© 1991 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Improving the ELT supervisory dialogue: the Sri Lankan experience
just completed a period as British Council ELTO at Pasdunrata College of Education, Sri Lanka. Before that, he worked in Uganda, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. He has a postgraduate Diploma in Education from Makerere University, and an MA TEFL from Reading University, UK. During his time in Sri Lanka, he has been involved with curriculum reform for initial ELT teacher training. This included designing a new supervision programme for probation teachers. From this experience, the issue of teacher development has become his main professional interest.
Senior Lecturer with the Scottish Centre for Education Overseas, Moray House College, Edinburgh. He has had over twenty years' experience in the field of ELT Teacher Education, during which time he has done consultancies in many countries for a number of national and international agencies. He holds MLitt and PhD degrees in Applied Linguistics, both from the University of Edinburgh. He has published books and articles on various aspects of ELT. His most recent publication is Training Foreign Language Teachers: A Reflective Approach (CUP).
This article falls into two parts. In the first part, some general issues affecting teacher supervision will be discussed. The supervisory dialogue is seen as a crucial stage in the supervision process. A simple ‘key stage’ observation schedule for the supervisory dialogue is proposed. In the second part of the article, the implementation of these ideas within the context of a ‘microsupervision’ workshop for ELT teacher educators and field supervisors in Sri Lanka will be described and evaluated.