Classroom Investigation: Is It Worth
It?
Agus
Budiawan
Niakaris
and Bacigal (1992) stated that training and
development are clearly different concepts. In training, the trainee passively
undergoes a period of conditioning during which the “do’s” (be a good language
teacher) and the “don’ts” (be a bad language teacher) of classroom practice are
inculcated. Development itself takes a part in a real situation when teacher
and student are not fully satisfied with what they get in classroom or when
teachers realize how they might teach better, reach the objective more
efficiently and satisfy students more. Self-development is one way to
understand what teachers can do, how and why teachers
do it and how teachers can improve and enhance their performance.
Self-development makes a difference in teachers’ performance. From this basis,
teachers can develop strategies for intervention or change, depending on their
needs, through investigating classroom teaching (Richard and Lockhart, 1996)
Classroom investigations
in teaching including peer observation and self-observation through video
recording accompanied with self-reflection or teacher’s journal, student’s
journal and student’s feedback have been conducted to get better ideas to
enhance teachers’ self-development. The results show those investigation activities
do create a better perspective in developing teachers’ performance in class.
Learners can also benefit from these investigation activities by letting their
teachers know what learners need and want and making them more motivated to be
better English language learners.
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Budiawan, A. (2002, March). Classroom
investigation: Is it worth it? Paper presented at the national conference
on Autonomy,
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