Peer coaching in T E F L /T E S L

programmes
Silvana Vacilotto and Rhoda Cummings

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the peer coaching
model as a professional development tool for pre-service ESL/E F L teachers, and its

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possible applicability to the Binational Centres in Brazil, as well as to teacher
development programmes in general. Peer coaching, a reflective approach to
teacher development, proposes that teachers share data collected through peer
observation as a means for reflection on their individual teaching practices.
Findings indicate that peer coaching facilitated exchange of teaching methods and
materials, fostered development of teaching skills, and made participants rethink
their own teaching methods and styles. The study also revealed which behaviours
participants thought were most effective for supporting a successful relationship
among peers in a peer coaching programme.

Introduction Improving the level of excellence of its teaching staff is one of many
challenges that face academic directors at the Binational Centres (BNCs)
in Brazil, as well as at language institutes in general. Most teacher
development programme models require of academic coordinators
somewhat conflicting tasks in that they must guide teachers in improving
instruction as well as make them accountable for the quality of their
teaching. Consequently, these supervisory practices often provoke distress,
defensiveness, and suspicion in teachers, which prevents them from
recognizing the professional development programme as a process that
focuses on improvement of instruction rather than on revealing weaknesses
for the purpose of punishment.
Based on the experiences of one of the authors, who served as academic
director and member of the teaching staff in one of the BNCs in Brazil, we
suggest that such challenges can be overcome. This might happen when
teachers engage in practices and conversations that nurture and promote
professional growth; study new methods, approaches, and techniques;
experiment with and implement novel ideas in their classes; and share their
professional experiences, doubts, insecurities, successes, and failures, free
from the fear of being evaluated. A peer coaching programme that leads to
reflective practice might provide teachers with such an opportunity.

Literature review There is consensus among teacher trainers that both K–12 and E F L/ESL
teacher professional development models should encourage reflective
practice, which leads teachers to develop skills in exploring their own

E LT Journal Volume 61/2 April 2007; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm008 153

ª The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
 classroom practices and to critically evaluate themselves as professionals
(Richards and Lockhart 1994; Wallace 1991). Such models challenge
teachers not only to update their technical knowledge, but also to devise new
methods of reasoning. Moreover, they require teachers to construct and test
new categories of understanding, strategies of action, and ways of framing
problems. Through use of these methods, teachers bring their decision-
making processes to a conscious level and build up their own repertoire of
skills to use in their practice (Schön 1988; Wallace 1991).
The peer coaching model allows teachers of equal status to engage in
a process of mutual collaboration and interpersonal support, assisting one
another in reflecting on their own practices on a regular basis (Gottesman
2000; Showers and Joyce 1996). Additionally, peer coaching facilitates the
adjustment of beginning teachers, the improvement of underdeveloped
teaching skills, and the transfer of newly acquired skills to classroom
practice. However, the effectiveness of the peer coach interaction depends
on a number of factors. These include how aware of their actions teachers

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can become, how clearly they can describe those actions, and how willing
they are to discuss them (Gottesman 2000; Showers and Joyce 1996).
Above all, if the peer coaching model is to be effective, special attention
should be given to the practice of providing feedback. Teachers who give
feedback without prior training run the risk of giving offence, instead of
providing support and useful guidance to their peers. It is especially
important that peer observation should not be used as a tool for judging
others on the basis of one’s personal beliefs. Rather, effective observation
should stimulate a reflective review of one’s own beliefs on the basis of
others’ practice (Cosh 1999; Farrell 2001).

The present study This study investigated the effectiveness of use of the peer coaching model
within a team-teaching context as a development tool for pre-service ES L/
EFL teachers, and its applicability to BNCs in Brazil, as well as to teacher
development programmes in general. Four questions guided the study:
(1) Does peer coaching facilitate the exchange of teaching methods and
materials? If so, how? (2) Does peer coaching foster the development of
teaching skills? If so, how? (3) Does peer coaching make participants rethink
any of their own teaching methods or styles? If so, how? And (4) What are
the most effective behaviours that participants think support a successful
relationship between peers in a peer coaching programme?

Setting This study investigated peer coaching within a team-teaching context. The
study occurred within the practicum of the Master of Arts in Teaching
English as a Second Language (MATESL) Programme offered by a large
Midwest university. Teaching ESL to beginning-level adult learners for
a period of 16 weeks was the major component of the practicum. Under
supervision, the student teachers organized themselves into seven teaching
teams and conducted placement-testing, lesson planning, teaching, and
evaluation of E S L students enrolled in a Special English Class.

