School Supervisors’ Feedback to Student Teachers
Inside Out
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v4i2.195Keywords:
practicum supervisory discourse, post-observation feedback, speech acts, turn taking patterns, Vietnamese school supervisorsAbstract
This paper presents an analysis of 23 post-classroom observation discussions between 15 EFL student teachers and 23 school supervisors in six high schools in Vietnam and individual interviews with these participants. The analysis was aimed to describe linguistic features of the supervisors’ feedback regarding turn taking and speech act patterns and the participants’ perceptions of the tone of the feedback. Findings showed a considerable imbalance in the lengths of the turns taken, with school supervisors doing much more talking and using few compliments directed at student teachers’ teaching. In fact the criticisms predominated and were not always as well-received by the student teachers as the supervisors thought. The student teachers were divided in their feelings about the feedback they received and while many felt somewhat discouraged, they did not reveal this to their supervisors. These findings raised awareness among teacher trainers about the importance of the tone and language features in their feedback and gave some indications of what linguistic areas in supervisors’ discourse should be targeted in attempting to develop supervisors’ ability to give effective and acceptable feedback to student teachers.
References
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Wilkins-Canter, E. A. (1997) The nature and effectiveness of feedback given by cooperating teachers to student teachers. Teacher Educator 32 (4): 235–250.
Wolfson, N. (1981) Compliments in cross cultural perspective. TESOL Quarterly 15 (2): 117–124. doi:10.2307/3586403
Zeichner, K. M. and Liston, D. P. (1985) Varieties of discourse in supervisory conferences. Teaching and Teacher Education 1 (2): 155–174. doi:10.1016/0742-051X(85)90013-7
Atkinson, M. J., Heritage, J. (eds) (1984) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Social Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barnlund, D. C., Araki, S. (1985) Intercultural encounters: The management of compliments by Japanese and Americans. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology 16 (1): 9–26. doi: 10.1177/0022002185016001002
Beck, C. and Kosnik, C. (2002) Components of a good practicum placement: Student teacher perceptions. Teacher Education Quarterly 29 (2): 119–135.
Brandt, C. (2008) Integrating feedback and reflection in teacher preparation. ELT Journal 62 (1): 37–46. doi:10.1093/elt/ccm076
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Christensen, P. S. (1988) The nature of feedback student teachers receive in post-observation conferences with the university supervisor: A comparison with O’Neal’s study of cooperating teacher feedback. Teaching and Teacher Education 4 (3): 349–362. doi:10.1016/ 0742-051X(88)90007-8
Cross, D. (1995) A Practical Handbook of Language Teaching. Harlow: Phoenix ELT.
Darden, G., Scott, K., Darden, A. and Westfall, S. (2001) The student-teaching experience. The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance 72 (4): 50–58.
Dang, Van T. (2001) Some contributions to training FL teachers for the first decade of 21st century. Proceedings of the Conference on Training Foreign Language School Teachers for the First Decade of the 21st Century held by Hanoi College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University in Hanoi, February, 22–24.
Do, T. Q. T. (2002) A Cross-cultural Study: Turn Taking in American and Vietnamese Faceto- Face Conversations. Unpublished Bachelor of Arts Dissertation, Hue University, Vietnam.
Fletcher, S. (2000) Mentoring in Schools: A Guidebook of Good Practice. London: Kogan Page.
Glenn, W. (2006) Model versus mentor: Defining the necessary qualities of the effective cooperating teacher. Teacher Education Quarterly 33 (1): 85–95.
Ha, Cam T. (1998) Requests by Australian Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese Learners of English. Unpublished Master of Arts Dissertation. La Trobe University, Australia.
Ha, Van S. (2003) Input and Interaction Training in Pre-service EFL Teacher Training in Vietnam. Doctorate of Education thesis at La Trobe University, Australia.
Harmer, J. (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman, London.
Le, T. A. P. (2007) Supervising Teachers’ Feedback Given to Student Teachers in Vietnam. Doctor of Education thesis in Applied Linguistics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
Le, Van C. (2001) Language and Vietnamese pedagogical contexts. Teacher’s Edition 7: 34–40.
Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2001) Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (11): 107–127. doi:10.1016/S0378- 2166(99)00127-7
Manes, J. and Wolfson, N. (1981) The compliment formula. In F. Coulmas (ed.) Conversational Routine. Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech 115–133. New York: Mouton.
MacDonald, C. J. (1993) Coping with stress during the teaching practicum: The student teacher’s perspective. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research 39 (4): 407–418.
Nguyen, T. T. M. (2003) Criticism and Responding to Criticism in a Foreign Language: A Study of Vietnamese Learners of English. PhD Thesis, Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics. University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Nguyen, T. T. N. (2002) An Investigation into the Syntactic and Pragmatic Features of Directives in English and Vietnamese. Master of Arts Dissertation, Danang University, Vietnam.
Nguyen, Van D. (1996) Politeness Phenomenon in Vietnamese and English Cultures and Some Implications in Language Teaching: Evidence from Forms of Requests. Master of TESOL Dissertation, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies, Vietnam.
O’Neal, S. F. and Edwards, S. (1983) Supervision of student teachers. Feedback and evaluation. In G. A. Griffin (ed.) Preservice Clinical Teacher Education – Preservice Series. Austin, TX: Research Development Center for Teacher Education, 4–34.
Pham, My H. (2001) Some opinions on the training teachers to teach junior high school: Is retraining with orientation for narrow focus a good solution for the next decade? Proceedings of the Conference on Training Foreign Language School Teachers for the First Decade of the 21st Century held by Hanoi College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University in Hanoi, February, 179–185.
Searle, J. R. (1969) Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vasquez, C. (2004) ‘Very carefully managed’: Advice and suggestions in post-observation meetings. Linguistics and Education 15 (1–2): 35–58.
Veal, M. L. and Rikard, L. G. (1998) Cooperating teachers’ perspectives on the student teaching triad. Journal of Teacher Education 49 (2): 108–112. doi:10.1177/0022487198049002004
Wilkins-Canter, E. A. (1997) The nature and effectiveness of feedback given by cooperating teachers to student teachers. Teacher Educator 32 (4): 235–250.
Wolfson, N. (1981) Compliments in cross cultural perspective. TESOL Quarterly 15 (2): 117–124. doi:10.2307/3586403
Zeichner, K. M. and Liston, D. P. (1985) Varieties of discourse in supervisory conferences. Teaching and Teacher Education 1 (2): 155–174. doi:10.1016/0742-051X(85)90013-7
Published
2015-09-14
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Section
Articles
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Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Le, P. T. A. (2015). School Supervisors’ Feedback to Student Teachers: Inside Out. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 4(2), 195-216. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.v4i2.195
