Teacher journal

Teacher journal

Some people naturally love journaling and others have to make an effort to get into the habit. It is a good habit to develop as evidence supports that recording your reflections after lessons enables you to improve your teaching “the process of writing itself helps trigger insights about teaching. Writing in this sense serves as a discovery process” (Richards and Lockhart, 1996, p.7). Start by planning ten minutes two days a week. This may be best before you leave work, whilst travelling home or when you get home when you’ll make notes on one lesson or one part of your teaching day. As you progress you’ll hopefully build up to journaling more than twice a week, but don’t worry if twice a week is all you can manage

Start by summarising what happened in class (this usually starts with Today the learners...) and then record what it made you think about.

Today the learners....

This made me think about....

Everyday you can use the questions from the BBC and TeachingEnglish website in Appendix 1 as a self-assessment checklist to help trigger thoughts and ideas.