Page 55 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

three year-5 havo classes and one year-3 vmbo class4. As the teaching method is intended to be adaptive and practical and the research questions ask how (and why) teachers adapt the method and embody it into their teaching and whether in so doing the essence of the approach is retained, it was desirable that they tried the method out in a random class.
The teachers had responded to a mailing from the Department of Teacher Professional Development in Secondary Education at the institute where the author works. This invited them to participate in a professional development project as part of a study to trial a new teaching method for giving adaptive feedback and support with speaking skills in their own classes. Twenty-five teachers were able to take part. Only data provided by teachers who were able to attend all of the meetings were used. That was thirteen teachers. Eleven complete datasets were received in answer to research questions A and B.
Control group
A control group was also recruited through the Department of Teacher Professional Development in Secondary Education in order to determine whether any changes in the perceived practicality were due to the intervention. A mailing was sent out calling on teachers to cooperate in a study on adaptive feedback and support with speaking skills and asking if they and their students would be willing to complete a digital questionnaire about speaking skills in their current practice. The questionnaire had to be filled in twice. Seventeen foreign language teachers (five German teachers, five English teachers, six French teachers and one Spanish teacher) completed both questionnaires (measurements taken before and after the trial) about their teaching practice in year-3 vwo, year-4 vwo, year-5 vwo, year-6 vwo, year-2 havo, year-3 havo, year-4 havo, year-5 havo, and year-3 mavo5/vmbo classes.
4 The Dutch education system offers differentiated secondary education and the different types of schooling are commonly referred to by acronyms:
vwo is pre-university education, the most academic type; havo is senior general secondary education; and
vmbo is preparatory secondary vocational education.
5 The control group was made up of classes from the same types of secondary education as the experimental group with the addition of one combined mavo/vmbo class. Mavo = junior general secondary education.
52
53
3