Reflection in Action: Strategies for Teacher Self-evaluation

Ivana Cirkovic-Miladinovic,Maja Dimitrijevic

doi:10.47577/tssj.v11i1.1501

Abstract

Given classroom complexity und uncertainty, teachers face with lots of challenges during their teaching repertoire. They face with specific problems they should respond to and manage so the world of the classroom demands that teachers have practical knowledge that enables them to negotiate the practical problems they face. The fact that reflection in action is a personal, spontaneous, tacit process it means that it limits teachers’ opportunity to seek or receive feedback from others or from the reflective episode itself. Moreover, reflections in action focus on events and situations that arise spontaneously und unplanned (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990). In a real sense, reflection in action is reactive, not proactive. This kind of evaluation has one problematic characteristic: the teacher is both evaluator and evaluatee (Airasian & Gullickson, 1994). Having in mind mentioned challenges for the teacher in the classroom, it would be useful for a teacher to be familiar with some strategies for teacher self-evaluation. The paper presents a study of an online survey to examine teachers’: a) self-efficacy to work with multilingual students in the Serbian YLs classroom, b) received training in the area of teaching young learners, c) beliefs about knowledge, skills and resources needed to work with YLs, d) interest in receiving additional training. The research takes into consideration the specific aspects of students’ L1, i.e. the Serbian language. Findings suggest that while a majority of the teachers has not received specific training on working with YLs, most of the teachers feel somewhat confident about their ability to work with such student populations.

Highlights

In the field of teacher education self-evaluation and teacher autonomy are widely regarded as the ‘capacity for potential self-directed learning behaviours’ (Sinclair 1999: 311)
Teachers in this study reported fairly strong confidence in their abilities to work with young learners, as illustrated in Figure 2, which shows that the majority of teachers classify themselves as somewhat prepared to work with young learners
Twelve of the participants included open-ended comments following this question. They expressed concerns about diverse needs and proficiency level of students’ mother tongue, their own lack of experience and training in TEYL, and the challenges caused by the fact that teachers often do not possess the pedagogical and psychological knowledge in teaching young learners as well as difficulties associated with learning foreign language without previously

Summary

Introduction

In the field of teacher education self-evaluation and teacher autonomy are widely regarded as the ‘capacity for potential self-directed learning behaviours’ (Sinclair 1999: 311). Technium Social Sciences Journal Vol 11, 46-58, September 2020 ISSN: 2668-7798 www.techniumscience.com autonomy as freedom from control by others where subject teachers are expected to act within a triangular structure of syllabus, examination system and textbook He goes on to explain another aspect of teacher education which is preparing teachers to facilitate learner autonomy. The teacher who is willing to explore his/her teaching practice and the quality of the work he/she provides may contribute to his/her own professional improvement and learners’ autonomy achievement This point accounts for the fact that language teachers capable of exploring TP and helping their learners in the process of learning to focus on how to learn rather on what to learn are more likely to make learners’ autonomy plausible (Ahmadi and Izadpanah, 2019). Learners may become more motivated and independent in the process of learning while the teacher may become more motivated and willing for both exploration of the teaching practice and his own self-improvement (Dimitrijevic, 2013)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion