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The Professional Development Assignment

Part One: Reflection and Action
The professional development assignment consists of two parts: the first is the reflection and action
assignment and the second is the experimental practice assignment. This document is to help you
write the reflection and action assignment.

The professional development assignment is marked as pass or fail. It is not considered for merit or
distinction grades.

The reflection and action assignment will be 2000 – 2500 words long. It is done in three parts.
Each part is written when you complete a specific stage in your coursework.
At the beginning of Module Two your first unassessed diagnostic lesson is observed by a tutor and
you have feedback on this lesson. When you have got your written feedback on the lesson, you write
the first part of the R&A assignment (the first 1000 words). You upload this. The tutor who watched the
diagnostic lesson will give you feedback on this first section, writing comments in text on the
assignment itself and writing up more general advice on the relevant section of the Delta 5b. You read
the feedback and take note and keep working in the same document. Don’t go back and change
things, but if there were comments saying you needed to change things or do things, then show that
you have read the feedback by changing them or doing them in the middle section when you write that
(and the same goes for feedback on the middle section – show you have addressed it by doing things
to or in the final section). Leave tutor comments and the things they are about in place. When you
have completed some of your peer observations and at least two of your assessed LSAs, you write
the second section of the R&A assignment (750 words) and again upload it for a general comment.
Finally, after having completed all of your peer observations, the third internally assessed LSA your
experimental and your external you write the final 750 words and the R&A assignment is marked by a
tutor.

In short …
1. do first unassessed lesson
2. write 1000 words
3. do peer observations, one unassessed and two assessed lessons (and possibly but not
necessarily the experimental practice assignment)
4. write 750 words
5. do remaining peer observations, third assessed lesson, externally assessed LSA
6. write last 750 words

Writing style

It is important to read the written work style guide that is up on the site in the guideline documents.
The advice about your general approach to writing and points such as referencing is true for all the
written assignments. Criterion b below is covered in section 2 for background assignments, but the
second point in criterion d below is particular to this assignment. You must refer clearly to YOUR
teaching practice and professional development, not write in general terms about how teachers
can develop in an area.

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Successful candidates must:
1 present an assignment which:
a) is written in language which is clear, accurate, easy to follow and does not impose a strain on the
reader
b) is cohesive and clearly ordered and in which component parts of the assignment are relevant to the
topic
c) uses appropriate terminology accurately
d) presents a range of relevant information, rationales and arguments, and supports these by
̶ referring to and referencing key sources
̶ referring to relevant aspects of their teaching practices and professional development
e) contains a bibliography of key sources consulted
f) follows widely accepted referencing conventions
g) respects the word limits of individual stages of the assignment and the overall word limit (2,000–
2,500 words) and states the number of words used

Part One – the first 1000 words

The first 500 words should be about your reflections, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses.
The second 500 words will be an action plan.
So what are your beliefs ?

Task One

What do you think might have had an impact on what you believe about how people learn and the
way they should be taught ? If you haven’t already done this in the session, take a few minutes to
make a list, then compare it with the list at the end of this document.

It may be that you are not clear what your beliefs are. Many of us are not if we are not required to
articulate them.
Task Two is intended to do make you do that.

Task Two

Jot down two or three sentences to answer each of the following questions. Actually write something
down, don’t just read through the questions and move on.

What is your learning style ? In what ways do you think this is reflected in your teaching practice ?
Is there a ‘best’ method ? How would you describe your methodology ?
What activity do you most enjoy implementing in the classroom ? Why ?
Which activity do you think your learners like doing most in class ? Why do they like it ? Why do you believe
it is their favourite ?
Which activity do you least enjoy implementing in the classroom ?

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 Which activity do your learners like doing least in class ? Why do they not like it ? Why do you believe they
don’t like it ?

What is the best way to assess whether a learner is making progress ?

How much choice can you give to learners ?
Is it the case that some people just can’t learn languages ?
How do you believe people learn languages ? What is the most important factor ?

It may be that you found it difficult to give answers to some of the above. These are all things that you
will need to think about while doing this assignment. Consider talking some of it through with
colleagues or on the DELTA Moodle forums. You could print this box off, note when you filled it in and
add it as an appendix to the assignment.

This article describes research into teacher beliefs, changes teachers made and what caused them to
make changes. You might find some ideas for gathering data for this assignment in pages 8, 9 and 10
in particular.

http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/exploring-teacher-change.pdf
Richards, Jack C, Patrick Gallo and Willy A Renandya. (2001). Exploring teachers' beliefs and the processes of
change. PAC Journal. 1.1 41-64

One of the activities that they asked the teachers to do in the research they describe is similar to Task
three.

Task three

Think about your first year of teaching.

Notes down any ways that your practice has changed since then. Are you more / less learner centred ?
More / less grammar focused ? Have your preferred activities / techniques / approaches changed ?

Why ?

If you have worked your way through these three tasks, and had your first unassessed lesson
feedback, then you are ready to write the first part of the R&A assignment.

In the first 500 words you should ...

Talk about your beliefs and practices as a teacher (up to 250 words)

Talk about your beliefs – should learners be forced to speak ? allowed to do what they like ? given lots
of language ? only be exposed to things they understand ? Use the questionnaires in this document to
help you identify what your beliefs might be. Say something about where you think they came from –
do you teach like this because you learnt like this ? Do you think the way you teach has changed over
the time you have been teaching ?

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Talk about things that are generally true for you, not just things that happened in this first observed
lesson, but mention any instances in the observed lesson that illustrate what you say about your
general practice.

Identify the key strengths and weaknesses in your teaching and comment on the
positive and negative effects they have on your learners (up to 250 words for this and
the reasons together)

You should mention the tutor feedback on the unassessed lesson.

You should also mention some other sources of information. These could include …
 feedback from other teacher development courses
 self observation / awareness
 learner response
 learner performance
You must prioritise weaknesses that have most impact on your students learning and your teaching
practice (as opposed to choosing weaknesses that might be the easiest to deal with).

Identify the possible reasons for these key strengths and weaknesses

You may want to mention some of the following :

• your preferred teaching styles, techniques and procedures
• your beliefs about learning and teaching
• the pervading view of teaching present in your context that may or may not be best suited to all
learners within that context (so what other people in your school / university say is or is not
possible).
• the needs and teaching preferences of institutions you have worked for in the past
• over application of ‘favourite’ techniques and procedures
• course book methodologies (not) suited to specific contexts
• (in)ability to adapt your methods/techniques/ procedures to specific contexts (do your learners do
what you hope they will do ? )
• lack of knowledge in particular linguistic or methodological areas
• lack of confidence in carrying out particular methods, techniques and procedures
• any initial teacher training and developmental training you have experienced in your teaching career.

You won’t be able to mention all of these things. The list is just to help you think about possibilities.

The action plan

The second 500 words of part one is your action plan.

Say which 3 - 4 weaknesses you intend to focus on for this assignment

They must be things you have already mentioned and you should prioritise in terms of weaknesses
that most affect your students’ ability to learn and your own practices as a teacher.

For each point

State clearly what you want to work on
It can be anything – aspects of your knowledge base, your methodology or your
classroom management.
Say how you are going to work on it
Possible approaches/procedures/techniques might include some of the following:
reading specific books, using specific web sites, observing experienced colleagues

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 and/or tutors, experimenting with aspects of your teaching related to the weakness
identified, being observed, videoing your own lessons, getting feedback from students,
etc.
Say how you will understand if you have made progress with it or not
Obviously you will get feedback from your tutors on observed lessons, but also think
about other ways you can gather data to evaluate effectiveness (and then write about it
in parts two and three). And say why you have chosen this method rather than any of
the other possibilities.
You MUST include reference to your peer observations as this is specifically
mentioned in the guidance notes for marking the assignment. It could be data from your
observations of colleagues or data you have asked them to collect while observing you.
You could also use video, interviews, questionnaires or tests. Any documents used
should be put in the appendix, but referred to in the text.
Don’t forget you will also do an experimental practice assignment. This is another way
you will be able to gather data.
Think about keeping a teaching journal.
Set some kind of a time frame.
What do you hope to have done in the next week ? Before writing the next part of the
assignment ?
Don’t forget to include some references
There will probably not be as many references to reading in this assignment as there
are in your background assignments or in the experimental, but there must be some in
order to meet criteria 1d and 1e. There probably will be a lot of reference to data in
appendices (you can footnote to appendices when you are referring to information in
order to save words).
Include a contents page so that it is clear which appendices you intend to have

When this is all done, upload the assignment to the relevant link on the web site. You will get a
comment from a tutor in response.
Tutors will put electronic comments into the part that you wrote (unless they tell you do change
something explicitly, you should leave the first part as it is and keep working on that document. So
when you upload the second part the first part will still be there, as you wrote it, with the tutor
comments in it.
If they tell you to include reading or have more concrete goals in the action plan, you should do this in
the second part. The assignment is developmental, so you address any problems in the next section.

The action plan can work quite well in a table. This is a quick version of the way you could organize it
for one point (and then you would go on to include two more).

