Assessed coursework components for this course are as follows:
Teaching Practice: 50%
• 1 hour lesson - 75%;
• 4x30 minute lessons (your mark will be based on the average of your two best lessons) - 25%
Portfolio: 50%
• Reflective Diary – 75 %
• 4 lesson plans (including the 1 hour lesson plan) – 25 %
Assessment of Teaching Practice
• You will be assessed on the four thirty-minute lessons that you teach
• Your mark will be calculated based on an average of the best two lessons that you teach (you must teach a minimum of two thirty minute lessons).
• You MUST submit a full, detailed plan at the start of every lesson that you teach, as you will be assessed both on the lesson plan and its execution, which will have equal weighting.
The thirty-minute lessons account for 25% of the marks available for this component. The one-hour lesson, which you will teach toward the end of the course, accounts for the remaining 75% of marks available for the teaching practice component.
The assessment criteria for Teaching Practice (see below) cover two main areas, planning and execution. With regard to the former, it is essential that begin planning your lesson well in advance. You may use any materials that you feel are appropriate; however, you must ensure that these are referenced appropriately. It is particularly important that if you use materials from published texts for your handouts, then these must be referenced on the handouts themselves. The procedure for the submission and return of lesson plans is shown below:
Lesson Plans
The lesson plan is an important document for any teacher as it demonstrates the degree of attention that has been given to the lesson, the understanding of teaching methodology, language concerns and the students’ needs and also provides the teacher with an opportunity to anticipate and allow for most contingencies. Each plan that is submitted should reflect this importance both in the care given to its presentation and in the degree of detail demonstrated within it. Before the start of each lesson that you teach, you MUST provide the tutor with a photocopy of your lesson plan and any materials that you use. Failure to hand in a lesson plan will result in failure of the lesson.
Any materials used must be referenced appropriately. Within a week of the lesson you will receive feedback on the lesson plan itself and on your execution of the lesson, together with written feedback indicating the strengths you demonstrated in the lesson and any areas where further work is required. You MUST keep all these documents, as they will make up your final portfolio, which you will be required to submit for assessment towards the end of the course. The final observed lesson, which will be of one hour’s duration, will allow you to demonstrate both the knowledge and skills that you have acquired over the past three years. The substantial weighting that it bears should be reflected in the degree of detail evident in the lesson plan itself.
Portfolio
The Portfolio, which accounts for 50% of the course assessment comprises:
• the four thirty-minute lesson plans that you submitted for teaching practice
• the one hour lesson plan
• the Reflective Journal
The portfolio is designed to facilitate your development as teachers through the final year of your degree programme through ongoing reflection on the feedback that you receive from the tutor after each lesson that you teach, as well as on the personal experiences you have in teaching your lesson plans, together with the constructive criticism you receive from your peers.
You may also include as a supplement to the above any additional materials that you have used to assist you in planning your classes or that you have found helpful in general. This may include printouts of websites that you have found a useful source of teaching materials or ideas, or photocopies of pages from books on teaching that have informed or helped you in some way in your own teaching practice. The portfolio should be presented neatly, with the contents clearly indicated, and should be organised in such a way that anyone reading it will be able to ascertain with ease such information as when the lesson was taught, the level and number of students, the main aim of the lesson and the outcome. You may, additionally, include any lesson plans that you write and teach in external institutions and a hypothetical lesson plan that addresses the emergent needs of students in lessons that you have taught. For example, you may have taught a grammar lesson on a particular structure and find that a significant number of students had difficulty using the structure accurately. You could, in response, plan a lesson in which further practice with that particular grammatical form was given.