Participants Participants included 16 graduate student teachers (seven men and nine
women) from five different countries including Canada (1), Chile (1), Korea
(5), New Zealand (1), and the US (8). All but one of the student teachers was

154 Silvana Vacilotto and Rhoda Cummings

 in the second year of the MATESL Programme. The participants’ teaching
experience ranged from none to ten years of experience. Fourteen of the 16
student teachers had never before participated in a peer coaching process.
Students were grouped into seven teams, each consisting of two or three
members. Pseudonyms are used when references are made to these
participants.

Procedures The peer coaching model described in this paper established that student
teachers share their lesson plans, as well as data they collected through peer
observation. Also, it required that student teachers use such data to reflect
on their individual teaching practice and to provide feedback to one another.
To better determine the effects of the peer coaching interaction, several
procedures were established. First, student teachers completed
a questionnaire before they started working in their teams. The initial
questionnaire collected background information about the student teachers
and gathered their reactions to issues previously explored in the literature on

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peer coaching. Then, during the practicum, each team of student teachers
audio recorded at least one of their lesson plan meetings and one of their
debriefing meetings. The lesson plan meetings occurred prior to
teaching—some before the teams met with the course supervisors and
others after this meeting. The debriefing meetings occurred no later than
two days after the team had finished teaching its unit. The main
requirements for the debriefing meetings were that members of the team
should watch the video recording of one of their classes, discuss aspects of
their teaching, and write notes about their discussions within a week of
completing their teaching.
Student teachers also kept reflective teaching journals that included
thoughts and insights they had experienced throughout their teaching
experience and peer observations. Journal entries were written immediately
after each lesson so that the lesson remained fresh in student teachers’
minds. Each journal entry covered one lesson and was a reflection upon
what took place in that lesson. Each student teacher wrote a total of eight
journal items. There was no specific requirement concerning the journal
length. However, entries had to include student teachers’ perceptions of
weaknesses and strengths of their teaching, classroom activities, and
students’ classroom participation. Student teachers also had to discuss what
would remain the same and what would be different in their future classes.
Additionally, their reflection should reveal how students and teachers
benefited from that lesson. Finally, student teachers were to reflect on the
impact that the class had on their beliefs about second language learning/
teaching, how the lesson related to theory and/or class discussions, and how
what happened in the lesson related to their other journal entries.
At the end of the period covered by this study, that is, after completion of
team activities, the student teachers responded to a final rating-scale
questionnaire. This questionnaire was composed of three sets of closed-
ended statements that restated the student teachers’ initial reactions to peer
coaching. Soon after student teachers had finished their activities as a team,
seven of them were interviewed individually. The interviews consisted of 17
open-ended questions divided as follows: five non-controversial questions,
four interpretative questions, and a role-play.

Peer coaching in TE F L programmes 155

Results and Nearly every student teacher agreed that the peer coaching experience
discussion facilitated the exchange of teaching methods, materials, approaches, and
Exchange of teaching techniques. The most compelling of all the data was the verbal exchange of
methods and ideas in the audio recordings. For example, the student teachers spent
materials a great deal of time discussing the many ways to introduce the concept of
‘pseudonym’ to their students, and their divergent concepts of ‘group-work’.
Additionally, student teachers stated that they improved their ability to make
on-the-spot decisions, were convinced of the effectiveness of discovery
exercises, and developed a better idea of when and how to apply information
gap activities, among others.
Interestingly, the majority of the student teachers agreed that their different
backgrounds, especially their diverse teaching experiences, were an
enriching component that allowed them to function complementarily.
Because of this diversity, they were able to supplement each other in their
weaknesses. For example, Derek mentioned in his interview that the
combination of Julia’s years of teaching experience and his background in

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linguistics allowed each of them to fill each other’s gaps in order to produce
better lessons. Allan, who had no previous teaching experience, also noted
in his journal the value of using Dale’s teaching performance as a model. In
sum, all but one student teacher felt pleased to see how helpful they had
been to their peers, agreeing that experienced teachers could help
inexperienced teachers become better. Responses in the final questionnaire
revealed that the great majority of the student teachers felt that it was
enjoyable to share responsibility and to complement each other’s strengths,
weaknesses, and skills.

Development of Results indicated that peer coaching fostered development of teaching skills
teaching skills primarily through peer observation and discussions. Peer observation aided
in the design of lesson plans, and made student teachers aware of possible
inconsistencies in their lesson plans and practice. Data indicated strong
collaborative participation among the student teachers in making decisions
about objectives, content, activities, sequencing, timing, and materials of
their lessons. Such collaboration helped student teachers feel confident
enough to try out various methods and procedures that they had studied in
the MATESL Programme and to eliminate weaknesses and highlight
strengths of their lesson plans and in their actual teaching. The value of the
collaborative process was described by Julia, for example, who remarked in
her interview that even when she was not in the peer coaching situation, she
could bring the skills she had learnt in that process to situations in which
she was working on a lesson alone. She could remember things her team
had discussed and things they had done together.
Results also revealed that peer coaching led student teachers to improve
their organizational and class management skills as they became aware of
the need to increase their energy level and be more flexible in class.
Furthermore, student teachers reported an increase in their level of
responsibility and willingness to make changes in their beliefs. They also
recognized that they needed to be less self-conscious about their own work,
more accepting of criticism, and open to outside suggestions—more
evidence of their enhanced self-confidence.

