The team consisted of 4 colleagues, namely, Betül, Çisem, Merve and Sevgi. Merve and Çisem were experienced in Lesson Study while Betül and Sevgi were totally new to the process. As a team, they worked in harmony and created an environment which is based on listening to and understanding each other, producing new ideas, and expressing thoughts freely. With the leadership of İlknur Bayram, they worked together for approximately four months and had three research cycles.

​

You can find detailed information about the process below.

​

Step 1: Introduction to Lesson Study

​

Meetings 1, 2, 3

​

In the very first meeting, the team shared their teacher philosophies with each other in order to have an understanding of methods and approaches that their colleagues had. For the second and third meeting, they were supposed to read the first two chapters from Bill Cerbin’s book. In that one, they discussed the concepts in Lesson Study. Since Betül and Sevgi were inexperienced, they tried to understand what Lesson Study really is with the help of those discussions.

​

​

Step 2: Finding a Focus

​

Meetings 4, 5, 6, 7

​

After long meetings, discussions and readings from Bill Cerbin, the team tried to investigate what students do when they forget a word in English in a conversation, and to offer them some strategies to use in such situations. Actually, they wanted them to discover their own strategies to use in the future, so the lesson was planned accordingly. As it can be clearly understood from this aim, the study was conducted in the light of problem/ case based strategy adapted from the book “Lesson Study” by Bill Cerbin. Considering this aim, the research question was formed as “How students get target vocabulary items across during oral production?”

 

 

Step 3: Planning the First Research Lesson

​

Meetings 8, 9, 10, 11,  12

​

In this part of the study, it was decided that Merve would conduct the first research lesson with her class in an ELT conference at Ankara University. Before the first research lesson, the objectives of the lesson were decided by the group. In accordance with the objectives of the lesson, the activities were decided and designed. Afterwards, the materials needed for these activities were developed and they were printed out one day before the research lesson. Additionally, the observation sheet was adapted and designed according to lesson plan and with the aim of making the observation process easier for the observers. 

​

Click here            for the Reserch Lesson plan.

​

Click here            for the Informed Concent Form.

​

Click here            for the Observation Sheet.

​

Click here            for the lesson PPT.

 

​

Step 4: Implementing the First Research Lesson

​

Meetings 13

​

The first research lesson was implemented by Merve Arığa as a live lesson at EDUCCON Education Conference 2018 whose audience consisted of a great number of academics, instructors, teachers and students. Students were informed in advance about the implementation of the lesson as a part of such a big conference and informed consent was obtained from all students. The conference hall was adapted to a classroom-like environment to some extent.  The observers, Betül Çimenli, Çisem Altuğ and Sevgi Cebar Emence, took their places that were quite close to the case students and took very detailed and elaborated notes that were related to students’ learning, their reactions to the instructions, their attitudes. At the same time, the research lesson was recorded by a couple of video cameras to use in the debriefing and analyzing stages of the research. The research lesson lasted nearly one hour. After the lesson ended, each case student was invited for the interview made by instructor of the class. Each of them lasted almost three minutes in Turkish and was recorded.

​

Click here            for the Interview Questions.

​

​

Step 5: Reflection

​

Meetings 14, 15

​

After the implementation of the first research lesson, the research team gathered to reflect on the lesson having read the relevant chapter in the guide book for the Lesson Study. During this debriefing meeting, they discussed what went well, what went wrong and how they can improve for the next rounds. First, the lesson was reviewed through the lens of the practitioner, and then the other members, who are the observers, shared their own opinions and feelings related to the lesson as well as their observations. Next, the recordings of the student interviews were listened, the video of the research lesson was watched very carefully, and observation notes were evaluated based on the research question. After all of these, necessary changes were made in the first research lesson. Firstly, the research team simplified the discussion questions in group work since students had difficulty in understanding them. Secondly, they made the instructions in the role-play part simpler and clearer for them to understand easily via showing an example. Finally, they had different scenarios for each group first, but they decided on assigning the same scenario to each group on the recommendation of some students. So, they were ready for the second cycle of Lesson Study.

​

​

 

 

Step 6: Repeating Steps 4 and 5

​

Meetings 16, 17, 18

​

The second research lesson is conducted by Sevgi. For this lesson, the team did some major changes in the activities. First of all, six scenarios in the role-play activity decreased to only one. When every group had the same scenario, they wouldn’t have difficulties in understanding the concept while watching others. Secondly, instructions on PPT were simplified for Guess What? Game, and were replaced by a sample scenario for the role-play activity. The instructor would be responsible for explaining the activity by illustrating the sample scenario on the PPT. With these changes, Sevgi conducted the research lesson, and the team received better results in implementing their lesson plan. Students had a better understanding of what was going on.

​

After that, without any changes it was Betül’s turn to implement the lesson plan for the third research cycle. Since her class had lower achievement profile than the first two, students could not produce as many ideas as the other classes, and some students had really difficult time in understanding the process. However, this research lesson contributed to their research, too.

 

​

 

 

Step 7: Sharing the Results

​

Meetings 19, 20

​

In the next meeting, the team gathered all the results from the three research cycles and made a list of ideas as answers to their research question. In the light of these ideas and the experiences gained from these cycles, they had a fruitful discussion and came up with useful ideas and conclusions for their future classroom practices.

​

The team decided to write their final report based on the directions and suggestions in the last chapter of Bill Cerbin’s book which is “Documenting and Sharing Lesson Studies”. Therefore, they specified the sections and divided the work since they no longer had time to study together. Each member wrote their own sections of the report individually, then they combined and finalized the report.

​

As the final part of this semester’s CPD activity, they were supposed to prepare a presentation and to present it in UTAA ELT Fusion 4. They divided the process into four parts, namely, finding a focus & planning the research lesson, implementation, findings & conclusion, and future suggestions. Each team member prepared one part of the presentation, and then they combined and finalized it as they did for the final report. Finally, they presented their work of art on January 18, 2018.

​

Click here            for the Final Report.

​

Click here            for the ELT Fusion Presentation.