1. Lack of variety in feedback

What When Data
a. Try tutor suggestion of handing Use once each time in Ask learners what they think
out keys. two different classes in class
next week
b. Try peer suggestion of letting Use once each time in Write self addressed Q/A in
learner nominate each other. two different classes teaching journal about +’s / -
next week ‘s after classes.
c. Look for two further methods in By end January Add ideas to list in teaching
Harmer, on OneStop teacher journal.
forums and in peer observations.

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Part two – the middle 750 words

When you have completed some of the peer observations, done two of your assessed LSAs and
(maybe) finished your experimental practice assignment, you are ready to write part two of this
assignment.
You should spend about 300 words reflecting on and evaluating developments, 150 words on current
weaknesses and a further 300 words on future action.

Identify and comment on any key development(s) you have made in your teaching practices
since the diagnostic observation (300 words)
Look at the action points you wrote in the first part. Look at what you planned to do and
the methods you planned to use to develop. Have you been able to carry out your
intentions ? Was what you did successful ? Why ? (2b) How do you know ? Refer to
your data – your lesson evaluations, tutor reports, learner data, observer data,
recordings etc. Is the data reliable ? (2c) You should talk about your teaching practice
in general since the initial observed lesson, not just lessons you teach for DELTA, but
do refer to specific instances from DELTA lessons if they exemplify one of your points.

150 words on current weaknesses

In the light of all that information, what would you say is now your priority ? Is there an
area you hoped to address, but which needs further thought ? Now you have started to
work on your action plan has it become obvious from some of your feedback that one
area is more urgent than the others ? Has all this research on your part made you
realize that you need to work on something else altogether ?

300 words on future action

Where will you take things from here ? Do you need to modify your action plan ? Add
something to it ? Do you need to change any of your approaches ? Have you realized
that there is a more efficient way to develop an area that you want to work on ? Is your
data gathering working or could it be improved in some way ? Refer back to your
original ideas to keep the assignment cohesive as well as looking forward to new
possibilities.

When you have finished doing this upload the assignment to the relevant link on the web site. You
should get a tutor comment in response.

Part three – the final 750 words

300 words of reflection on developments

What have you been able to achieve over the course of this assignment ? Was it more
than you expected when you started out ? less ? why ? Have your beliefs about
teaching, learning or best practice changed while doing this assignment ?

200 words of evaluation

How effective were your plans ? How effective was your choice of approaches /
procedures and techniques in helping you to work on the points that you chose as
needing attention ?

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 How effective were your ideas for data collection ? Were the learners able to give you
some insight into what you could do to change your practices or did they just tell you
that everything was wonderful because they wanted to make you happy ? If you had
written tighter questions in the questionnaires you used could you have got more
informative replies ? Did you exploit peers who came to observe you to best effect or
could you have asked them to watch for more targeted aspects of your lesson ? Is it
ever easy / productive to get feedback from a peer or are they always going to be
worried about offending you if they say anything even slightly negative ?

250 words on future action

How can you make this kind of reflective cycle part of your everyday practice ? Can you
show an intention to carry on, so this does not remain a one off event to meet DELTA
requirements ?
You could probably refer to reading about what makes a reflective teacher in this
section, or perhaps something on action research.

Appendices

You should have any data that you refer to in an appendix. This is likely to include some of the
following.

Extracts from tutor feedback on lessons

Write ups of peer observations done by you
Feedback from peer observations done in your classroom
Learner responses to questionnaires
Learner diaries
Your teaching / training journal
Transcripts of parts of recordings from your classroom

Some ideas for reading

Books that might help with the R&A

Altrichter, H., Posch, P. and Somekh, B. 1993. Teachers Investigate Their Work. Routledge
Burns, A. 1999 Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers CUP
Burton, J. Quirke,P. Reichmann, C. & Peyton, J. 2010 Reflective Writing: A way to life long teacher learning
TESL-EJ publications
Edge, J. 1992 Cooperative Development: Professional Self-Development through Cooperation with
Colleagues Longman
Faneslow, J. 1987 Breaking Rules Longman
Parrott, M. 1993 Tasks for Language Teachers CUP
Richards. J. & Lockhart, C. 1994 Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms CUP
Richards, J. & Farrell, T. 2005 Professional Development for Language Teachers CUP Chapter 7 Teaching
Portfolios
Richards, J & Farrell, T. 2011 Practice Teaching: a Reflective Approach CUP Chapter 7 Classroom
observation

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Richards, K. 2003 Qualitative Inquiry in TESOL Palgrave Macmillan
Stevick, E. 1980 Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways Newbury House
Wallace, M. 1991 Training foreign language teachers CUP
Wallace, M. 1998 Action Research for Language Teachers CUP

