We spoke to Jack about his book Jack C. Richards’ 50 Tips for Teacher Development. In his book, Jack outlines a number of activities which you can use, as an individual or as part of a group, to plan and manage aspects of your professional development. The book focuses on different aspects of development, such as researching your own teaching, engaging in critical reflection, expanding your knowledge of the field, expanding your teaching skills and creating an institutional professional development culture.
Watch the video to hear Jack talk about how critical reflection can play an important role in our development as teachers, and read the extract from his new book, which outlines the nature of critical reflection, along with the phases of critical reflection, and gives examples of activities you can carry out.
Jack C. Richards’ 50 Tips for Teacher Development (sample chapter)
Purpose: to acquire the skills involved in critical reflection In thinking about our professional development, we often assume that it involves taking workshops or doing courses. But if we think of professional development as bringing about changes in our understanding of teaching, this can often come about from thinking through and reflecting on our own teaching. In this tip we consider the nature of critical reflection and the types of activities that promote it.
- The nature of critical reflection: critical reflection can be thought of as a three-step process:
- examining a teaching situation or experience
- asking questions about the purpose, meaning, and consequences of teaching actions and events
- rethinking beliefs and understandings in the light of new awareness and knowledge.
For example, as a student teacher I once got the sense that some of my lessons were not as engaging as they could be. Was it the materials? Was it the tasks? Was it the students? I audio-recorded a couple of lessons and after reviewing the tapes, decided it boiled down to the fact that I was “over-teaching” – spending too much time modeling and explaining, often saying the same things several times. This prompted me to ask myself why I was doing this and how I could conduct my lessons in a different way.
My example illustrates that critical reflection is based on the idea that experience in itself does not necessarily lead to greater levels of understanding. In order for experience to produce learning, it needs to be coupled with the process of reflection.
2. Phases in critical reflection: critical reflection involves asking different kinds of questions about teaching experiences.
- Mapping: What do I do as a teacher?
- Informing: What is the meaning of my teaching? What did I intend?
- Contesting: How did I come to be this way? How was it possible for my present view of teaching to have emerged?
- Appraisal: How might I teach differently?
- Acting: What and how shall I now teach?
3. Planning for critical reflection: critical reflection can be both an individual or a group-based activity. (Tip 22 gives examples of things you can do on your own.)
Here are some examples: A group of teachers who are interested in exploring their teaching collaboratively get together. During a first meeting, the group decides on procedures and topics. Procedures that can be used include lesson reports, journal writing, case studies, narratives, critical incidents and video recording (see Tips 4, 5, 8, 15, 32, 37 and 40).
The group decides on topics they want to explore. These could include:
- giving feedback on learner performance
- maintaining student engagement in lessons
- teaching styles.
The group brainstorms around the topic they have chosen and generates as many questions as possible related to the topic. For example:
- What issues does it involve?
- What do you think is the best strategy or practice?
- What problems have you encountered?
Group members then decide how they will collect information related to the topic and over what time frame. Discussion can focus around the issues noted above.
After completing a cycle of activities of this kind, participants reflect on what they learned from it:
- Was there anything surprising you learned about your own teaching?
- Would you wish to change any aspects of your teaching?
- How would you go about it?
- How useful was the experience of reflecting on your teaching in this way?
Explore the book in full at this link. If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also want to watch our chat with Scott Thornbury and read a sample chapter from his new Cambridge Handbook for Language Teachers, Scott Thornbury’s 30 Language Teaching Methods!