Mitigation of Language in Post-Observation Conferences Between Two Peer Teachers : A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This qualitative study examined the patterns of utterance-level mitigation strategies employed by peer teachers in the formulation of the suggestions and advice provided during a post-observation conference (POC) after peer observation of teaching (POT). Two peer teachers, who were serving as instructors for undergraduate level courses at the same university, participated in this study. Over a period of one semester, one of the two teachers observed the other teacher’s class two times, focusing on the agenda determined in the pre-observation conference. After each class visit, the observing teacher and the observed teacher had a POC in order to discuss the lesson in terms of the problems, strengths, possible future improvements. Findings showed that both the observing teacher and the observed teacher used a range of mitigating devices to protect each other’s positive and negative face. This suggests that despite the peers’ close relationship with balanced power, they were aware of the potential threat to face and the need to employ language mitigating strategies to maintain each other’s face in the POCs.