S8E6: Gathering Feedback From Learners

Teacher Educator Kate Semerenko talks about the important role learner feedback has in helping us develop our courses, materials and teaching practice. Kate shares how to gather feedback and how best to implement it.

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Key talking points

Importance of Collecting Feedback

Kate highlights the importance of collecting feedback from learners throughout the course rather than waiting until the end. She emphasises that gathering feedback helps in understanding learners’' needs, improving teaching practice, and ensuring learners feel comfortable and valued.

Creating a Safe Space for Feedback

Kate suggests creating a safe atmosphere in lessons where learners feel comfortable expressing their feelings and opinions. By encouraging open dialogue and assuring learners that their feedback is valued, teachers can create a conducive environment for constructive feedback.

Ways to Collect Feedback

Various methods for collecting feedback are shared, including anonymous surveys like Google Forms, reflection at the end of lessons or courses, and informal one-on-one chats with learners. These approaches provide opportunities for learners to share their thoughts and feelings openly.

Implementing Feedback

Kate suggests analysing feedback, identifying actionable changes, and creating an action plan for implementation. She emphasises the importance of implementing changes gradually, monitoring their effectiveness, and seeking further feedback to ensure continuous improvement.

Building Trust and Dialogue

The episode closes with a discussion about the importance of conveying feedback changes to students, fostering trust, and encouraging ongoing dialogue. Teachers can strengthen teacher-student relationships and create a supportive learning environment by building a culture of open communication and demonstrating responsiveness to feedback.

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About Kate

Kate is a CELTA and Delta-qualified EFL professional who has been teaching English for more than 10 years. 

She’s taught general English to all age groups  in one of the biggest English schools in Ukraine. She's experienced in preparing students for international exams and in creating modular courses, such as literature and soft skills for teenagers. Kate has also trained and mentored teachers through facilitating practical workshops.

Kate now works as a freelancer and helps teachers become their better selves by sharing her experience on Instagram, providing consultations and observations, and designing specific courses and workshops for teachers. Follow Kates_the_teacher on Instagram to learn more.

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Watch the video with closed captions or refer to the transcript below.

Transcript

00:00:00:11 - 00:00:23:01

Laura

TESOL Pop. Season eight Episode six Hello and welcome to TESOL Pop, the mini podcast for busy teachers. My name is Laura and joining me today to talk about gathering student feedback is teacher Kate Semerenko. Kate has been working in the English language teaching industry for over ten years. She's taught all age groups in one of the largest schools in Ukraine.

00:00:23:07 - 00:00:46:02

Laura

She's prepared students for high-stakes exams, and she's also mentored and trained fellow teachers. In today's episode, she's going to share how she creates a safe space to collect feedback from her students, the different ways in which she collects that feedback, and most importantly, how she implements it. Let's jump to where I asked Kate about the importance of collecting feedback from students.

00:00:46:08 - 00:01:24:16

Kate

I think we've all been there, you know, when we're working for a company or maybe we're a freelancer, but we are teaching a student or a group of students and everything seems to be fine. But then at some point a student drops out of the course and then we start questioning what was wrong. We probably collect feedback from the student, but the thing is that usually students are quite reluctant to give honest feedback at this stage and probably one of the reasons is that they just don't want to share or they don't think it's important here.

00:01:24:18 - 00:01:54:17

Kate

And I believe that's really, really important thing here is to try and shift this collecting feedback to not the end, you know, as we normally do it, but to try and do it in the middle of the course. Or maybe, you know, from time to time. Yeah. Just to give an example, there was one person, a friend of mine who joined one of the good language schools recently, and he dropped out of the course in two months, I think.

00:01:54:23 - 00:02:17:22

Kate

So obviously I asked him what was the reason for that? And he told me that one of the reasons was the teacher did not listen to him properly or did not take his opinion into a condition like that. But when I asked him if he gave this feedback to the school, he said that he didn't. So I think this is what usually happens.

00:02:17:22 - 00:02:47:01

Kate

You know, we don't actually know teachers, as a managers of the schools, why students leave. And probably one of the reasons is that we don't do it at the right time. So that would be one of the important reasons why I want feedback as crucial to make sure students stay with us. They feel comfortable and we figure out what kind of change.

00:02:47:03 - 00:03:04:00

Laura

Like you said, it's so important that we collect feedback throughout the process. So we're not in that scenario where we're losing clients, whether it's students or teachers or whoever we might be working with, because of course, as educators we want to help people learn and grow. But it can be so difficult to create those spaces that people tell us what we need to know.

