الملخص الإنجليزي
This study is designed to analyze supervision feedback conferences conducted by EFL supervisors in the Sultanate of Oman. It aims at investigating the extent to which these conferences foster teacher reflection.
The sample of the study consists of 11 EFL supervisors, from the Region of Batinah North, who were requested to record three post-observation conferences with three different teachers each. This resulted in 28 conferences, due to certain circumstances of some supervisors.
Two analytic systems were developed for the sake of analyzing the 28 post-observation conferences: a functional analytic system and a thematic one. The functional-analytic system consists of five main functional categories: Describe, Reflection-enhancing Elicit, Non reflection-enhancing Elicit, advice and Evaluate, under which are some sub-functional moves. The thematic analytic system consists of five thematic catégories: Planning and Preparation, Lesson Delivery and Classroom Performance, Classroom Management, Continuous Assessment, and Administrative Issues. Semi-structured interviews were used as a follow-up tool in order to identify supervisors' and teachers' perceptions about these post-observation conferences as reflection-enhancing tools.
The results of the study reveal that post-observation conferences in the way they are conducted by supervisors in the present study do not foster teacher reflection. This might be attributed to the fact that supervisors were using more non-reflection-enhancing elicitation moves in addition to providing a lot of evaluative and prescriptive comments. Supervisors were also talking most of the time during the post-observation conferences. Analysis of the semi-structured interviews with teachers and supervisors show that both groups consider these conferences as reflection-enhancing, which contradicts with the findings from the quantitative analysis of the post-observation conferences. The study ends with some recommendations for EFL supervisors and others for the Ministry of Education in order to improve the quality of post-observation conferences as reflection-enhancing tools.
