Contents Introduction About this book We are all beginners Finding your starting point

I. In the moment

Chapter 1. What can we notice about paying attention?

Chapter 2. Activities: Developing your noticing skills

II. Why? Why? Why?

Chapter 3. Why think about the “why”?

Chapter 4. Activities: Developing your analytical skills

III. I do believe

Chapter 5. What do you believe about teaching and learning?

Chapter 6. Activities: Examining your beliefs

IV. The next step

Chapter 7. How do you plan your plans?

Chapter 8. Activities: Developing action plans

Putting it all together

Chapter 9. What does a reflective teaching practice look like?

Introduction: About this book How do you respond to the puzzles and problems of your classroom?

After a difficult and challenging lesson what do you tend to do? a) Plan your next lesson? b) Think of possible reasons why it was so challenging? c) Replay what happened in your head over and over again? d) Review your beliefs and ideas about teaching and learning? e) Wonder why you ever became a teacher?

And what if a lesson goes really well? Do you respond in the same way? How does this help you to prepare for new challenges?

Reflective practice is more than a buzzword. A Beginner’s Guide to Reflective Practice provides guidance to answering these questions and more in order to develop a framework for examining the questions and puzzles you have about your lessons and your students. This book outlines a four-step approach to reflective practice rooted in the experiences of our lessons that starts with paying attention to what is going on our classroom. The next steps involve thinking about possible reasons why the situation happened and then connecting those reasons to what we believe to be true about learning and teaching languages. At this point we can make plans for our next lesson based on this reflection. A Beginner’s Guide to Reflective Practice provides activities to practice the skills essential to each stage.

And though at times we have days that make us wonder why we became teachers, deep down we know. We want to help our students learn. Looking at your classes through the lens of reflective practice will help you become the reflective teacher that you want to be.

Chapter 2 – Activities: Developing your noticing skills How do you do it?

One of the challenges of learning how to pay attention in your classroom is that there is so much going on. How can we learn to focus and really see what is happening when we need to stay on top of things if we want to get through everything in our plan?

The activities in this section are especially for those who find it hard to see the trees for the forest. Because the emotional nature of our classroom can cloud what we see, it’s best to begin practicing the skills involved in paying attention in situations that are neutral and not emotionally laden. We simply want to practice seeing details and recording them.

Activities

i. Details, details, details

Aim: practice the basic skills of paying attention to details without involving the emotion of the classroom

Step One Choose a scene in a TV show or movie (on DVD or YouTube). Ideally choose a classroom setting in which many people are doing things and that you can watch again. Five minutes is more than enough time.

Step Two As you watch the scene write down as many details that you see and hear as you can. Don’t pause, just try to keep up as much as possible. Include what the different characters said and did. Be specific. For example, “The woman in the green dress said, ‘Nice to meet you,’” is much more specific than “Two people introduced themselves.”

Step Three Watch the scene again and compare your notes with the scene. How much did you see or catch? What did you miss?

Step Four (Optional, but a useful link to the next activity) Review your notes – which details are pure facts and which ones contain some kind of opinion? (Fact – the woman in the green dress said, “Nice to meet you.” Analysis – the woman in the green dress was bored.)

Variation 1 Gain more practice in paying attention by watching the scene several times and focusing on different aspects each time.

The first time you watch: write down the names of every person in the lesson / scene and what they are wearing. The 2nd time: write down what everyone is doing. The 3rd time: write down what everyone says.

Variation 2 It would be quite useful to do this activity with a partner with both of you watching the same clip, taking notes separately, and then comparing notes afterwards.

Think about it/reflect on it: Did you feel competent noticing things? Why? Why not? Did you find yourself writing down a lot of your opinions? What do you think will be different when you do this with your own classes?

ii. Take it to the classroom

Aim: practice the basic skills of paying attention to details without including yourself.

Step One Choose a moment in the classroom where the students are working with the material and you can simply observe them. At first just a short time is probably enough as it takes some practice to sustain this without getting distracted.

Step Two Write down as many details as you can (who said what and who did what). Be discreet so as not to distract your students. Take notes of what they do and say. Put your notes aside as you continue the lesson.

Step Three After the lesson, read over your notes. Are there any details that you can add? Is there anything that you remember but didn’t have time to write?

Step Four Review your notes – which details are pure facts and which ones contain some kind of opinion or analysis?

Definition: A “pure fact” is something that anyone who is observing the lesson can agree on. This student said, “Did you have a good weekend?” or “The two students stopped talking after three minutes.” When we write something like “the students are bored with the material,” after we see that they’ve stopped talking, we’re inserting an opinion into our description. Unless a student says, “I’m bored” we can’t be certain about why they stopped talking. Don’t worry – it’s all right to have opinions, but the focus at this stage of reflection is to collect details. Including our opinions in the description can blind us to other possible interpretations. At this point simply write down as many details as you can and save your opinions for the next stage of your reflection.

Think about it/reflect on it:

Look at what you’ve written. Underline any sections that describe something of interest to you as a teacher. What is interesting about it? What do you understand about your students from this? What would you like to learn more about because of what you noticed?

iii. Remembering what happened

Aim: as soon as possible afterwards describe one moment in the lesson

Step One Choose a moment in the lesson that was memorable in some way. Think about it and replay it in your mind. How many details can you recall?

Step Two Write down what happened. Some questions that might be useful to answer are: What did the students do and say? Which student said and did what? (“Hanako said…” is more accurate than “a student

More about fact versus opinion

When we pay attention we have to focus on details. Not opinion. Just the details. However, it isn’t always easy to differentiate between them. When students are smiling then they’re happy, right?

One of the basic premises of this book is that reflective practice can help us to see and understand what our students are learning. A description like “All the students learned how to use the past tense…” without the details or evidence that prove it to be the case, does not give us very much useful information about student learning.

Basically, accurate description includes observable behavior, what the students said and did, and not any kind of information that would involve “reading the students’ minds” to guess what they learned or how they felt. Accurate description includes few sentences that begin “All the students…” and many details about individual student behavior. “H said…” “C asked me what they were supposed to do. He told me that I spoke too quickly and he didn’t understand my instructions.”

Here’s a good rule of thumb — if a dispute between two observers about what happened could be resolved by watching a video tape of that moment (“All the students laughed.”), then it’s probably a detail. If two people might disagree about what happened (“All the students were happy.”) then the comment is likely to be either opinion or analysis.

said…”) What did you (the teacher) do and say in this moment?

Step Three Read over your notes. Are there any gaps in what you can recall about the moment that you described?

Step Four Review your notes. Which details are pure facts and which ones contain some kind of opinion? Did you include any kind of analysis?

Think about it/reflect on it: Read over your notes again. What stands out to you in what you’ve written? Did you remember more about the moment after reading your notes? What would you like to learn more about because of what you noticed? Do you think it’s possible to fully separate what you observe from what you feel about what you observe?