Learner observation tasks as a learning tool for pre-service teachers

5.3.3 Description of the task

Although, learning style according to the foregoing definition is viewed as relatively fixed and non-changeable, Singleton (1989:157) argues that it is possible to help adult learners to explore their own preferences and to shape their learning approach to suit the requirements of a particular learning task. Thus the main goal of observational tasks (see Appendix 3) is to help student teachers to get to grips with pupils’ learning preferences, and thereby to be able to adjust teaching materials and respond to learners’ subjective needs in their future planning, and apply some techniques that can enhance natural learners’ capabilities, habits and develop other skills through training.

Student teachers are recommended to obtain information about learning styles during the third meeting with the group. This time pre-service teachers have to observe language and learning behaviour of students, which is accompanied by emotional and affective state. Linguistic behaviour comprises language production that is organisation of speech, complexity of utterances, pitch of intonation, and speed of production. Observing these variables student teachers can reveal affective styles of their learners. For example, if a learner produces utterances in a low voice without haste and emotions, an observer can assume that this learner refers to introverts and thus s/he requires patience to be listened to. Observing learning behaviour that is the way students approach and process a task, materials they use, manner of solving a problem, their social behaviour student teachers can obtain information about pupils’ cognitive and sensory styles. Trainees should notice whether a pupil uses additional aids such as pencils or fountain pens to highlight some information in the textbook, or whether s/he faces her/his partner during pair-, group work. These situations characterise a visual learner and a FD learner respectively with regard to Violand-Sanchez (1995) and Oxford and Ehrman (1993) research mentioned earlier.

Student teachers are given some examples which describe the language and learning behaviour, and the manner of approaching and processing a task. These examples cover all three groups of learning styles. It is noteworthy to mention that one example might comprise more than one learning style. Thus the characteristic ‘respond in a low voice but accurately’ might describe an introvert and FD learner, whereas ‘speaks fast but with errors’ includes features of an extrovert and FI pupil. But the expression ‘produces long utterances without haste and emotions’ may define an introvert but FI learner. Some examples display sensory preferences only. For example, the behaviour ‘highlight some passages with fountain pen or marker’ reveals a visual leaner, ‘gives the answer to the comprehension question after first listening’ is the feature of an auditory learner. The characteristic ‘volunteers to go to the blackboard’ displays the feature of a kinaesthetic learner but at the same time s/he might be an extrovert as well. Thus all these characteristics make student teachers be aware about the complexity of a child’s personality and give them a hint about affective, cognitive and sensory preferences of learners in accomplishing learning activities.

During the lesson student teachers are recommended to make notices in a chart with four columns: learning activity, name of learners, what and how learners do the activity, comment on the learners’ preferences. Columns are given in the sequence of the typical lesson and observational procedure: the activity is nominated by the teacher by giving instructions, then a learner either volunteers or is nominated by the teacher to fulfil the instruction, after it a student teacher observes the way of doing the activity, and finally s/he comments briefly about student’s manner of doing and infer learner’s preferences.

After the lesson a student teacher should discuss with the teacher and group students according to their learning preferences. This information will be very important for student teacher in their future planning of activities, in grouping of students particularly. They should take into account whether the activity presupposes grouping extrovert and introvert pupils together. The information about sensory preferences is important in planning the techniques to accomplish a task. If the number of visual learners prevails pre-service teachers should prepare some visual support to their oral instructions.

Later, during post observation session, student teachers are recommended to reflect whether learning activities and instructions that they have observed coincide to learners’ preferences. At the same time student teachers should consider the objectives of the lesson whether they were achieved successfully with or without catering for learners’ preferences. More advanced task for student teachers is to think about the learning activities which suit student’s natural learning styles and develop other skills through proper instructions.

