Research conducted by Henk van den Hurk shows that teachers’ knowledge of effective instructional behaviour is of limited influence on their actual performance in daily teaching. Observing teachers within their own educational practice and the subsequent feedback in teacher training college, however, has shown to be effective in improving teacher instructional practice. Van den Hurk studied the effects of the application of a cyclic model for data-feedback in initial teacher training as well as in a master course for teachers. In the applied model, teachers are observed with standardised observational instruments, while teaching their own classes. Back in teacher training college they are supported in formulating specific points of improvement for their own instructional behaviour. Subsequently, in their own classroom, the students practice the skills they further have to develop. After a short while another classroom observation is scheduled. The use of this model has proven to lead to a substantial improvement of teacher instructional behaviour. It is remarkable that advances in the quality of teacher instructional behaviour are reached in a limited time-span of only several weeks.
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Little is known about the effects of different instructional approaches on learner affect in oral interaction in the foreign language classroom. In a randomized experiment with Dutch pre-vocational learners (N = 147), we evaluated the effects of 3 newly developed instructional programs for English as a foreign language (EFL). These programs differed in instructional focus (form-focused vs. interaction strategies- oriented) and type of task (pre-scripted language tasks vs. information gap tasks). Multilevel analyses revealed that learners’ enjoyment of EFL oral interaction was not affected by instruction, that willingness to communicate (WTC) decreased over time, and that self-confidence was positively affected by combining information gap tasks with interactional strategies instruction. In addition, regression analyses revealed that development in learners’ WTC and enjoyment did not have predictive value for achievement in EFL oral interaction, but that development in self-confidence did explain achievement in EFL oral interaction in trained interactional contexts.
In March 2020 schools in The Netherlands closed to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus. Shortly after, schools took to online education. The condensed setting of the Covid-19 situation provided a background to study which learning activities and tools teachers choose in online education and how they use them to promote interaction. Interaction is quintessential to learning but in online education it is not easy to provide room for interaction. Our central research question therefore is how interaction within online education activities change over time. An online longitudinal survey amongst teachers was conducted. The first four rounds took place in the early stages of the lockdowns and shortly after. In total 179 different secondary school teachers participated of whom 16 responded three rounds or more. Most teachers use tools in online education that can facilitate more interaction than necessary for the Instructional Design. This means that improving interaction in online education is more a pedagogical challenge than a technical one. It was also found that teachers who deploy Instructional Designs that require more interaction use more and different tools. However, only few of these tools seem to facilitate the interactive quality the teachers pursued. Over time we saw the interactive quality of Instructional Design and tools converge. We are in awe of the artful way in which some teachers manage to combine the possibilities of different tools to establish high interactive quality in the online learning processes they conduct.
