Team teaching has been around for years, and it is used to enhance learning and teaching in many fields of education. There are different types of team teaching defined in the literature and one of them says “instructors work together but do not necessarily teach the same groups of students nor necessarily teach at the same time” (Wang, 2010). This made me realize that we have been benefiting from this practice since we work and collaborate as a team in our school. However, due to our needs and to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning, we wanted to turn this fruitful experience into a professional development action plan. The journey started last year but it was interrupted due to unforeseen circumstances. During the 2023-24 Fall semester, we have decided to carry out this process with two voluntary and precious instructors in our Team 6, Özge and Eugene. Firstly, we wanted to see what was available for us considering our context and the actions that need to be met for this semester.  Regarding the literature it was suitable for us to use; “Complimentary/Supportive Team Teaching” which means in this situation one teacher is responsible for teaching the content to the students, while the other teacher takes charge of providing follow-up activities on related topics or on study skills (Barahona, 2017).

With Özge teaching B2 level students, our focus was teaching grammar in context by using a student-centered activity to elicit meaning, form and pronunciation of noun clauses in subject position.

With Eugene teaching B1 level students, we focused on teaching speaking for fluency using turn taking strategies by asking clarification questions in the context of playing interactive online games.

To be able to teach effectively, we went through the co-planning process discussing the following questions.

  • What kind of materials, books and supplies will we choose?
  • Which materials are mine, which are yours, and which are ours?
  • How will we prepare the plan and is there a need to adapt any materials – on google doc or having short meetings?
  • What will we do when we do not teach actively during team teaching?
  • How will we provide feedback for each other’s performances?
  • How will we reflect on our own experience?
  • How will we collect feedback from our students about their experience?

 

The planning process took almost 2-3 weeks through having short meetings and using a google document to collaborate in creating the lesson plan. We used the course books and adapted practice materials to be able to meet our goals. We had the chance to collect both written and spoken feedback from the students. I felt the luckiest as the observer and the instructor, and also having the chance to teach different stages of each lesson.

Here I would like to share the reflections from both lessons by me, Özge, and Eugene.

 

Nazlı

I provided the input in Özge’s lesson and conducted the production stage in Eugene’s. During the planning process, we found the opportunity to brainstorm about the most suitable techniques, methodology, materials and approaches to use in class based on their needs for both of the lessons. It was a packed process to follow. We had short meetings, prepared the lesson plan and materials and had a chance to discuss all the above questions before the lesson. In general, it was effective to run the lesson with two instructors. For the grammar lesson, the lead in part took more time than I expected as it was a hangman game, and the student could not find the word in the anticipated time. However, it created a bond and helped me run the other stages more smoothly. They were all participative and active in the lesson, which was one of the aims that we wanted to achieve. With the help of the material, they were able to discover the use and usage of the target language. When I had the chance to observe my colleague, Özge, she guided them through controlled practice to help them understand the confusing features of noun clauses. The use of CCQs also helped them in justifying their responses.  Although the planning took quite a lot of time, it had a great impact on the effectiveness of the lesson. After the lesson, we wanted students to share their feelings with three adjectives and they mostly wrote “active, engaging, energetic”. They continued working on the productive stage in the following lesson by making a presentation using the same context.

With Eugene, I focused on the production stage and covering the functional language part. The lead in and the listening task were engaging and conducted by Eugene. The students were participative, and the context was set clearly. During planning, we chose the stages by considering how to attract students’ attention more and reach our objectives more effectively. I had the role to highlight the functional language and set the production task. We decided to enter each other’s zone if need be and therefore, we had supportive moments during the lesson to monitor learning. Especially during the production task, we both had 6 – 7 students to monitor their performance. I found it practical to support those who needed help and guidance during the activity.  They were into their roles so much that they sometimes lost their target – using the functional language in their discussion. However, it was nice to see that most of them could achieve the task and we had little time to provide feedback for their performance.