5.4 Learner level

5.4.1 The multilevel class: reasons, teacher’s/learners’ problems and solutions

Teachers and researchers have polar opinion to multilevel, heterogeneous, or ‘mixed capacity’ (Bruton 1997:109) classes. If some of them advocate placement of students with different levels of proficiency and capacities in one group others strongly disagree with this approach. Arguably, every class is multilevel because learners begin with varying degrees of literacy in their first language as well as in English experience. Other factors that add to diversity in the classroom and to rate of progress in learning English are the learning style preferences, learner expectations of appropriate classroom activities, motivation factors, interests and initiatives that were discussed above. Bruton (1997:112) refers these factors to ‘natural’. Another source of wide ranges of capacities in one class he named as ‘institutional, since grouping is institutional’ (Bruton 1997:111). The attitude of teachers to multilevel classes constructively depends on whether ‘mixed capacities classes are intended … for pedagogical or economic reasons’ (Bruton 1997:111). If the arguments are pedagogical the teacher goals will be convergent to reduce the gap between learners, whereas economic considerations might increase this gap.

The problem of multilevel classes is related to teachers and to learners as well. Teachers face the pressure of catering for differing learning needs, interests, motivations and abilities. It is with this implicit goal in mind that they plan their teaching strategies. For learners, heterogeneous classes might result in boredom and frustration; and the feeling that there is inconsistency and injustice in assessment. Many teachers admit that they try to meet everyone's needs in their classes, all the time, even though they know it is ultimately impossible. However, it is not denying that most of the teachers in planning their lessons and activities meet the needs of only those learners whose skills fall somewhere in the middle. Thus, they deliberately frustrate those with lower skills, and bore the more advanced learners (Boyd and Boyd, 1989; Wrigley and Guth, 1992). Other researchers and teachers confirm that low level students are catered in more degree than bright students. Bova (2003) in her conversation with other teachers suggests that ‘the exceptionally bright are being left to survive without the attention that the lower level pupils get’. She has proposed that ‘typically learners of lower level achieve beyond the expected levels commensurate with their abilities, whereas gifted children do not achieve at the same differential’ (Bova 2003).

5.4.2 Criteria for grading learners’ level

There is another question that arises from the discussion. What are the criteria that teachers use in grading students’ level as low or high, bright or poor? Millrood (2002:131) draws to teachers’ opinion about unsuccessful learners and lists key features of low level learners as poor communicative skills (both receptive and productive), low language competence, which covers ungrammatical structures, limited vocabulary, mispronunciation; and knowledge - processing problems, which involve low memory capacities and poor meaning comprehension. To overcome these learner problems there is a great number of teaching ‘supportive’ (Millrood 2002:132) strategies, such as increasing the teacher’s waiting time, giving the learners short and clear explanations, offering them cues, and building their confidence by praising them for their participation and achievement, the grading of questions and expected responses, the types of prompting and probing; individual tasks with private and public feedback; group-, pair- work; categorizing home study activities, self-access activities and project work (Bruton 1997:115). A more general approach was found in the role of classroom context, which is viewed as a facilitating resource capable of creating a zone of proximal development with supportive ‘scaffolding’ (Vygotsky 1978) necessary for the learner to progress.

5.4.3 Description of the task

The main concern of the task (see Appendix 4) is to raise awareness of student teachers about the extent the task or activity match pupils’ level of capacities. Student teachers will observe the teacher-class interaction. In the case if there is an opportunity to observe and record pair-, or group- work students can make some notes of pupils’ language production as well.

Before the lesson pre-service teachers are recommended to consult with the teacher about the language and communicative level of pupils in the class. Full description of pupil characteristic about their language production and perceptive skills, communicative abilities might be time consuming. That it is why grades of pupils can be helpful as a rough measurement of pupils’ level of competence. At the same time an observer can judge objectivity of these grades while making records of actual pupil’s utterances.

