An analysis of the Progress Reports submitted by teacher-tutors after the
completion of the Teaching ESL Students in Mainstream Classrooms:
Language in Learning across the Curriculum course 2006/2007
Progress Reports written by the tutors were submitted after they had completed the course at
school and the following is an analysis of their comments.
Tutors’ reflection on their Roles
When reflecting on the roles played, 80% of the tutors found that they had helped in
enhancing professional development for their colleagues. 60% thought that they had also
enhanced collaboration among colleagues across the curriculum. Another 50% remarked that
they played a crucial role in promoting a whole-school approach of providing students with
language support in EMI education. An added gain expressed by 30% of the tutors was that
their hard work had helped improve the relationship among teachers of different disciplines
and boosted their colleagues’ confidence in using English in their classrooms.
Some tutors expressed that they had worked in line with their schools’ major concern in
giving teachers advice on how to put the pedagogy learnt on the course into practice (10%);
others made their colleagues realise the importance of providing students with explicit
support and scaffolding (10%), which is also one of the most important points of the course.
General response to the course from the tutor perspective
90% of the tutors remarked that the participants had a positive attitude about the course and
50% responded that participants showed full support of their tutors by actively engaging
themselves during workshops. They were willing to contribute by sharing their experience
and ideas during workshops. 50% of the tutors stated that some of their participants had tried
out some strategies learnt on the course and found them effective. The latter were also
enthusiastic in promoting the course to their colleagues.
In general, the response was favourable, though 10% of the tutors responded that some of
their participants, especially non-language teachers, had expressed difficulty in catching up
with the packed information and some had found it hard to cope with the linguistic part of the
course.
Evaluation of the Project
As seen by the tutors, the project was quite a successful one since 70% saw increased
collaboration among teachers in different areas, 60% remarked that it provided more chances
for discussion among teachers of different subjects, setting the scene for successful teamwork
in the future. The project was considered effective (50%), providing lots of ideas (50%) and,
last but not least, making subject teachers realise the fact that they were experts in their own
subject language and thus they also had the responsibility to take care of students’ language
needs (50%). 40% stated that teachers were given a chance to reflect on their teaching
practices and they had become more aware of student needs when planning their lessons.
Some tutors (20%) considered that the Teaching and Learning Cycle was especially useful
since it provides a model on which teachers could design their lessons with the best outcome.
A further 30% of the tutors added that the Project Team showed support by paying workshop
visits and disseminating good practices, thus helping them in their preparation work.