: Lynne Wolters at November 9, 2005 11:03 PM
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Note from Lee:
ESL Nerd, let's try to keep things civil on this blog :) We realize that your name is special (what's a geek but a circus folk that eats live animals or something, isn't that right?) Anyway, I hope you were only being sarcastic with your interesting comment. That perspective certainly won't go over big at the next teacher's meeting (or union meeting like they have at my institution) - siding with the boss that is.
But that is a good point about objectivity. How can the students or one's peers truly be objective? You might check out the comments about the evaluation softwared that another blogger commented on. It still takes a human to put the data in but the questions and responses are designed in such a way to be objective (so it claims). Might that be a better solution (or is it just a cop-out)?
Posted by: Lee at November 13, 2005 09:25 PM
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Note from Lee:
Readers, for reasons of space, the comments for this post have been relocated to the English-Blog space. To remark on this article, please click on the following link HERE!:
Thanks!
Posted by: Lee at January 27, 2006 09:54 PM