During the lesson student teachers should observe language and communicative behaviour of pupils. The aspects of the language behaviour cover the accuracy in the use of grammar, and pronunciation, the size and organization of vocabulary (Meara 1996:37, 45), the complexity of grammar structures and construct of utterances; in so far communicative behaviour covers fluency of speech production, the choice and combination of ‘grammatical forms and meaning’ (Canale and Swain 1980:12), adequate initiation and response in actual performance.

At the lesson student teachers put down all the notices in the chart with five columns. The first two columns they should fill in before the lesson, where they fix the names of pupils in the class, and their grades provided by the teacher. In the third column an observer outlines the learning activities. It will help to recall the context and join learning activities with the teacher’s strategies. Later student teachers might refer to them as a sample in their own teaching practice. In the fourth column student teachers should fix concrete facts or evidences of the pupil’s level of competence, such as concrete grammar mistakes, mispronunciation, speed of production, or make some jotted notes of actual utterances. These records should help student teachers in their judgment about the level of pupil competence. Finally, in the last column student teachers are recommended to observe teacher’s strategies that s/he employs to adjust the learner level of comprehension. There are some examples of teacher’s strategies that are set before the chart. I have appealed to the ‘supportive’ (Millrood 2002:132) strategies mentioned above.

After the lesson student teachers are recommended to share their findings with the teacher and discuss the language behaviour of the learners whose level appears to be different from the designed before. An observer can present a fresh look at the situation and it should help to create new techniques and approaches that suit learner’s expectations and level. Another task for student teachers is to comment on the congruency of the student’s level of competence and the level of difficulty of the tasks. In the case if these levels do not coincide, student teachers should comment on the overt linguistic or communicative problems that pupils faced at the lesson.

At the post observation session students should reflect on the extent the task should be challenging for learners. Considering the data they have student teachers are recommended to contemplate over the appropriate activities and instructions that match learners’ levels and capacities and develop their progress in the language and communicative competence. Finally, pre-service teachers should reflect on the connection between learner’s social and physical position in the classroom, learner’s motivation, learning styles and learner level.

Chapter 6

Implementation of the learner observation tasks

6.1.          Phases of the observation period and their objectives

Learner observation tasks can be easily embedded in the Teaching Practicum Curriculum. To conduct observation effectively student teachers need to be prepared to the observation period itself. So, observation period consists of three phases: pre-observation, actual observation and post-observation. During the pre-observation period a supervisor is recommended to explain the key elements of the learner observation tasks, such as active reflecting, constructing of personal meaning through thinking about new ideas and comparing previous own learning experience and ‘reappraising old assumptions in the light of new information’ (Wajnryb 1992:9), initiating that is encouraged by guided-discovery and inquiry nature of the ‘before the lesson’ and ‘after the lesson’ tasks. At the same time a supervisor should explain that samples and categories provided do not limit the range of learners’ behaviour and student teachers should generate their own categories. Learner observation tasks do not require special training but some introduction about the general structure of the tasks is recommended. The actual observation student teachers should conduct with the groups of learners that they are supposed to teach in active phase of the teaching practice. But observation of other groups of learners can enlarge student teachers’ experience in observation and increase their knowledge about learners’ behaviours, styles, and motivation factors.

Learner observation tasks are recommended to conduct one per lesson in the sequence provided. Finally after fulfilling all the tasks separately the combination of all of them can expose the whole picture of the learner’s characteristic and the group as a social setting. To achieve this aim four observers are given one observation task but different from each other to do during the lesson. After the lesson they combine and discuss their data about learners from different angles to draw the holistic picture about their physical and learning behaviour, and refine descriptions of categories observed. At the post-observation phase which is conducted once or twice a week student teachers and their supervisor discuss and analyse the data collected. Debates and analysis of the tasks will serve as a ‘resource base for their (teacher student) own teaching and classroom decision-making’ (Wajnryb 1992:16).

