Professional development of EFL teachers through rotatory peer supervision

Abstract

Supervision in Iranian private language schools is carried out by one experienced teacher supervisor with too much authority. This paper reports a novel model of supervision, namely rotatory peer-supervision, in which supervision is delegated to English as foreign language (EFL) teachers themselves. In rotatory supervision, experienced teachers take turns observing each other's classes and those of their less experienced colleagues and providing constructive feedback. In this study, we investigated the possibility of employing teachers as supervisors and analyzed what they focused and what type of supervisory feedback they provided. While observing their peers' classes on a rotatory basis for 16 sessions, four experienced teachers evaluated their peer's teaching performance using a researcher-made classroom observation checklist after receiving a sandwich course on providing constructive supervisory feedback. Their evaluative comments were categorized in terms of compliments, criticisms, and suggestions. The findings revealed that the teacher-supervisors offered compliments much more than criticisms and suggestions. Moreover, critical comments were offered using non-accusatory, mitigated, and face-saving language. This study calls for further recognition of rotatory peer supervision as a viable alternative to the practiced models and further research on this under-researched topic.