00:03:04:00 - 00:03:23:08

Laura

Because, I mean, like myself, it can feel really uncomfortable giving feedback to somebody because I don't want to hurt somebody’s feelings. And therefore I'll just say everything's fine rather than and actually share what the problem is. This is me speaking as a learner of a language. How can we navigate this as teachers?

00:03:23:09 - 00:04:00:10

Kate

So it's important probably to let students know how we feel about it ourselves and explain that we're not going to be offended Yeah, so it's all done just for the sake of improving our teaching practice or maybe changing the course for the better. So whenever they don't feel comfortable with something or they don't like an activity or probably they don't work with other students, which sometimes happens yeah, they need to feel safe to come up to us and talk to us.

00:04:00:12 - 00:04:27:15

Kate

Another thing is also creating a safe atmosphere in your lessons right? And showing that they can express feelings and our reaction to it should be appropriate. So we need to act appropriately to whatever they say. Just again, give you an example. When I’d been teaching for a language school and that was a group of adults that I've been teaching.

00:04:27:20 - 00:04:59:22

Kate

One of the students came up to me after the lesson and told me that he unfortunately is going to stop studying for a course because of some reasons - work reasons or something. But he wanted to give me feedback and he thanked me for changing the pairs during the lesson, which was really, really weird. You know, I would never expect a student saying that, that they liked working with different students, but that was one of the things that he loved about our lessons.

00:04:59:24 - 00:05:17:07

Kate

So that made me think that probably we teachers don't actually know what is going on in the students hands, Right? What are the feelings they have about different things. We might think that something went right or wrong, but might be vice versa for students.

00:05:17:10 - 00:05:41:23

Laura

So you've talked about the important role that feedback plays and how we can create that safe space for students to share what's not working and what's working as well to hear the positive things that we should keep doing. What are some ways in which we can collect feedback? Of course, these conversations that we have with learners are great, but what if we want to be quite intentional in making space for feedback and collecting it by different means?

00:05:41:24 - 00:06:16:18

Kate

As we have mentioned before, that students might be anxious. Yeah, they don't want offend a teacher. Yeah. So one of the ways to collect that feedback would be anonymous way through. For example, Google Form, some kind of survey. So this is what one of the schools I was working for was doing after every single lesson they collected this anonymous feedback from the students because there were many teachers and they basically wanted to probably control the level of teaching and how students feel about the lessons.

00:06:16:20 - 00:06:47:20

Kate

But I saw it also as a way of collecting, collecting this honest feedback and a way of improving the lessons. Obviously, not everything should have been taken into account because, well, students are not teachers, but at least we can know what they feel about this or that activity or technique that we had used during the lesson. So yeah, that's a powerful way of finding out how they see the lesson.

00:06:47:22 - 00:07:12:10

Kate

Then another thing would be very simple, and that is reflection at the end of the lesson. Maybe the end of the course. It might be even after a particular activity, especially if it's a new one. So we take some time and ask our students to think about how it went, whether they liked it or not, and what were the reasons for that.

00:07:12:12 - 00:07:41:22

Kate

So this might give us some idea of whether we need to improve this technique or activity, whether we need to provide some kind of changes. Yeah. Or not. And that is fresh in their memory as well. So they would be able to just share their thoughts again, if there is this safe space created for them that they know they can share their thoughts.

00:07:41:24 - 00:08:18:24

Kate

And then another thing that I started doing recently, I actually heard about it from one of my colleagues that is the informal chats, some kind of meetup with students, especially if you take groups and not individual students. Then it's much better to have like, you know, ten minute or 15 minute chats with each individual, asking them about their feelings working in a group, or what do they find, how do they feel in general, about the course?

00:08:19:01 - 00:08:47:17

Kate

Is there any progress? Is there anything that they would like to add to the course? Maybe another activity they would like to to do or something that they actually hate doing, but they never mentioned? It seems that when you meet 1 to 1 with students, they are more open because they are not judged by anyone else. There is no one else, basically, that is only the teacher who listens and when they know that the teacher is actually going to take that into account.

00:08:47:17 - 00:09:09:08

Kate

Yeah. And it's not just, you know, to check like, yeah, I've done that. Then they're going to share and in my experience they do share. It might be something very simple as like, Please don't put me in the [Zoom] breakout room with that student, because it seems that we just don't get on well and this little change

00:09:09:10 - 00:09:19:07

Kate

might change the whole dynamic in the group and will help them learn better. Yeah. And feel safer.