156 Silvana Vacilotto and Rhoda Cummings

 Finally, results indicated that peer coaching increased student teachers’
awareness of their individual responsibility to review and revise what they
did in class, as well as of the benefits of working as a team to improve the
quality of their classes. Indeed, Lisa accredited to peer coaching the
recognition that her teaching practice not only has impacted her students,
but also the school as a whole.

Rethinking personal Journal entries reported the valuable insights that peer observation
teaching practices prompted in student teachers. However, they realized that just observing
their peers’ practice was not enough to cause rethinking of their own
teaching. It also was necessary for them to consciously attempt to
internalize the observed activities by noting the way they saw their peers
adapt them, and then actually applying them in their own classes. It was also
evident in the data that observers did not rethink their own teaching
methods and styles unless their personal practices and beliefs were
somehow impacted by what they observed. Such experiences, either positive

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or negative, caused them to be in that other teacher’s place for a brief
moment. That brief moment revealed their own flaws or brought new ideas
for how they could teach more effectively. The student teachers also
indicated that receiving feedback from peers about teaching had a powerful
influence on triggering reflection. Feedback involved communicating
weaknesses as well as pointing out strengths of teaching practice, and thus
helped peers see both gaps and positive aspects in their own lessons and
practices of which they were not previously aware. Although the observer’s
comments may have been a valuable tool to refine student teachers’ practice,
there was no agreement about exactly what constituted effective feedback.
Some participants thought that feedback was especially useful when it
pointed out negative aspects of their teaching, while others emphasized the
importance of providing constant positive feedback in combination with
negative information. Other peer coaching components also triggered
rethinking of student teachers’ teaching. For example, Erica’s interview
responses revealed that the experience of talking about their own practice,
either at the planning phase or during actual teaching, forced student
teachers to organize their ideas in ways that helped others to understand.
The assessment and reassessment of their own speech raised student
teachers’ levels of awareness about the inconsistencies of their practice,
leading them to rework their lesson plans. Student teachers further
discovered that reaching a consensus about what would bring better results
to their students demanded negotiating differences in the way they
conceived, planned, and taught their lessons. As a result, the dynamic
exercise of thinking and rethinking their ideas, in association with the
practical try-outs in class, caused student teachers to revise old principles
and adopt new ones.
The revision of old principles and adoption of new ones prompted teachers
to set up performance goals they wanted to focus on in their practice. At the
surface level, some student teachers reported goals such as planning to
focus on being more energetic and more interesting in class, or on
improving their organizational skills. Others focused on designing and
adapting materials to be used in team-teaching classes and developing
materials using task-based language teaching, both new experiences to

Peer coaching in TE F L programmes 157

 them. Another category of performance goals related to student teachers’
class management skills such as projecting their voice, using visuals more
frequently, and relying on the overhead projector more and writing on the
board less. Other much more ambitious goals related to development of self-
monitoring skills while actually teaching were revealed. Those goals
included being conscientious about how and to whom student teachers gave
verbal feedback, avoiding redundant and repetitive explanations, working
on giving a variety of verbal praise, and reducing teacher-talking time.

Peer coaching Issues such as peer support, sensitivity, companionship, flexibility, and
interaction sense of humour emerged as the most effective behaviours that supported
successful relationships between peers in the peer coaching programme.
Student teachers’ comments indicated that effective peer interactions
required a high level of care and personal investment in one another to be
successful. Peers had to carefully uncover and evaluate each other’s level of
interest, willingness to participate, and ability to receive criticism, among

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others.
Peer support, for example, was conveyed by respect that peers showed for
each other’s different points of view and feelings, by sharing one another’s
failures and concerns, and by encouraging each other to feel more confident
about their teaching. Peers also expressed their mutual support by sharing
successful moments and by openly recognizing each other’s good work. In
addition, student teachers’ responses indicated how sensitive they needed to
be when they gave feedback to peers, particularly when they pointed out
weaknesses. To avoid embarrassment or distress, it was essential that peers
used careful wording in their critical comments. Specifically, criticisms
tended to be presented as questions instead of statements. Use of a variety of
encouraging words also brought reassurance and established rapport
between student teachers at such crucial moments.
Disagreement was expected and occurred in the peer coaching interactions.
However, contrary to the researcher’s expectations, all but one of the student
teachers claimed that disagreement resulted in personal growth and
positive outcomes. The student teachers valued companionship, and
appreciated knowing others with whom they could share the teaching load,
concerns, responsibility, and nervousness. Finally, flexibility and open-
mindedness were the behaviours most highly valued by the student
teachers. Both interviews and journal entries reported student teachers’
willingness to change or alter previous ideas and flexibility in accepting
suggestions as instrumental for the success of the peer interactions.
Although not mentioned in the literature, student teachers in the present
study indicated that having a good sense of humour contributed to the
success of their peer relationships and promoted a nice atmosphere in their
meetings.