 Criteria for assessment of learner observation tasks

To assess the learner observation tasks I suggest using four criteria for evaluation of research observation proposed by Scott (1990) which were described in Chapter 2.7.1. and can be adapted to learner observation tasks: authenticity, credibility, represententativeness and meanings. Authenticity tests a task whether it is genuine, complete and of ‘unquestioned authorship’ (Macdonald 2001:204). Unfortunately quite often student teachers deliberately present deceptive data, they tend to copy descriptions and comments of their peers rather than conduct their own observation. Sometimes due to the lack of language proficiency and analytical skills student teachers experience difficulty in describing events and interpreting their data. Therefore supervisors are recommended to check whether there is cohesion between aspects of observation and comments; a sense in comments and reflection; consistency in literary style; and compare different versions of the student teachers tasks. To test observation data on credibility a supervisor should take into account who produced the document, why, and for whom, so as to be assured of its quality. The problem is that pre-service teachers tend to present data in more pleasant way not to hurt her/his teacher monitor, or from the fear of revenge. So I draw to Scott’s (1990) social nature of the text and assume that classroom climate, student teacher’s relationship with pupils and a monitor should not be neglected. The classroom observation tasks constitute a representative sample if they reflect all the aspects of the original document. At the same time they should be treated as guidance so not every aspect of observation might occur at the lesson. The blank can emerge due to the teaching approach or inattention of an observer. The latter version can lead to wrong assumptions and destroy accuracy of data presentation. That is why a supervisor should consider every case objectively.

Meaning of the observation data involves two levels: ‘literal’ and ‘deep’ (Scott 1990:58). The first meaning can be derived from the level of language proficiency of student teachers. Learner observation tasks are recommended to write in the target language. The reasons of it have been explained in Chapter 3.2. It is rather complicated for student teachers to make notes in foreign language. But student teachers must possess the intermediate level of the language proficiency, so descriptive language of behaviour and manner of doing should not reveal great problems for them. Thus, a supervisor should take into account the language literacy of pre-service teachers. The deeper meaning is more difficult to assess. Here a supervisor should analyse the content of the text, and coherence between the aspects of observation and comments to them.

To sum everything up I can suggest that a supervisor should assess the tasks from different angles. Nothing can be taken for granted. The layout of the tasks, the amount of the comments and their appropriateness, method and additional sources for data collection should be considered. To ensure objectivity of assessment tasks can be assessed by two supervisors.

Computer assessment of ad-hoc observation needs further investigation and research. I should not deny practical problems in implementation of software packages in assessment of observation tasks: poor material and financial resources of institutions in developing countries. Moreover, most supervisors are computer illiterate and it requires much training for them to become competent users of software packages. But in future it is highly recommended to include computer packages in the evaluation process as it can assist and complement ‘manual’ approach and present valid data analysis and assessment.

Appendix 1

Classroom climate

Before the lesson:

1.                  Arrange to observe a lesson. Make sure you are seated in a position where you are able to observe students’ physical and emotional behaviour when the teacher attends to individuals.

2.                  Make familiar with the sample chart. Be aware that you will probably have to modify it.

During the lesson:

1.                  Make a grid of learners’ seating arrangement. Note on your diagram whether the students are male (M) or female (F).

e.g.

2.                  Notice and put the symbols according to student’s physical or emotional behaviour every time the teacher attends to him/her. You may like to add others as you observe.

3.                  Try to record some field notes on student’s response to the teacher’s attending strategies.

4.                  Notice any changes in seating arrangement during the lesson.

5.                  Try to put symbols of physical behaviour when students attend to each other working in pairs or in a group at the beginning and the end of the task fulfillment.

¤ - eye contact with the teacher

I - hand raising

J - smiling

K - no emotions

L - boring

{ - daydreaming

² - doing another task different from the lesson objectives

B- physically bothering other students

m - other

After the lesson:

Comment on:

1.                  the seating arrangement, classroom discipline and social climate;

2.                  balance between teacher’s attendance to the students’ at the back and at the first desks;

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