Julie Norton

Lesson Study: Towards a Collaborative Approach to Learning in Initial Teacher Education?.

Lesson Study (LS) case studies were conducted in two secondary school teaching practice placements in England. Using Dudley’s framework, Geography and Modern Languages trainees and school-based colleagues collaboratively planned a ‘research lesson’. This was taught by the mentor while the trainee and other teachers observed the learning of three ‘focus’ students. The lesson was reviewed and revised for teaching to a parallel group by the trainee and the cycle of observation and evaluation was repeated. In post-lesson study interviews, analysed from a Communities of Practice perspective, mentors claimed that LS facilitated rapid integration of the prospective teacher into departmental working practices while trainees claimed they benefited from the team approach inherent in LS. The process enabled participants to explore collaboratively the ‘pedagogic black-box’ enriching the experience and learning of both trainees and mentors. Successfully integrated, LS improves support for teacher development in teaching practice placements.

Lesson study as a vehicle for collaborative teacher learning in a secondary school

This paper reports the outcomes of a ‘lesson study’ project conducted in a mathematics department with four serving teachers in a secondary school in England. Using Dudley’s lesson study framework and drawing on Hargreaves and Fullan’s notion of professional capital, the feasibility and value of collaborative lesson study as a vehicle for the development of teacher learning were explored. Planning and evaluation meetings as well as end-of-project interviews were analysed to investigate how teachers planned research lessons together and how these were evaluated. Despite time constraints, teachers who engaged in lesson study reported that the process improved understanding of their students; that collaboration helped them to develop less-teacher-centred approaches and created a stronger sense of teacher community. The project demonstrated that lesson study has potential as an alternative or complementary model of teachers’ learning, but it also throws up substantive organisational challenges if its use is to expand.

Teacher Perspectives about Lesson Study in Secondary School Departments: A Collaborative Vehicle for Professional Learning and Practice Development.

Two departments in a secondary school in England participated in ‘lesson study’ projects over a five-month period to explore its usefulness as a vehicle for professional development. Through a cycle of two research lessons, conducted separately in each department, teachers identified challenges that inhibited the learning of their students and collaboratively prepared innovative approaches to address the learning challenges. The process yielded multiple sets of data: DVD-recorded lessons, lesson plans and resources, transcripts of preparation and evaluation meetings and individual interviews at the end of the project. This paper draws principally on detailed qualitative analysis of end-of-project interviews about teacher experiences of learning and practice development in the two contexts. While the teachers encountered some logistical challenges to the implementation of lesson study, a number of important gains were reported: collaboration in lesson study reduced feelings of professional isolation; teachers reported a sharper focus on pupil learning and more confidence to take risks with approaches to teaching, which led to greater opportunities for pupils to engage in interactive activities, for example, involving problem-solving and peer teaching in groups.

The Erasure of Linguistic Difference in Media Representations of Encounters with Others on British Television.

This paper explores how ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speaker identities are created in the discourse of television lifestyle, travel, and documentary genres where an English ‘native speaker’ audience is assumed. It presents a coding system for analysing the representation of actors in television programmes and examines to what extent ‘non-native’ speakers are allowed to ‘speak’ and to what extent their contributions are mediated in the editorial process. Critical language awareness and critical discourse analysis are drawn upon to uncover constructions of Otherness in the examples of broadcast talk and to examine how power relations are manifest. Short descriptions of relevant scenes and brief transcripts from the programmes in our small corpus are discussed. It is argued that the way ‘foreigners’ are represented on British television does ideological work, potentially reinforcing the notion that it is not important to learn foreign languages because everyone speaks English these days.

Performing Identities in Speaking Tests: Co-Construction Revisited

Poststructuralist perspectives on the discursive construction of identity and critical approaches to linguistics, discourse analysis, and language testing have contributed to a growing awareness of the complex social nature of performance in speaking tests. In this article, I explore how the concept of co-construction is useful to understand how candidate and interviewer identities are created in the discourse of speaking tests but argue for an expanded notion of co-construction that draws upon the concept of intertextuality to recognise the myriad of other ‘voices’, representing those who craft the tests, are interwoven into the discourses produced. The study adopts a qualitative approach, drawing upon discourse analysis to examine co-construction and intertextuality in two levels of Cambridge speaking tests. The findings reveal how interviewers and candidates co-construct particular identities through their interaction with each other, the interlocutor frame, and the test materials, and this can account for variability in performance, which is relevant to assessment. The key implications of the analysis for test preparation, interlocutor training, and speaking test development are also discussed.

Lesson Study in Higher Education: A Collaborative Vehicle for Professional Learning and Practice Development of Teachers of English for Specific Purposes

Collaboration amongst teachers is considered a crucial way to foster professional development and improve classroom effectiveness. An increasing number of studies reveal the benefits of participation in Lesson Study, a highly collaborative form of teacher professional development, which originates from Japan. Working together in Lesson Study groups has been shown to enhance teachers’ engagement with teaching and learning. Lesson Study, however, has been mostly exploited within mainstream educational contexts in mathematics and science education, and has received little attention to date within English Language Teaching. This chapter examines the potential of Lesson Study for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teacher professional development, particularly in terms of the structure it provides for subject-specialists and language specialists to work together to grow professional content knowledge, and improve student and teacher learning. Drawing critically upon a core conceptual framework for teacher development, I argue that ESP teachers can develop professionally through participation in Lesson Study by sharing subject-specific and pedagogic content knowledge and by jointly developing resources. Lesson Study provides a framework for teachers to engage in richly contextualised discussions about pedagogy which are directly relevant to their classroom practice.

A literature review of lesson study in initial teacher education Perspectives about learning and observation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured review of literature on lesson study (LS) in initial teacher education (ITE). The focus was on how learning and observation were discussed in studies of LS in ITE. Design/methodology/approach Each national team (in Norway and Britain) undertook independent searches of published peer-reviewed articles. The resulting articles were then combined, screened and collaboratively reviewed, the focus being on two areas of enquiry: how learning is represented and discussed; and the extent to which observation is described and used to capture evidence of learning. Findings The literature review indicated that there was no universally held understanding of, or explanation for, the process of observation, how it should be conducted, and who or what should be the principal focus of attention. There was also a lack of clarity in the definition of learning and the use of learning theory to support these observations. Research limitations/implications This study was limited to a review of a selection of peer-reviewed journal articles, published in English. It arrives at some tentative conclusions, but its scope could have been broadened to include more articles and other types of published material, e.g. theses and book chapters. Practical implications Research that investigates the use of LS in ITE needs to be more explicit about how learning is defined and observed. Furthermore, LS research papers need to assure greater clarity and transparency about how observations are conducted in their studies. Originality/value This literature review suggests that discussion of both learning and observation in ITE LS research papers should be strengthened. The review highlights three principal challenges that ITE LS researchers should consider: how to prepare student-teachers to observe (professional noticing being a promising option), the wide variation in the focus of classroom observation in ITE lesson studies, and discussion of what is understood by learning needs to stand at the heart of preparation for lesson studies in ITE.

The Experience of Lesson Study in the UK

Originating in Japan, Lesson Study is a collaborative process characterized by teachers coming together to investigate an area of student learning through the joint planning, observation, and evaluation of a research lesson developed to address the chosen issue. This chapter outlines the potential of Lesson Study to transform teacher and student learning with reference to research projects implemented in secondary education, special education, and initial teacher education within the UK. It discusses the difficulties involved in embedding such a formative process within the results-driven ‘performative’ system currently established in England and Wales, and examines the opportunities and challenges facing schools, which choose to develop teacher communities through Lesson Study activity.