Books with chapters that relate to the R&A

Brown, H.D. 2007 (2nd ed) Teaching by Principles Longman Chapter 23
Freeman, D. 2001 Second Language Teacher Education in Carter, R, & Nunan, D. The Cambridge Guide
to TESOL CUP p72-79
McCarthy, M. & O'Keefe, A. 2010 Speaking in a Second Language in Burns, A. A Concise Encyclopedia of
Applied Linguistics. Elsevier pp 212-218

Articles that might help with the R&A

Borg, S. 2003 Teacher Cognition in Language Teaching Language Teaching 36, 81-109
Borg, S. 2009 Introducing language teacher cognition.
Borg 2011 2011 The impact of in-service teacher education on language teachers' beliefs System (39) 370-
380
Burns, A. Action research: What's in it for teachers and institutions? International House Journal, 29, 3-6.
Canning, C. What teachers say about reflection Educational Leadership, 48(6), 18-21
Farrell, T. 2008 Reflective Practice in the professional development of teachers of adult language
learners CAELA network brief
McDonough, J. & McDonough, S. 1990 What's the use of research ? ELT Journal 44
Richards, J.C. 1991 Content knowledge and instructional practice in second language teacher
education Georgetown University Round Table of Languages and Linguistics Georgetown University Press
Richards, J.C., Gallo, P. & Renaday, W. 2001 Teachers's beliefs and the processes of change PAC
Journal 1,1 41-64
Richards, J. C. 1991 Towards Reflective Teaching The Teacher Trainer 5, 3 pp 4-8
Richards, J.C. 2010 Competence and performance in language teaching RELC Journal, 41, 2. 101-122
Richards, K. (2009) Trends in qualitative research in language teaching since 2000. Language Teaching,
Vol.42 (No.2). pp. 147-180.

Web resources
This British Council booklet has lots of useful ideas.
And this booklet by Richards about what makes a language teacher could be useful.

Also if you need reading sources about particular areas for your action plan, look in the pre course reading task.

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Summary task
Try to complete this without looking back.

The reflection and action assignment is written in three stages.

 Stage 1 is written after ……………………………………………………………………..
 Stage 2 is written after you have done some of your peer observations, your experimental practice
assignment and …………………………………………………………………...
 Stage 3 is written after you have completed the peer observations and
……………………………………………………………………………………………..

The first section is 1000 words long and should be broken into two parts.
 Part 1A is 500 words on your …………………. and …………………… with some reference to your beliefs.
You should say why you chose to mention those particular ………………… and …………………………..
 Part 1B is a 500 word action plan. You must choose ……………………. points to work on, say how you
will do so and give concrete goals and times.
The second section is 750 words long.
 300 words of reflection / evaluation of your …………………… so far
 150 words on what you now understand about your ………………………..
 300 words on …………………………. in the light of new insights
The third section is also 750 words long.
 300 words on ………………………….. over the time as a whole
 200 words of …………………………..of your choice of things to develop, methods to do so by and data
collection
 250 words on how you intend to ………………………………..

You ………………. include some reference to reading

You should also include reference to data you have collected. This data will be in the appendices.

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Task one Key
Teacher beliefs could come from
 Your own learning experiences ..
In school
At university
On courses
Learning to drive, speak a language, use your computer …
 Your teacher training / education
Pre service training
In service workshops
In service observations
 What you hear from those around you
Colleagues
The general ideas in your institution
The response of your learners
The directives from your boss
 What you read
In professional magazines
As part of further education
 Practical constraints
The course book you are expected to use
Rules and approaches set out by your institution

Which of the above strikes you as having the greatest impact on the way you teach ?
If you find the question interesting consider asking something about it on the forums.

Summary task key

The reflection and action assignment is written in three stages.

 Stage 1 is written after you have done your first unassessed lesson and had feedback on it.
 Stage 2 is written after you have done some of your peer observations, your experimental practice
assignment and two of your assessed lessons.
 Stage 3 is written after you have completed the peer observations and your third assessed lesson.

The first section is 1000 words long and should be broken into two parts.
 Part 1A is 500 words on your strengths and weaknesses with some reference to your beliefs. You
should say why you chose to mention those particular strengths and weaknesses.
 Part 1B is a 500 word action plan. You must choose 3 – 5 points to work on and say how you will do
so and give concrete goals and times.
The second section is 750 words long.
 300 words of reflection / evaluation of your development so far

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  150 words on what you now understand about your weaknesses
 300 words on future plans in the light of new insights
The third section is also 750 words long.
 300 words on development over the time as a whole
 200 words of evaluation of your choice of things to develop, methods to do so by and data collection
 250 words on how you intend to continue to develop

You must include some reference to reading

You should also include reference to data you have collected. This data will be in the appendices.

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