Classroom monitoring in English Language Learning

Towndrow, P. A. (2016). A reconsideration of the instructional affordances of classroom monitoring in English Language Learning. RELC Journal, 47(2), 127-143. doi:10.1177/0033688216649087

Background

The author highlighted classroom management literature that showed monitoring as both a strategy to be learnt and a necessity if learners were to benefit fully from learning tasks. However, he noted that monitoring was rarely mentioned in the field of English language learning.

Aims

The author highlighted classroom management literature that showed monitoring as both a strategy to be learnt and a necessity if learners were to benefit fully from learning tasks. However, he noted that monitoring was rarely mentioned in the field of English language learning.

Sample

The study was part of a larger study of pedagogical practices in Singapore classrooms. The data used in this study was a subset of 162.4 hours from 179 lessons. The sample comprised 16 schools and 32 teachers/classes (two teachers from each school).

Method

The data included samples of students’ written work, worksheets and instructional materials, in addition to audio and video recordings of student pair or group work that occurred during lessons. Two main types of classroom monitoring activity were identified: monitoring type (supervisory or formative), and monitoring focus (individual or group). For the supervisory type, the teacher focussed primarily on set learning tasks. For the formative type, the teacher sought to establish the current level of student understanding through observations or the checking of written work. For the monitoring focus, the teacher focussed either on individuals or groups to determine the students’ level of understanding.

Findings

The results indicated that the teachers engaged in low levels of supervisory and formative monitoring with individuals and groups in both individual lessons and across entire units of work. As for the monitoring focus, an increase in the occurrence of a focus on the group was linked with a decrease in a focus on the individual and vice versa. Regarding the purposes and content in monitoring, the teachers rarely checked students’ background knowledge through monitoring. They seemed most concerned with checking students’ basic coding/decoding work over any other type of subject-specific skills work.

Implications

The author highlighted that using monitoring primarily for control and for checking on students’ progress in set learning tasks would leave less time and attention available for other planned and enacted monitoring purposes. He suggested a wider set of instructional affordances to provide opportunities for both teachers and students to identify, measure and evaluate their progress and success in planning, and enact a wider repertoire of classroom interactions, and learning activities and tasks.

Original article retrieved from Sage.