00:09:19:09 - 00:09:38:01

Laura

I think, a combination of these is really powerful, isn't it? In creating lots of opportunities and touch points with our students rather than it just being just something we do at the very end of a course. And like we mentioned at the start of this episode, then it could be too late and then you may have lost a potential student you would otherwise renew a contract with

00:09:38:01 - 00:10:01:24

Laura

you to continue their studies and learning journey. So I think this is a really lovely tapestry of touch points you've just painted out for us, which is really fantastic. So let's say we've met with students, we're doing the reflective practice in lessons, so we're getting...creating an ongoing conversation about how things are going and we're doing intermittent surveys and we have this data about what students think.

00:10:02:01 - 00:10:04:16

Laura

Oh my goodness, it's so intimidating. What on earth should we do with it [learner feedback]?

00:10:04:16 - 00:10:32:05

Kate

Once you have analysed it, you have collected the feedback and analysed it, You have separated it and you know which changes you can implement. Then what you have to do is think about how you can implement it, when can you implement these changes and what are the possible consequences of these changes that we want to implement, How the all the students probably will react to this?

00:10:32:05 - 00:11:05:15

Kate

Yeah. So when we have decided when we do it and how we do it we actually need to write some kind of action plan. And by write I mean write because it's not easy to keep everything in mind, but we need to think like, okay, next lesson, I'm going to do this. I'm going to try out this thing that they asked me and for example, the thing that I mentioned about the student who didn't want to be put in the breakout room with another student.

00:11:05:17 - 00:11:25:08

Kate

So that was something that I focused on right. One thing at a time. Like, okay, I'm not going to put her with that student, but I will make sure that she's talking to the others. And I will also keep an eye on that student she didn't want to work with. Yeah. Just to figure out why. What was the reason for that?

00:11:25:10 - 00:11:57:17

Kate

And maybe I will need to talk to that student afterwards. Yeah. So it's very important to take your time when implementing the changes and then reflect on these changes. Right. And implementations. Did it work or it didn't? Why? What were the reasons for that? And if we really if we realise that everything is fine, yeah, and now we can continue doing that, then we start implementing something else.

00:11:57:19 - 00:12:01:06

Kate

So one little change at a time.

00:12:01:08 - 00:12:30:19

Laura

It’s like that reflective cycle, isn't it, of like observing something, hypothesising, seeing what could be possible solutions, trying it out and reflecting to see did it work and then collecting feedback. Again, it's an ongoing process, just like any learning process as teachers we’re also learners, and I thought it was really helpful for the you to break it down to, like, analysing and thinking about what's possible, what we can do, being realistic about it, and think about the implementation, the timeline and setting an action plan.

00:12:30:21 - 00:12:58:09

Laura

Also, you mentioned conveying what you're going to change to students and that open dialog because I think with any feedback for us to build that trust with our students or whoever we’re working with our students, maybe even other teachers, we need to also show that we've heard them and we're taking action and what we can take action on. And I think that just builds so much more trust for further feedback to be given in the future.

00:12:58:11 - 00:13:18:08

Kate

Right? Yeah, and probably then after doing that, we can ask them, okay, so how did you feel now about it's right. Did it actually work? So yeah, so they see that it was that feedback that the teacher took into account and now they really care to find out how it went.

00:13:18:10 - 00:13:26:08

Laura

Yeah, it's showing you care and it's showing that you're, you know, trying to do your best for your students and how good so far doesn't it, in any learning environment.

00:13:26:13 - 00:13:27:10

Kate

00:13:27:12 - 00:13:36:19

Laura

It’s been absolutely delightful talking to you today. Thank you so much for being open and sharing your experience with your students, how you’ve collected feedback in some of your best practices. It’s been brilliant.

00:13:36:21 - 00:13:40:16

Kate

Yeah, Thank you for having me and for having this conversation.

00:13:40:18 - 00:14:02:20

Laura

To learn more about Kate's work, then you can go to her Instagram account. That's Kates_the_teacher The link is in the show notes so you can easily find that and you can find out more about the wonderful work she's doing to help students and teachers develop in that English language learning and teaching. If you have a question that you'd like us to answer or an idea that you'd like to pitch for the podcast, you can contact us via Instagram, Facebook or the website tesolpop.com

00:14:03:00 - 00:14:17:15

Laura

Finally, you can support the work we do at TESOL Pop by leaving a rating and review wherever you listen to the podcast, by sharing today's episode with your community, or by even buying as a coffee at ko-fi.com/tesolpop

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