{"id":36856,"date":"2026-05-27T10:14:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/community\/?p=36856"},"modified":"2026-06-04T03:39:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:39:56","slug":"classroom-observation-elt-professional-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/community\/blog\/professional-development\/classroom-observation-elt-professional-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Me: Rethinking Classroom Observation as a Tool for Teacher Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Originally published 2013 by Kevin Stein on iTDi.pro. Updated May 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Do We Dread Being Observed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m not sure how most people feel about observation, but I\u2019m guessing that lesson observations, even peer lesson observations, are not going to be super popular. Which, when I think about my daughter, seems pretty odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You see, my daughter is 6 years old. Her three favourite things in the world are running as fast as she can, practicing gymnastics, and playing piano. If I or my wife are around, my daughter invariably calls out, \u201cWatch this,\u201d before she cartwheels across the living room, taps out a song on the piano, or sprints up the street. When I compare my daughter\u2019s boundless desire to be observed with my own feelings about classroom observation, I can\u2019t help but feel that, as a teacher, I have misplaced something important, something joyful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is it about the way I watch my daughter as compared to how classroom observations are conducted, which has created this psychic gap?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Data Over Judgment: What a Stopwatch Can Teach Us<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When my daughter is running up and down the street, she will often ask me to use a stopwatch to time her. I use the lap function to keep track of how long it takes her to run the first third, the middle third, and the last third of the distance. Sometimes I ask her \u201cwhen were you running fastest, at the beginning, the middle or the end?\u201d Sometimes she asks me. But I rarely, if ever say things like, \u201cThat was a very interesting sprint,\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t think the pacing of your run was very even.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In \u201cBeyond <em>Rashomon<\/em>,\u201d John Fanselow (1977, p.27-28) points out that the words teachers use when observing and commenting on each others lessons\u2014words like \u2018meaningful\u2019 and \u2018interesting\u2019\u2014often \u201chave good and bad connotations\u2026are in themselves judgmental as well as descriptive. Judgment means someone\u2019s ego is involved, and this can interfere with perception.\u201d Like keeping track of a runners time, collecting hard data during an observation and sharing that data during post-observation follow up can help keep the focus away from the kind of purely personal evaluations which so often land on our ears with the slap of disapproval. In some of my favourite observations, my fellow teachers have: used a stop-watch to keep track of how long each activity lasted; categorised the types of teacher talk I used; counted the number of words each student said during a class; and even made a map of where I was standing in the room during each activity and what materials I used at each location. In each an every case, I was given another piece of data to more fully see what was happening in my class without the sense that I was being inherently judged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Deciding What to Focus On Before You Observe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After my daughter\u2019s piano lessons, the teacher will usually tell us one aspect of her playing that she would like us to focus on during the week.&nbsp; Sometimes it is paying more attention to rhythm.&nbsp; Sometimes is varying the intensity and duration of the notes played.&nbsp; We all know just what and why we are going to pay attention to during piano practice over the course of the week.&nbsp; In a similar vein, Jack Richards (1995) suggests that during peer observations, the observee give the observer a task which entails focusing on a particular aspect of the lesson and only collecting relevant data.&nbsp; Tasks can include measuring time on task, notating types of student responses to questions, or identifying classroom management techniques used during a lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In any classroom, so much is going on at any one time that, if we try to observe the class as a whole, there\u2019s a very good chance we won\u2019t notice very much of anything. In addition, at least for me, knowing the focus of the observation ahead of time means I can let go of one specific worry while I teach, allowing me a little bit more psychological breathing room so that I can attend to things I might normally miss as I teach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Video, Reflection, and the Moment of Discovery<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t want to sound like I\u2019m bragging, but my daughter can stand on her hands, fall into a back bend, and then scramble around the room like a crab. Still, until last week, she couldn\u2019t do a somersault. Every time she tried, she would land with a thud on her back. I took a few videos just before she started to tumble over.&nbsp; It turned out that the moment before she fell forward, she kicked off and that extra burst of momentum propelled her over just fast enough that she had no time to curl her back. Hence the thud.