[AGM & Seminar] SETTVEO: Evidence-based reflection and teacher development by Prof. Steve Walsh

 In this talk, I report findings from a British Council ELTRA funded research project which looked at the use of technology enhanced learning in a CPD (Continuing Professional Development) context. The aim of the study was to provide English language teachers with appropriate tools and procedures to enable them to reflect on and improve their practice through the creation and use of an app: SETTVEO. This app extended previous work, using the SETT (Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk) framework (Walsh, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2017) and VEO (Video Enhanced Observation) app (Miller and Haines, 2016). The central argument of the study was that reflective practice (RP) would be enhanced when reflections are evidence-based by giving teachers something to reflect on and something to reflect with. Here, the focus of reflection is classroom interaction, which underpins much of what is learnt in any classroom. As previous studies have shown convincingly, understandings of teaching and learning can be enhanced through a detailed understanding of interaction. Specifically, the aim was to help teachers, through reflections on their teaching, to develop their Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC, Walsh 2013). Through the use of SETTVEO, and subsequent collective dialogue and reflection, an online community of practice (CofP) was established, enabling participants to share and comment on examples of English language teaching around the world. The goal was to establish and evaluate a more dialogic, collaborative approach to reflective practice. Findings suggest that the use of self-observation, with data and accompanied by some kind of dialogue, can promote up-close and detailed understandings of teaching and learning. While technology helped to mediate this process in most cases, for some, it created additional difficulties.

 Steve Walsh is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK, where he was, until recently, Head of Department. He has been involved in English Language Teaching and English language teacher education for more than 30 years in Spain, Hungary, Poland, China, Ireland, England and Hong Kong. Steve’s research interests include classroom discourse, teacher development, second language teacher education, and professional communication. He has published 10 books and more than 100 research papers. His most recent publications, with Steve Mann, are the monograph Reflective Practice for English Language Teaching: Research-based Principles and Practices (Routledge, 2017) and The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education (Routledge, June 2019). In January 2019, Steve took up a position as visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong, where he will be based for the next one to two years.