This document discusses various ways that teachers can work together to improve their skills and support each other, including team teaching, mentoring, peer observations, and teachers' meetings. It provides examples of how these approaches can help new teachers gain experience and learn from more experienced teachers. It also notes some of the challenges, such as needing good communication and managing noise in a classroom when team teaching. Overall, the document advocates for collaboration between teachers as a way to continuously learn and develop their practice.

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You needn’t walk alone

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Liverpool FC

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Working together

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The teaching ‘profession’

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The teaching ‘profession’

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Going it alone

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An early goodbye
• Ofsted chief: two-fifths of teachers quitting
within five years is 'scandal'
• Sir Michael Wilshaw says many new recruits
leave profession because of poor training and
not enough support

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Quotes on teamwork
“Remember teamwork
begins by building trust
and the only way to do that
is overcome our need for
invulnerability.”
Patrick Lencioni

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Quotes on teamwork
• “Great teams do not hold back with one
another. They are unafraid to air their dirty
laundry. They admit their mistakes, their
weaknesses, and their concerns without fear
of reprisal.”
• Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a
Team: A Leadership Fable

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But who said it?
• “Anyone who imagines they can work alone
winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals,
without companions. The fact is, no one
ascends alone.”

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A Team-Player?

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A question
• Did you observe enough ‘good’ teaching when
you were training?
• Would you like to observe more ‘good’
teaching now?

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A quote
“Teachers say their schools of education did not
adequately prepare them for the classroom.
They would have welcomed more observation,
mentoring and feedback in the early years.”
• Arne Duncan

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Ways of Working Together
• Team-teaching
• Mentoring
• Joint planning
• Teachers’ meeting
– Brainstorming
– Comparing
– Sharing
– Planning for others T

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Team-Teaching

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Advantages of team teaching
• Exposed to a different accent and way of
teaching
• More time to spend with weak students
• Sharing responsibility for a lesson
• Sharing work load
• Possible to learn from working closely with
other teachers
• Can learn new techniques, activities, skills

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Advantages of team-teaching
• Students get more 1:1 help
• Easier to clamp down on student behaviour
• Good to model activities with other teacher

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Disadvantages
• Difficult to have conversation classes
(Classroom mgt? Noise? Monitoring?)
• Limits activities you can do
• More time wasted on classroom management
• Having to learn strategies for team teaching
• Needs a good working relationship with other
teacher

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Thought
• Also, sometimes it’s just nice to have your
own class

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Quote from the questionnaire
• All in all, I have observed that the students' language
output has increased considerably since we
introduced team-teaching. In fact, in my 13 year-long
teaching career I have never witnessed anything like
this. In short, it's beautiful.

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Quote from the questionnaire
• I personally feel that I have learned more about
teaching and children than ever before. The many
ideas that my teacher partners have shared with me
and the many times that I have had the opportunity
to observe children's learning simply because I
wasn't constantly in the spotlight have helped me to
grow both as a teacher and … as a partner. It is an
experience that I would strongly recommend to
anyone.

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Mentoring

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Mentoring
• Induction
– Culture shock
– Organisational expectations
• Best Practice
– Learning from the expert
• Teaching support
– Failing teacher
– Developing teacher

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Who can be a mentor?
• Well-developed personal skills
• Confidence in own teaching styles
• Active listener
• Empathy
• Financial (time) reward? Personal
development? Prestige?
• (‘Advanced practitioner’ – ‘Mentor’)

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Mentoring sequence
Possible sequence
1.
• Joint planning
• Mentor teaches class
2.
• Joint planning
• Mentor and mentee share class

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Mentoring sequence
3
• Joint planning
• Mentee teaches class
• Reports back to mentor
4
• Mentee plans
• Mentee teaches class
• Mentor observes

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Commenting on lesson plans
Aims:
• Language to describe graphs in IELTS writing
task 1
• To practise various future structures for
planning in a work context
• Vocabulary to talk about different types of
happiness and the situations which led to
these

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Lesson plans
To practise and develop ability to listen for gist
• Pre-listening task (sentence gap-fill)
– T distributes worksheet containing part of a song
sts do no know it’s a song) sts fill in the missing
lines with the sentences provided
• While listening task
– Sts listen to the song to check previous task (5
mins)

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Observation sequence
• Draw up a procedure; choose criteria
• Select a date; inform teacher
• Briefing with teacher
• Observe teacher, make notes (evidence)
• Give feedback
• Write up notes
• The three point syndrome

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Three point syndrome
• “Think about how to engage your students
more by ‘personalising’ material”
• “Try to give as much detail as you can about
new vocabulary (eg: word stress, part of
speech, spelling, related items)”
• “Write your aims on the board”

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QA observations
Consider:
• Time taken
• Value to teacher
• Confidence for teacher
• Retrospective nature

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Teacher’s meetings
IELTS group – weekly meeting to:
• Talk over problems
• Share materials
• Devise activities
• In-service materials swop shop

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Peer observations
• Buzz observations
• Observation of a complete session
– New
– Familiar
• Peer observations should be non-judgemental
(supportive, descriptive, inquisitive)

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In-service training sessions
• Need to differentiate
• Best when topics come from teachers
• Often best when delivered by teachers
• Time needed for research on a specific area

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