A Teaching Assessment Visit

A Teaching Assessment Visit

August 8, 2013

During the first week of August, the PESAO (Primary Education Service Area Office) announced an assessment visit for our school. In order to prepare, teachers didn’t meet their Friday classes and instead spent the day cleaning, decorating their classrooms, hanging posters – one even took the weed-whacker to the weeds in front of our building.  Some of the students helped make posters and set up displays, others just hung out in their homerooms. To me, it seemed a shame that all this was happening now, rather than early in the term to give students the benefit of the displays. Still, the other teachers had been through this before and doubtless know how much importance the assessment team attaches to appearances.

My co-teacher and I were told to expect our classroom visit on Tuesday afternoon, when we have two regularly scheduled classes, so we conferred and then divided the work of making lesson plans, PowerPoints, flash cards, and worksheets for each class.  It was the most thorough preparation we’d done for any classes since the term began in May – just like teachers I used to observe in the US, going all out to impress the visitors.  As I’ve learned over the years, however, it doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles you add, you can’t fake being a better teacher than you are.  The quality of the lesson plans (including ours, of course) and the fit between teaching techniques and lesson goals reveal much about a teacher’s understanding of effective teaching.

On Tuesday morning, school beautification was still going on. Student workers showed up with big potted plants for outside the classrooms.  A colorful banner labeled “ASEAN Corner” went up on the wall – teaching about ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) is more or less mandated for all Thai schools. The teacher with the weed-whacker sliced down the tall grass behind the building, working right outside our classroom all through first period. My co-teacher negotiated with another teacher to switch classrooms for our first afternoon class so we could show a video.  We were ready!

 Me and the ASEAN Banner

A half-hour before our class, the PESAO English language supervisor arrived with a six-member team. I knew most of them from training seminars. They were going to sit in on only one class, not two as we had thought.  We gave them copies of our lesson plan and they met to confer; then, after a flurry of confusion getting the students to switch classrooms, the visitors settled on chairs in the back and we started class only a few minutes late. It’s a 4^th grade class, just beginning to read and write English. During the first three years, they learn to say and write our alphabet – which is vastly different from the Thai alphabet – but reading and writing English words is mostly new in Level 4.

The students were excited to have so many guests and were on their best behavior. The computer, however, was less so and there was a short delay before we could screen the video of children singing “The Phonogram Song.” Our lesson went smoothly – not only because we were so well-prepared, but also because we had met that class in the morning, during the weed-whacking. Thus, they were primed for the phonics-based lesson, volunteered answers to questions, and identified sound-letter correlations correctly most of the time.  The assessment team took pictures and videos throughout the period.

When the lesson was over, the English supervisor thanked us and gave us each a souvenir from the PESAO – mine is a set of two cute ceramic teacups with logo; my co-teacher got an elegant little vase. Our pictures were taken, individually and with each team member, in front of the ASEAN banner.  The team then withdrew for discussion, without us, for about a half hour before leaving.

Still in my American mind-set, I asked my co-teacher whether we would get feedback on our teaching in writing later, or whether a report was sent on up the line within the education office hierarchy, or what.  Oh no, she said, no feedback, but the video will be posted on the PESAO web site.  – So there you have it, one episode of teaching assessment, Thai-style.  I went to the web site (www.sakon2.th.gov) but couldn’t figure out how to find the video. But, hey, I have my teacups!