Page 132 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

Chapter 5. Perspective of the teachers – professional development
there was alignment in activities and speaking goal). She was very satisfied with this structure from the course book. Type, order and working method of the speaking activities and activities for improvement were the same for all students (procedure 2, score 1). Amanda used peer feedback and walked around the class to give feedback on individual speaking performances. She was satisfied with the positive feedback she could give to encourage her students but dissatisfied that she could not give targeted feedback to individual students due to lack of time and large classes (procedure 3, score 0). In order to improve her regular teaching practice, Amanda had decided to have the self-evaluation done at the first speaking activity. After that the students could be given instructions and specific exercises to help them improve followed by another self-evaluation at the end of the lesson series on the same speaking activity (procedure 1: score 3, full alignment). She also wanted to give students more freedom of choice in their learning process (procedure 2: steering).
Amanda performed three SpeakTeach lesson series in the third year of havo. In the first lesson series she experimented with the maximum application of the SpeakTeach method, namely: reversal of order in the lesson (bringing forward the final speaking activity with self- evaluation followed by activities for improvement, procedure 1, from score 2 to 3); complete freedom of choice for the students to improve their speaking performance (procedure 2, from score 1 to 3); and fully adaptive feedback based on the self-evaluations (procedure 3, from score 0 to 3). In all of her SpeakTeach lessons Amanda kept the maximum application of procedure 1 (complete alignment) and she was very satisfied with it. Amanda called this a big change which had made the alignment between the speaking activities and the input and exercises clear.
With regard to the steering of the learning process (procedure 2), her intention was to add more freedom of choice for the students. After the first SpeakTeach experience there was a regression towards teacher steering (score 1). Amanda explained that students indicated that they would like to get more steering in the improvement activities. Concerning procedure 3, Amanda did not give adaptive feedback due to time constraints, only classroom feedback based on previous experiences and the learning objectives and not on the basis of the students’ self-evaluations (score 0). In the latest SpeakTeach lesson series; however, Amanda did give adaptive feedback (score 2). Furthermore, the improvement activities were much more attuned to the students in the first SpeakTeach lesson series than in the second and third lesson series (procedure 2).
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