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CEP Video Self-observation

Part 1: General

1. What is the first thing (verbatim) you said to your students?
(My session started in the middle of the class, right after my co-teacher played three short
audios) I think after the listening practice, you have got a better idea of the different styles of
the conflict resolution. Now, please have a quick look at the expressions in your handout. We
are gonna use it.

2. How did you introduce the lesson objectives?
I did not explicitly speak out my objective, because my co-teacher started the class first
and she mentioned the main parts of the class. But I think both of us should raise our
awareness of presenting students with the class objectives, since we tend to tell the students
what we would do for the class without justifying these activities by showing them our
objectives. I checked several other videos of our teaching and it turned out to be a problem
for us--even though sometimes we did mention our intention, it was just done by chance.

3. How did you connect the lesson (or parts of the lesson) to previous lessons or students
previous experience or comments in the class?
At first, I connected my part with the previous listening part. I asked students to look
though all the expressions they learnt in the listening part and get ready to use these
expressions in the following speaking part.
In the middle of my teaching, when I tried to let students practice speaking back and forth
in pairs, I led them to review what they have learnt in the previous unit--persuasive speaking. I
asked the students what strategies should be used in persuasive speaking, and reminded them
some of these expressions could also be used in conflict resolution.

4. Did you notice any patterns in your tendency to call on some students more than others?
If so, what were those patterns? What might the explanation be for those patterns?

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I tended to call on the students who were weak in speaking when asking simple questions
and call on the students who had strong speaking skills or who were outgoing when the
activity was more complex.
I think the reason why I tended to call on weak students is that I tried to provide them with
more opportunities to practice. Simple and prepared questions are much easier for them and
they wont have too strong pressure in the class. It is also because at the beginning of the class,
I unconsciously avoided calling on the weak students to answer questions. I might feel it was
too hard to interact with them when they were not able to convey their meaning. My co-
teacher reminded me of this once and I then realized my tendency, so I consciously adjusted
my way of calling on students. The reason for choosing advanced students is the same thing.
More advanced and outgoing students wont feel embarrassed when performing in front of
others. But for shy students, they sometimes would reject my calling.


5. Were there any surprises or unexpected events during the lesson? If so, what were they?
How did you handle them?
One of the unexpected events was that after the students did the role play in pairs, I tried
to call on volunteers to perform in front of the class but no one would like to do it. I kind of
thought about that when I did the lesson plan. But in the class, the students were so active in
the pair work, which made me think they might be prepared to share their ideas with others.
Maybe role play was too much for them, at least, for some of them. Faced with the silence, I
directly called on one pair to perform and it turned out they could do really good job.
The other event I did not expect was that in the role play, students talking seemed go
somewhere else without paying enough attention on the target expressions. To deal with this
problem, I summed up their dialogue after their performance and tried to introduce the
expressions we learnt in the scenario to reinforce them.

6. What is one compliment you would give yourself about your teaching, based on this
recording?
Compared with my previous teaching recording, I found that I made some improvement
on giving instructions. Even though I still need to take down the script, I feel I can make
much clearer instructions to present the steps of the activity, the way that students paired
and the time limit.

7. What changes would you make to this lesson if you were to teach it again?

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1) I would explain more about the expressions used in conflict resolution in different
situations and emphasize on at most five expressions. (or maybe recommend my partner to
do this in her part).
2) Before I asked the students to practice using these expressions, I would model first to
make sure they understand what they should do and remind them what expressions they
could use.
3) I would like to reiterate that some expressions should be used in their talking, or give
them a checklist with our focused expressions and ask them to check the ones they used.

8. Did you see anything on the tape that you were unaware of during the lesson? (e.g., Were
you paying more attention to some students than others? Was a student trying to get your
attention and you didnt notice? Anything else?)
Even though I tried to focus more on the silent students, I found I actually stayed
longer at the more talkative pairs. That might be because they produced more output and
my attention would be drawn every time when I passed by. Also, they tended to ask more
questions than the silent pairs, so I spent quite a long time dealing with their concerns.


Part 2: Teacher-initiated questions

1. As you watch the video of yourself teaching, write out all of the questions that you ask
your students. Categorize them into the following groups:

a. Yes/No questions
Last week we learnt how to do persuasive speaking, right?
You need to express your opinions, right?
You have got a good idea of these expressions, right?

b. Rhetorical questions (questions that cannot be answered)

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I did not ask any rhetorical questions.

c. Questions that elicit one- or two-word answers
When you do persuasive speaking, sometimes you need to use some expressions like...
Do you still remember the expressions you use to persuade others? The way you try to
get agreement...
For example, you can say...

d. Questions that stimulate student thinking or ask for student opinions
I dont know whether you guys noticed there is relationship between what we learnt last
week and what we are learning now.

Present the list of questions, categorized into groups.

2. Do you notice yourself using any IRF (Initiation, Response, Feedback) sequences? What
type of activity were you doing?
Yes. In the speaking activity that students were asked to discuss with their partners what
they would say in different conflicts, I used IRS sequences. After students did the pair work, I
asked them questions and they responded according to their discussion. Then I gave them
feedback on both language and pragmatics.

3. What patterns do you notice in your questioning habits? (What kinds of questions do you
tend to use most often?)
I tend to use yes/no questions most often. Sometimes I tend to use them as a way to draw
students attention, instead of really eliciting answers from them.

4. How do your students respond to the different kinds of questions you ask?

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For yes/no questions, they normally would nod if they agree with me. If they cannot think
up anything, they would just keep silent.
For questions that elicit one- or two-word answers and questions that stimulate student
thinking or ask for student opinions, I think the former one would elicit more since they are
easier to answer and we can often find standard answers to them. For the latter one, just a
couple of students would like to answer them since most of my students are a little shy. They
tend to keep silent when they do not have enough confidence in completely expressing their
ideas.

5. Are there any times on the video when you are able to encourage student participation
without asking questions?
I did not take record of all my students, so it is not seen on the video. But I remember
when I walked around during the pair discussion, I stopped at somewhere and make comments
on students talking when necessary. When I gave them positive feedback or when I showed
interest in their opinions, they would be encouraged to say more.

6. Based on this observation, what changes, if any, would you like to make in your
questioning habits? Why?
I think I should give them more inspiring questions to encourage them to think more. I
tend to avoid throwing these questions because I am a little worried my question would be too
broad, so that the students are not sure what they should say specifically. Also, they like to
hind themselves when I ask them to share their own ideas, so I would just speak out my
opinions instead.
The other problem I find is that when there was nobody answering my questions, I would
answer them on my own. Actually I think I should try to elaborate my questions to make it
clearer to the students, as well as give them longer time to think about it.







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