Conclusions and The results of this study support the peer coaching model as a useful
implications approach for facilitating the exchange of teaching methods and materials
among student teachers, fostering development of teaching skills,
stimulating the rethinking of personal teaching methods and styles, and
raising awareness of the most supportive behaviours in professional
relationships. However, in terms of finding out whether a peer coaching

158 Silvana Vacilotto and Rhoda Cummings

programme might possibly fit the needs of the BNCs and other language
institutes, the data presents two limitations. Because of their status as
graduate students, the participants of this study may have been more likely
to readily experiment with peer coaching. Teachers, in general, might
perceive their association with colleagues as a threat to the future of their
relationships at the workplace. Also, although student teachers were
unanimous in saying that peer coaching was time consuming, it was not
possible to determine whether it was the peer coaching or the team-teaching
component of the programme that caused such time issues. For these
reasons, an important area of future research should be the investigation of
the effectiveness of peer coaching in a real teaching setting, with
experienced teachers engaged in a full-time job.
In spite of these limitations, the results of this study may have several
positive applications within the context of language teaching. First, peer
coaching might provide teachers with the opportunity to experiment and
implement novel ideas and activities in their classes by sharing

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responsibilities with colleagues of the same status (Showers and Joyce
1996; Gottesman 2000). The constructive character of such collaboration
might promote much less stressful and more energizing professional
exchange among teachers, academic coordinators, and directors. Hence,
teachers might feel more comfortable engaging each other in conversations
about their practice and sharing their individual perceptions (Richards and
Lockhart 1996; Richards and Nunan 1990). In addition, as peer coaching
involves teachers in mutual observation of actions, reflection on the
observed actions, and description of the tacit knowledge implicit in these
actions (Schön 1988), teachers will be given the opportunity to ‘construct
their own knowledge, by observing others gain self-knowledge and self-
insight’ (Fanselow 1990: 184). This, in turn, might prepare teachers better
for supervisory visits that aim to make them accountable for the quality of
their classes.
Another advantage of using the peer coaching model is that it might
encourage teachers with varying degrees of skills to contribute to the
professional development of one another. Furthermore, peer coaching
might be used to add to the number of hours that traditional in-service
training programmes allocate for observation and practice of new methods,
approaches, and techniques, enabling teachers to establish associations
between the situations presented in training sessions and those they face in
actual classrooms. That way, teachers might continuously recycle and
enrich their active repertoire of teaching skills (Cosh 1999; Farrel 2001).
Also, through peer observation, both observers and observees may have the
opportunity to become aware of noted inconsistencies in their practice
(Wallace 1991) and to learn from reflecting on how their peers handle
complex situations (Schön 1988). Teachers also might share their expertise
and thus become more conscious of the methods and processes they employ
in their classrooms. Such reflective exercise, if constant and continuous,
might promote teachers’ competence in making informed decisions and
then assessing how those decisions impact their students’ learning. The
reflective exercise also might foster teachers’ analytical skills, enabling them
to critically assess educational theory and research (Pennington 1990).

Peer coaching in TE F L programmes 159

 Such an enriching process might enhance teachers’ self-confidence and
reduce the fear of having their personal theories of teaching challenged by
their colleagues.
In conclusion, because one of the main goals of academic directors at the
BNCs in Brazil, as well as at language institutes in general, is to improve the
level of excellence of their teaching staff, peer coaching might be considered
for implementation as an extra component within current teacher
development programmes. The collegial atmosphere, which is promoted by
peer coaching, might engage teachers in self-directed and self-evaluated
professional development.
Final revised version received February 2005

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development focus for the language teaching
practicum’in J. C. Richards and D. Nunan (eds.).
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The authors
Silvana Vacilotto got her MA degree in TE S L at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is
now a doctoral student in educational psychology at
the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research
interest is in interventions that promote the
development of higher-order thinking skills in pre-
service teachers.
Email: vacilott@unr.nevada.edu
Rhoda Cummings, EdD, is a professor of
Educational Psychology at the University of Nevada,
Reno. Her research interests are in the areas of
cognitive and moral development.
Email: cummings@unr.edu

160 Silvana Vacilotto and Rhoda Cummings