Once the teacher enters the classroom on her own, the responsibility for improvement rests on her shoulders. Seldom, if ever, and then usually only if she is desperate enough to ask for assistance, does she receive any specific suggestions regarding her teaching such as those she received during the student teaching period. For the first two or three years, everything is new and exciting, and she is so busy that she does not pause often to reflect on what she is doing. Later, she begins to crave new ideas and to feel that she is stuck in the cycle of never-ending imitation similar to that described by Wordsworth when he said, "Man acts as if his whole vocation were merely endless imitation." His problem, that of finding new ideas and of pruning unproductive habits and techniques, is shared by all teachers. The purpose of this appendix is to urge the teacher never to abandon the search for improved techniques and to suggest sources for new ideas.
Above all, the teacher should subject her own teaching to a continuous self-criticism. Self-evaluation is extremely difficult, but it is the only form of criticism that many people are willing to accept. One good procedure for self-appraisal is for the teacher to make a tape recording or a video tape
recording of at least one class each semester. This type of evaluation reveals many aspects of the class that are not evident any other way. Listening to (or viewing) her class gives the teacher an opportunity to take inventory, i.e., to determine exactly what is happening in her class. She should then compare the results of this inventory with the desired outcomes. When what is going on does not correspond with what she wants to happen, she should begin to search for methods and means to institute changes in her procedures and consequently in the students' activities.
The teacher can be more exact and objective in her inventory if she uses a specific observation scale. Since the emphasis in this book has been that the students learn to do what they do, the observation scale that follows deals with student activity in the classroom. 1
Scale for the Classification of Student Activities
I. "Real" language
A. Oral interaction
B. Listening comprehension
C. Speaking
D. Reading comprehension
E. Writing
F. English
II. Drill and/or exercises
A. Listening
B. Responding
1. Orally
a. Chorally
b. Individually
2. In writing
C. Reading aloud
1. Chorally
2. Individually
D. English
III. Presentation of new material
A. Participating
1. First language
2. Second language
^hose educators who are familiar with interaction analysis as proposed by Flanders, Amidon, et al. may prefer to emphasize the interaction between the teacher and the students in their observations. However, it appears that modifications of the typical interaction analysis are necessary in observing second-language classes. If the reader is interested in the application of interaction analysis, he should consult Crittner, Teaching Foreign Languages, pp. 327-40 and/or Jarvis, "A Behavioral Observation System for Foreign Language Skill Acquisition," Modern Language Journal, 52 (October 1968), pp. 335-41.
B. Receptive
1. First language
2. Second language
IV. Activity not related to language acquisition
A. Nonrelated topics
B. Silence or confusion
The teacher takes inventory simply by keeping score of what he hears (or observes) during the class. To record the students' activities, he makes a mark (I) opposite the appropriate description each five, ten, or fifteen seconds. (Since this is a random sample of what is happening, one would suspect that it would make little difference which time interval is used except that, naturally, the fiften-second interval is easier to record and to total.) By using the system of crossing the previous four tallies in marking the fifth (-H-H-), he can later very quickly determine the totals for each category; for "real" language, drill and/or exercises, presentation of new material, and activity not related to language acquisition; for each of the four language skills; for practice in the receptive and in the productive skills; and for the proportion of time spent in the second language and in the first language. The teacher who is interested in the interaction in the classroom can contrast the entries in which the students were listening with those in which the students were responding either in "real" language or in drill or exercise activities.
One other point needs to be made. Recording a random sample of the students' activities does not provide any objective, quantitative evaluation of the number of responses, i.e., of the pace of the class. The teacher should be aware of this gap and include a subjective evaluation of this factor as he analyzes his class.
The students can also be a potential source of new ideas for the teacher. In the first place, he can learn from them which activities help them to learn best, which are most interesting, and which they would like to see abandoned. As well as helping him to choose what to discard, what to modify, and what to keep, the students often have ideas that can be developed into interesting and productive teaching-learning situations. Student input of this type can be especially helpful in the area of ideas for real language topics.
In addition to taking stock in his own classes, the teacher should also look for new ideas outside his classes. For example, he should have a collection of additional texts at hand and examine them regularly. Quite often another author has included a presentation or an activity that is not in the adopted text and that had not occurred previously to the teacher.
During the school year he should take advantage of any and all opportunities to observe other teachers in action. These visits may be made to classrooms in his own school or in others. Many school systems now have
provisions for a day off each semester or each year to visit programs in other schools. Nor should he limit himself to language teachers. Teachers in other fields have ideas that may be applicable to his own. Working with student teachers can be a valuable learning experience for the cooperating teacher as well as for the student teacher, and the teacher should welcome such "fresh" sources of new techniques.
Attending language meetings and reading the language journals can be informative, interesting, and often inspiring. Information gained from language meetings is not limited to that gathered from the speeches. Discussions with other teachers are opportune moments to share ideas and perhaps even resources of one type or another such as tapes, cultural materials, etc. Many journal articles deal with problems related to teaching and to the problems of the profession. The advertisements in the journals provide leads to new books, records, realia, etc.
The most valuable source of new ideas, however, resides within the teacher himself. Limited only by the scope of his own creativity and spurred on by h is desire to improve his teaching, the teacher certainly can develop new classroom procedures and techniques on his own. The more insight his experience and knowledge give him into the whole teaching-learning process the more proficient he should become in tapping his own source of new ideas. May his fountain never run dry.
APPENDIX 4