Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

cardboard and drawing or sticking in pictures. During the group task, English second
language (ESL) speakers within mixed groups spoke freely to each other in their mother
tongue.
John played a central, controlling and dominant role in the lesson. He dictated the nature
ofthe engagement with his pupils. Verbal exchanges were short, and limited to teacher­
pupil exchanges. Questions were predominantly ofthe type that required single word
responses or the simple recall ofinformation. Pupil activity entailed loosely structured
group work. John created few opportunities for pupils to engage in meaningful reading,
writing or speaking that would facilitate the understanding ofthe concepts he wanted to
teach.
The second observation ofone ofJohn's lessons, which took place eight months later,
revealed definite differences in his approach to teaching EMS. He had begun to ask more
questions relating to EMS concepts and to engage with learners' understandings in a
more comprehensive and meaningful way.
5.4.2 Observation ofJohn's teaching after nine months of TEMS involvement (23
October 2003)
5.4.2.1 A description of the lesson
In this lesson John planned to teach his class the economic concept 'demand' and the
construction ofsimple demand curves. He wanted pupils to be able to explain the
relationship between price and quantity demanded, and to analyse movements along the
demand curve for a normal consumer product.
Extract from second lesson observation report (23 October 2003):
John began the lesson by asking pupils to think back to the entrepreneurship day that the
school had held in the previous term. He asked pupils to try to recall what they had sold and
what they had charged for the items they sold. Most pupils seemed to remember and
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