In the Reflective Journal, you should write about your personal observations of your experiences during the course; you should comment in particular on what you learn from the planning of each lesson that you teach (this may be both prospectively and retrospectively), from your teaching of the lesson itself, the feedback that you receive from your tutor, your peers and from the insights you gain from observing the students themselves – with all their complex intellectual, psychological an emotional needs and their language learning successes and failures. Your comments should demonstrate your developing insights into the teaching process and should be related both to lectures that you have attended as well as to any relevant background reading (which should, of course, be appropriately referenced). You may wish to comment on what you feel your strengths to be as a teacher, as well as any perceived weaknesses. Although the journal may be written in an informal style, appropriate referencing should be used following the Harvard system. You should keep a record of all the sources you have used, along with some preparatory notes and/or an early draft of the assignment, if appropriate – which should provide evidence that your work is based on these sources and that they have been deployed in an appropriate manner. In the event of a plagiarism charge, your ability to produce such material may count as evidence of innocence.
Marking and Assessment Criteria
Teaching Practice
After each lesson that you teach, you will be given a mark. These marks will be used to calculate your final mark at the end of the course. The formative nature of the TP assessment will be taken into consideration when teaching is evaluated, with progress throughout the course being recognised in the marking.
Marks for Teaching Practice are as follows:
Percentage Degree Band
75 – 80 1
70 – 74 1
65 – 69 2/1
60 – 64 2/1
55 – 59 2/2
50 – 54 2/2
45 – 49 3
40 – 44 3
35 – 39 Fail
Assessment Criteria for Teaching Practice
Marks are based on the criteria outlined below, as demonstrated within the two main areas of assessment, and on the extent to which they are met. These two areas are weighted equally:
(1) Lesson Planning (30%)
(2) Execution of Lesson Plan (70%)
Lesson Planning
(1) Adequate preparation
(2) Presentation of lesson planning
(3) Knowledge of Language and Ability to plan appropriate tasks
(4) Realistic and appropriate Teaching Aims and Objectives
(5) Specificity/Clarity of aims
(6) Suitability of materials used
(7) Appropriate timing
Execution of Lesson Plan
(8) Personal Qualities
(9) General Classroom Management and Direction
(10) Presentation Techniques
(11) Techniques for the implementation of Controlled or Semi-Controlled Practice
(12) Techniques of Questioning
(13) Techniques of Communicative Interaction
(14) Ability to foster Language Learning Skills in Learners
(15) Use of Teaching Aids
(16) Ability to Notice and Treat Learner Errors
(17) Lesson Flow
(18) Ability to Adapt and/or Extemporize
(19) Knowledge of Language and Ability to deal with Language Concerns
(20) Achievement of Teaching Aims and Objectives
Where appropriate, these criteria have been broken down further into sub-skills, which may be found on the teaching practice observation sheet.
Development / Progression
(21) Demonstrable development through the duration of the course as evidenced through improvements in the three main areas outlined above.
Assessment Criteria for Portfolio
(1) Degree of critical reflection / analysis evident in student’s comments on the lesson taught
(2) Understanding and awareness of methodology
(3) Understanding of key theoretical issues underlying second language teaching and learning and familiarity with key texts
(4) Quality of Presentation
(5) Appropriate referencing of materials used
(6) Inclusion of all required contents of portfolio: (Lesson plan, tutor’s comments on the lesson plan, tutor’s written feedback on the lesson taught, student’s own written reflections on the lesson, photocopies of any materials used)
(7) Development over the course
(8) Demonstrating a range and variety of lessons taught
(9) Awareness and understanding of language and lexis
(10) Coherence of and clarity of ideas expressed and accuracy of language used in written English
Degree Bands:
1st class Degree: The candidate meets all of the assessment criteria and achieves an overall level of attainment in them that is considered to be very good.
2nd class upper division: The candidate meets all or most of the assessment criteria and achieves an overall level of attainment in them that is considered to be good.
2nd class lower division: The candidate meets most of the assessment criteria and achieves an overall level of attainment in them that is considered to be either satisfactory or good.
3rd class: The candidate meets many of the assessment criteria and achieves an overall level of attainment in them that is considered to be satisfactory.
Fail: The candidate fails to meet most of the assessment criteria and achieves an overall level of attainment in them that is considered to be unsatisfactory.