&nbsp; After watching the video and talking with me about the other things she could already do, she bent down, slowly walked herself into a ball, curled herself over and rolled across the carpet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peter Maingay (1988, p. 119-129) says, \u201cMuch of what a teacher does in a language-teaching classroom is ritual behaviour rather than principled behaviour. The most important role of an observer in most, if not all, observations is that of making teachers think about what they do: of drawing their attention to the principles behind the rituals, of leading them away from ritual behaviour towards principled behaviour.\u201d So observation is not just about presenting data, it\u2019s about creating a space where a teacher can revisit what they already know about teaching and compare that knowledge with what is happening in the classroom.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few weeks ago, after observing my lesson one of my co-workers pointed out that a vast majority of the language students were using in class was memorised content from a worksheet. That gave me a chance to think about the role of creative language in my classroom and the types of speaking activities I was using. I realised that how I was teaching was disconnected from some of my deeply held beliefs about how languages are actually learned. And in that moment, I could see the right way to naturally lean forward and tumble back into the kind of teaching I wanted to be doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John Fanselow (1988, p. 115) suggests that perhaps the goal of observation is not to, \u201chelp or evaluate,\u201d but instead to provide teachers with a chance for self-exploration. Which seems perfectly right to me.&nbsp; I found out early on in this dad-thing, that when my daughter said, \u201cWatch me,\u201d it was sometimes (but not always) a request to help her find a way to figure things out for herself.&nbsp; She was almost never happy to be told exactly what to do.&nbsp; In the same way, I have rarely finished a post-observation feedback session where I was given an armful of prescriptive suggestions and felt like I was walking away with anything other than a whole lot of unnecessary baggage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Five Guidelines for Better Peer Observation<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So whether it be peer or supervisory, I think keeping in mind some of the things that make a six year old happy when they are being watched, could go a long way to decreasing the anxiety and defusing the defensiveness that often colours our ideas of observation.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>First and foremost, an observers job is to watch, not to judge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Observer and observee need to talk things over and decide what to focus on during an observation before the observation takes place.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Observers should not limit themselves to a taking a few notes as they are observing. They should collect as much data as possible, which is probably always a bit more than they have already managed to catch.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Observers need to provide real chances for a teacher to see how what they are doing in class, what they believe they are doing, and what they believe they should be doing might be different.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There should be enough room and time for the teacher to sort through the post-observation feedback and figure out for themselves what they are going to do next.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Finding the Right Light to Observe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If observations, both peer and supervisory, followed these guidelines, I wonder if it would change how teachers feel about being observed in general.&nbsp; In spite of the negative experiences we have all probably had with observations, there is still something inherently positive about being watched. There is a kind of joy in knowing that what we do is important, that it\u2019s worth observing. But to create a community in which all teachers can continue to grow and flourish, we need to find the right light with which to observe, the kind of light in which teachers can truly shine. Because in all of us, there\u2019s still a child, waiting to cry out with a special kind of delight, \u201cWatch me! Watch me!\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fanselow, J. F. (1977). Beyond Rashomon: conceptualizing and describing the teaching act. <em>TESOL Quarterly <\/em>11(1), 17-39.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fanselow, J. F. (1988). \u201cLet&#8217;s See\u201d: Contrasting Conversations About Teaching. <em>TESOL Quarterly<\/em>, <em>22<\/em>(1), 113-130.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maingay, P. (1988). Observation for training, development or assessment. In <em>Explorations in teacher training: problems and issues<\/em>, ed. by T. Duff, London: Longman Group UK LTD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richards, J. C. (1995). Towards reflective teaching. <em>ENGLISH TEACHERS JOURNAL-ISRAEL-<\/em>, 59-63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published 2013 by Kevin Stein on iTDi.pro. Updated May 2026. Why Do We Dread Being Observed? I\u2019m not sure &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1311,"featured_media":36858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"inline_featured_image":false,"_vibebp_attr":"","_vibebp_dimensions":"","_vibebp_responsive_height":"","_vibebp_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3360],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3371],"class_list":["post-36856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rethinking Classroom Observation for EFL Teacher Growth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What if classroom observation felt more like a proud parent watching a child than a judge scoring a performance? 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