This is the kind of activity which was once reserved for teacher training courses. I agree with you it is very important to open up the classroom and your choices and procedures to students, especially because of the discrepancy in perceptions which nearly always happens, as you say. I also agree it is important to celebrate this discrepancy, reminding us that students are human, not laboratory rats!

I agree about videoing yourself. I had a similar experience when I made the video clip for this blog. I read recently that you have to watch the video about 5 times to get over the “cringe factor” before you can actually look at it and learn from it sensibly. I learnt a lot about how other people see me, I think from looking at that video. It made me think I should have done it more often. With webcams and handy digital cameras it is super easy to make videos now and to share them on youtube or vimeo. You can get a friend or a student to video you in class for 5 mins. It doesn’t have to be a whole lesson as was often the case in the past. A little and often is more effective I think. At a professional level I think being video savvy is going to become increasingly important for communication with other professionals and career development.

I think I can say that I have had a good stab at most of the recommended activities on your list, Duncan, and if I had to recommend one, it would have to be video recording yourself. It’s a bit bizarre watching yourself teach, but it’s amazing how much more you learn by observing yourself from the outside (I have even cringed at myself, particularly one instance of me doggedly persisting in trying to get a group of children doing a whole class activity that was obviously never going to work… took me a while to actually comes to terms with this in the lesson!) Of course, video also reveals the successes in lessons – so it’s good to make sure that if you do watch a video of yourself teaching, to take note of the highlights of the lesson as well.

Anthony: your comments about your favourite teacher are good food for thought. Just to add, the teachers I remember as “good” were those who did have expectations of the students and were not afraid to point out my weaknesses. This is even more true as an adult – when I take a course now it is through choice and a wish to learn, I expect the teachers/trainers to be more knowledgeable and help me improve, that is the point. Praise, of course, is sought by everyone, but I want more than a pat on the back and a “good try”. As a teacher, I am guilty of tiptoeing around student errors when a clear, but uncritical reaction I’m sure would have been more appreciated.

Thinking about developing yourself as a teacher through observation, it can be quite an eye-opening experience to “observe” yourself through the eyes of your students.

I ask students to make observations on the aims and learning outcomes of lessons. Looking through the notes they hand in at the end of class (anonymously) it often proves the theory that there is little or no relation between what is taught and what is learnt in a language class.

Far from being a demoralising experience, however, I find this can put the focus back onto the students and help to engage them in the learning process, and thereby lead to more effective teaching.

I think there is insight to be gained from reflecting on these distant role models that can sometimes be obscured by more recent “training” experiences, which is why I like this activity. It helps you see things from a “pre professional” perspective.

With “self observation” I was thinking really of reflecting and making notes during and after a class. I suppose the term is in contrast to “peer observation” and “DoS observation” where someone else observes you. Sometimes you know your hair is a mess even before you look in the mirror!

Your first activity here is simple and helpful but I am a little confused by the two options “record or video yourself teaching” and “observe yourself teaching”. I can’t work out a way of observing myself teaching other than videoing myself (short of bringing in a very large mirror… . Could you clarify?

As for the second task, here is my favorite teacher: He was my English teacher for A-levels. He was in his late 40s then, with long, unkempt hair and the kind of sideburns that hadn’t been fashionable for decades. He got distracted from our lessons quite often by good looking women on the street outside the classroom and wasn’t averse to telling dodgy jokes but he was also well able to motivate us into struggling with Chaucer, Donne, Milton and others. He was passionate about their work and how it related to his life and ours. He would not tolerate intellectual laziness or lack of effort. He valued the exchange of ideas and he did not expect to win every argument we got into in class: in this way he taught me the value of wrestling with the ideas of others and helped me accept early on that you have to be prepared to be wrong if you want to have a chance of getting things right. Thank you, Duncan, for giving me the opportunity to remember him.