Feedback from students. The university conducts evaluations for each course at the end of each semester as part of its Faculty Development (FD) program. Teachers will be expected to have students fill in these surveys towards the end of each semester. The coordinators of the IEP have developed supplemental questions that are specific to the objectives in the IEP.
However, the single most important part of the evaluation is the space for open-ended responses. This space is underutilized. Please encourage your students to write comments. You may even ask them to comment on a new activity you introduced in class. You might also ask them “What did you like best about the class?” or “What aspect(s) of the class would you change?”
The surveys are reviewed by the university administration and by the IEP coordinators. Then the survey results are sent to teachers so they can review the students’ comments and use them to improve their teaching.
Student evaluations are not used to decide whether to renew a teacher’s annual contract. However, in very rare cases—when there has been a consistent pattern of inadequate performance—they have been taken into consideration. Certainly, it is your responsibility to ensure that evaluations are done every semester and that you review them carefully.
Feedback from the administration. If a problem is identified with the program itself or with how a teacher is presenting the course content, we will either revise the curriculum as necessary or the IEP coordinators will make suggestions intended to improve the teacher’s effectiveness. While there may be a need for individual guidance in some cases, what we really expect is that teachers will already have the requisite competence, dedication, enthusiasm, and professionalism to be able to offer effective classes so that guidance from the administration can be kept to a minimum.
Feedback from teachers. Many of the best ideas in the IEP came from our teachers, or they were refinements of activities already in the curriculum guides. The Core Media Discussion task, for example, was steadily revised and improved over the years. We developed a grading scale, learned the value of repetition in carrying out the task (after filming Hamilton Armstrong’s classes), and another teacher in the program produced an instructional DVD to orient students and teachers on how to conduct the Media Discussion task. This shows the benefits of working together and teaching a consistent curriculum.
Nature of feedback arising from the course evaluations. The feedback that students give about their IE, Oral English, and “Senmon Kamoku” (special topic) classes has been overwhelmingly positive. Students show gratitude for their teachers’ hard work and generally express positive sentiments about the program and the tasks that are part of each of the courses. Whenever students have mentioned either Xreading or EnglishCentral (two online systems used in the program), they describe them as being useful and even fun…with comments such as the following:
* EnglishCentral was useful for me. I could enjoy it!
* I liked EnglishCentral because I could study many words and listening. I would like to improve my listening skills more.
Specific examples of feedback received (Spring 2022). Here is some of the rich feedback that students gave to their teachers after the Spring 2022 term. [All identifying information has been removed.]
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What I liked about this course was that I could have opportunities to communicate with other classmates.
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I had chance to use English. I could improve listening skill by listening to my teacher.
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There was lots of homework to hand in but trying to finish it by the deadline helped me to organize my thoughts. It was challenging but I realized it helped me a lot. For the Reading, I kind of struggled reading every week but now I found it fun after finding out there is the audiobook. Thank you for the classes this semester. it was a very exciting lesson. I always looked forward every Thursday because of this lesson.
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I could get a variety of skills during this class. I was so interested in attending the class. Personally speaking，all the presentations were exceedingly great! I guess these helped me improve.
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The interesting parts of IE class are book reports and Xreading. I like reading books and thinking about contents of books deeply. However，I had never read books in English, so I am happy to be given opportunities to read them in English. Furthermore， __________ always helped me when I was having trouble speaking in English with his kindness，and he gave me some tips to improve quality of my book report. Also, it is interesting for me to talk about books with him because he likes reading books as well as me. In addition to them，he made my IE class’s atmosphere better，so I can make many friends of mine easily. I want to study English harder than until now and improve my English speaking skill during summer vacation， and I will take next the IE class with confidence. I think that experiences in the first semester’s IE class are so memorable memories and will become a big part for my life.
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I had so much fun with my teacher and my classmates in Friday’s IE classes this semester. Introducing news reports，favorite cultural things, such as music, and travel plans were so amazing. I decided to keep communicating with my classmates in English so that I could improve my speaking ability.
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I learned the importance of having the courage to make a presentation in front of other students in English. Also， I learned if I don’t make sense of what others say in English, it’s important not to hesitate to ask them to tell me more clearly.
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I love that the lecture material is so original and unlike any of the other classes at Aogaku. Having guidance about what to read is very helpful in improving understanding about ________ literature. I hope to take __________’s class again. __________’s classes are always very creative and interactive，which is what I love about them. We’re always given the freedom to add our own twist to the assignments, as well as the opportunity to share with our peers and be stimulated by everyone’s fresh perspectives. There is nothing that I think should be improved about the class. To be honest，usually I never read a book, but this class was really interesting and it made me want to read more. I really liked the final presentation too. It taught me a lot of different perspectives. We had to read several pages sometimes even more，which enhanced our reading，and the topics were relevant to what we talked about daily. I think there were discoveries from readings as well. I thought that it was good to do quizzes because it made me read deeply and try to understand well.
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I learned how fun it is to communicate. Also，the class atmosphere was very good，and the teacher was always kind and helpful， which made me love English even more. The class progressed at a good speed and was very easy to understand. Teacher often helped me when I was struggling, which was a great help.
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Through your IE class，I could enjoy speaking English. Your, and my classmates’, reactions gave me a lot of confidence to speak English. Thanks to your tasks，we could speak more and now，we are really great friends. Your class gave me a big step to spend my colledge life with a lot of joy!!
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I liked that the teacher gave me comments back on my assigned English essays every time I wrote them. And peer editing was very valuable to me!
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Thanks to this class， I feel that I got better at speaking English fluently. Especially， media discussion improved all my skills. At first I thought it was difficult for me， but I really like it now. Thank you so much.
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The teacher’s feedback was very helpful for me because they not only showed me where to change and why I had to make changes but also had suggestions. If I could take this course again，I would like to improve my skills in how to search for sites with the information I want. I was able to know how to write essays and really enjoyed this course.
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We could help each other by using Google Document. It is helpful and useful for my writing skill. I can improve writing skills and write quicker.
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I liked that this course was very social and it was all about helping each other and improving at the same time. I loved the way he made the classmates interact with each other in every single class. I enjoyed doing quick chats and quick writes every time during class.
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The teacher advised us individually how to do presentations and how to improve doing them. Collaborating with others in the class to create a presentation was beneficial to me.
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I liked where all the works could be done in the computer and we gave feedbacks to each other. I also liked how you divided the work for each week because this little by little system worked out perfect for me. I’m not one who can schedule to do homeworks (I’m the one that tries to finish the homework the night before the due date) so it was nice to work on each part every week and not having to write the whole essay in one week. It gave me time to see rich informations and write so I think I was able to write a better essay than usual.
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I loved the media discussions! Everybody had something interesting to say and they really changed the way I look at things. Writing the book reports and doing the blogs also made me fall in love with writing.
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I firmly believe that this class was foundation-building for my fostering critical thinking and communicative skills along with assertiveness and compassionate listening which would serve me well in the future. I think that _________ is a great professor in promoting independence in students.
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…course notes are always written in detail，so I don’t have to panic. I wish every teacher did it like you!!!