Özge

I did the practice part in my B2 class regarding the newly presented grammar topic. As far as I am concerned, the planning process was highly effective as we met several times and agreed on the framework which will be followed during all stages of the process, which enabled us to exchange our mutual ideas in terms of tools, materials, and methods in the lesson. We prepared the lesson plan together by going over the details including the duration and which activities to stimulate learners’ interests more. Nazlı prepared the input session, and I prepared practice activities to be involved in class. While I was observing her session, students tried to do their best to discover the rule on their own and collaborated if need be and her effective CCQs led them the way to grasp the necessary knowledge being presented in the lesson. When it was my turn, I carried on with the short practice activities and checked their understanding by eliciting some rules taught to them beforehand. Overall, when we look at the lesson aims and outcomes our main target was achieved, not only in the input session, but also during practice stages as well as the students did not leave us alone in this process but contributed with their invaluable questions and taking part in pair and group work activities successfully. Monitoring their effort and observing Nazlı simultaneously is a distinct experience for me. I both had a chance to look at the things from a different angle and at the same time empathize with the student as their role is trying to catch up with two instructors at the same time, which is challenging but obviously rewarding for them since in the production stage they prepared PPTs in groups by generating the target language properly and gave presentations to their peers in turns. Finally, if our aim is to enrich student learning by showing them a variety towards various channels of learning and communication, this would be a great opportunity to remember.

 

Eugene

Having never previously conducted a lesson with a second instructor, I saw Nazli’s idea to try Team Teaching as a great opportunity to explore a new approach and diversify my teaching experience. The first step was to get familiar with the topic by reading some related articles Nazli had provided. It appeared that the field of Team Teaching was vaster than I expected since it refers to a range of strategies where the role and function of the second instructor varies a lot, from being an external advisor to several degrees of collaboration in the classroom. Once we started discussing what could be done in class, we realized that we had naturally been attracted to different aspects of Team Teaching; therefore, we first had to find a common ground and decide on the strategy that would benefit students the most in a speaking lesson. Another condition was to choose a feasible strategy in terms of time and workload. Based on her previous observations of my classes, Nazli quickly narrowed down the available options and suggested to include comprehension checks as it was an area to work on from in my previous observation. We eventually came up with the shared teaching strategy, having Nazli take turns at strategic moments to create effects of surprise that would grab students’ attention and boost their participation. Having analyzed both the instructors’ map and course books, we agreed on a date and decided to adapt a speaking task from Contemporary Topics. Since the follow up speaking activity in the course book was too vague, we created a role-play where a teenager should use a set of target words to convince a parent that he/she didn’t fail a course because of playing video games. Having limited time for preparation, I personally found that using a collaborative lesson plan shared on Google doc was very practical as it allowed both teachers to fill it individually at a convenient time as common time on campus was difficult to find. In fact, the time constraint had two intertwined effects on the day of the lesson: on the one hand, a more detailed preparation would have avoided a few flaws such as me starting with a redundant warm up or forgetting to print the answer key; on the other hand, it generated some improvised interactions that made the lesson natural and dynamic. In the first part, I started with the lead-in from the course book and Nazli introduced the target vocabulary (asking for clarification and paraphrasing), asked CCQs and practiced pronunciation with a series of choral drills. In the second part, students performed role play in which they had to use some of the target phrases in a dialogue. Besides the expected attention catching effect, the advantage of being two teachers in the class became obvious during the monitoring stage, which allowed us to listen to students more thoroughly. The activity proved to be efficient as students happily engaged in pair discussions and were able to use the target language. The class ended up with a short group feedback. Finally, the new post-observation reflection form and the discussion we had during the follow-up meeting were valuable opportunities to highlight the strengths and shortcomings that had occurred during the lesson. As a conclusion, Team Teaching was an enjoyable, albeit unusual, teaching strategy that I am eager to repeat in the future.

References:

  • Liberty University Student Teaching Handbook 2010-2011
  • Barahona, M. (2017). Exploring Models of Team Teaching in Initial Foreign/Second Language Teacher Education: A Study in Situated Collaboration
  • Wang, D. (2010). Team Teaching and the Application in the Course English Teaching
  • Methodology by CET and NSET in China.