Advantages of Co-Teaching, Especially for ESL Students

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Introduction Approaches to teaching English language for foreign speakers have undergone drastic changes through the last fifty years. There has been a transition from traditional methods such as grammar translation method to audio-lingual and more recently to communicative approach and eclectic method. In modern approaches to teaching English as a second language (ESL) the emphasis is on cooperation and collaboration of language learners through the process of language acquisition. Language materials are designed in a way to facilitate and encourage active participation of the learners and in fact they call for cooperation and collaboration between teachers and students. This new approach demands the teachers to adopt new strategies which are more collaborative in nature. Therefore, the traditional practice of learning to teach in isolation may no longer serve as the best vehicle for providing an effective environment in which all participants of the activity can engage in productive practices. An alternative approach could be the development of team-teaching model in which two teachers work collaboratively side by side in the same classroom and try to assist students along the process of language learning by establishing a model of close partnership. This will in turn encourage students to form their own partners and groups and engage actively in meaningful practices. Team-teaching also provides an invaluable opportunity for teachers to develop their own professional capabilities, since they are in constant position of observing and learning from each other. These ideas motivated me to put this model in actual practice and analyze the outcomes to see if I can apply this model in my own language institute. Therefore, the purpo... ... middle of paper ... ...ical aspects of the research, because over the years I have been able to earn the trust of my colleagues by establishing a collegial environment within the institute. Therefore, I assume I can easily reach out to all the teachers and have their cooperation secured for the purpose of this research. Conclusion Through this research I try to explore the effect of this model of teaching on teachers’ professional development. Therefore, I will consider team-teaching from qualitative perspective using the analysis of the data collected through the observations, interviews, and etc. Finally I hope that through implication of this research we can find a better way of delivering our language teaching service in a more effective way and at the same time I hope that we can provide our teachers with an opportunity to enhance their professional development within our institute.

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