I’m looking for teachers who will be kind enough to let me observe them as a part of my diploma course. What I am supposed to do is design an observation tool, use it in class to observe teachers, and then inprove it. So the focus is not on evaluating your teaching, it’s on practicing my conceptual and writing skills in developing such an instrument in the first place. I’d be most willing to share the learning process, of course!
My focus is going to be on how giving students tasks to do actually works in class. This interests me because I’ve only recently rediscovered task-based teaching as my preferred approach. I think it gives learners structure, yet is very focussed on their needs. Task-based teaching is pretty standard practice, I’d say, in Business English, but perhaps not quite as typical in regular English teaching. I’m trying to use this approach in the coursebook I’m writing the “Campus Life” sections for, so I hope that observing other teachers – especially those at university! – will make the tasks I develop for the book better. So this is research.
I also want to use the occasion to sort out my own teaching, specifically how I lead up to and formulate tasks. How am I checking that learners have the necessary skills at their disposal to do that task? Am I checking things off a to-do list or really seeing what needs to be done? So I’m going to use the tool to assess my own teaching, as well, and would love colleagues to help me. So if you’re a teacher in Berlin or Potsdam or Munich or Hamburg or thereabouts and are willing to let me come into your class, please get in touch! The restrictions are: Your class needs to have over 6 participants, and you need to have a teaching qualification like a CELTA and at least 3 years’ experience. I’d be thrilled!
I have to observe 10 hours @60 minutes. That’s a lot of observation, friends.
