Critical Incident

Teacher Assessment for a Job Interview

In 1997, I was interviewed by the Head of a well-known Language Teaching Organization (LTO).  She explained that this language school required new teachers not only to have an oral interview with her, but also to give a lesson to some of the LTO’s students.  

This was a teacher assessment form, which would determine whether I was hired.  Referring to teacher assessment, Ur (1996) has pointed out that these systems are usually used “for hiring and firing purposes rather than to assist professional improvement and learning. The effect may therefore be stressful and demoralizing rather than helpful” (as cited in Chandler & Ruffinelli de Ortiz, 2004, p. 322)

I was given the opportunity to observe the group of students one week before and then I started preparing my lesson plan for the following class.  Everything was neatly prepared and I really thought I had taken care of every little detail.  I had been told that both the course teacher and the coordinator would be observing the class.  I was terribly anxious about this situation.  I arrived very early.  Students arrived punctually.  They were a group of five adults: three men and two women.  The atmosphere was quite tense.  

In the middle of the lesson, I read out instructions for a listening activity, and I mispronounced the name of a US city (unintentionally).  Students were asked to read out questions in which the name of the same city appeared and they mispronounced it as well.  Then I played the tape and to my astonishment, during the first ten seconds, the name of the city was mentioned several times with the correct pronunciation.  Once the recording finished, we started correcting students’ answers and I corrected their pronunciation of the name of the city several times.   

Had I checked the correct pronunciation of the word before the class, I would have felt much safer. Correcting the students so eagerly was not my style and I still do not know why I did it. Anyway, some days later, the Head called me up to let me know I had passed the interview.  The pronunciation mistake was not serious for them.  However, I still felt embarrassed.

References

Chandler, M., & Ruffinelli de Ortiz, S. (2004). Building consensus on teacher assessment. Educational and Cultural Affairs – US Department of State. Retrieved October 2011, from http://eca.state.gov/forum/vols/vol42/no3/p22.htm