Page 130 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

Chapter 5. Perspective of the teachers – professional development
students to carry out a self-evaluation of all speaking activities in the lesson series in order to gain a good insight into the learning process (steps in procedure 1, from score 0 to 2 and congruent with her intended goals). Jeanine gave a lot of input and exercises based on what students asked. In the first lesson series the steering of the learning process was shared by teacher and students: Jeanine gave instruction in grammar to the whole class in order to improve the grammar in their speaking performances and afterwards the students chose their own activities (step in procedure 2, from 1 to score 2 although the teacher did not mention this as a goal). In the second lesson series, the work on the improvement activities was entirely student driven (procedure 2, score 3). Concerning feedback (procedure 3), Jeanine indicated that she now gives much more feedback and spends much more time on speaking skills (steps in procedure 3 and congruent with her intended goal) than she did before. The feedback provided in the second lesson series was not based on the self-evaluations due to lack of time but it was based on the speaking performances during recording (score 1). So here she chose a time-saving way to attune feedback.
Compared to her regular teaching practice, Jeanine was more satisfied with the SpeakTeach method for the type of speaking activities (not related to SpeakTeach method); the alignment between the speaking activities and the teacher’s and students’ insights into students’ learning process (related to procedure 1); the input and exercises; and the freedom of choice it gave to the students (procedure 2). Jeanine considered the great advantage of the SpeakTeach lessons to be that there was more opportunity to give adaptive feedback than in her regular teaching practices (procedure 3). As a disadvantage she pointed out that students often placed too much emphasis on grammar in their evaluations and plans (procedure 1). She also mentioned lack of time as a difficulty.
She was satisfied with the implementation of her intended goals: build-up of speaking activities with the addition of self-evaluation (procedure 1); variation in feedback provider and focus of feedback; number of feedback recipients (procedure 3); and testing of speaking activities (other goal). Jeanine had wanted to add free speaking activities but did not do so (other goal).
In the future Jeanine wanted to continue with SpeakTeach lessons. She explained: “I am convinced of the quality and added value”. As major advantages for the students she mentioned that they have an influence on their learning process and do not have to do things
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