A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

9 
| Foundations
1.1 Successful teaching 
Paula will share with you a successful experience from her 
own classroom teaching as an example for the first task. 
“Some years ago I was teaching a large group of 
teenagers in a secondary school. I had to teach them 
countries and nationalities, which seemed a rather simple 
task, but it proved to be challenging for them. They not 
only struggled to remember the words for different 
countries and nationalities but also had problems 
remembering their pronunciation. I also had the difficulty 
of having only a few hours left before the end of the 
semester with one particular group so I had to come up 
with a solution fast. Then, I thought of creating a domino 
game consisting of countries on one side and nationalities 
on the other. Every time learners wanted to match a flag 
to a nationality, they had to say something like ‘She is from 
Spain. She is Spanish’, therefore it required a lot of 
repetition. After doing this game, I moved to a more 
communicative task, which they could perform more 
effectively. I was very pleased with the result. Not only did 
the students remember the vocabulary of the lesson and 
were able to move from a controlled practice type of task 
to a freer communicative task, they were also engaged.
I saw them taking notes and this showed me they were 
working hard, I heard them encouraging each other to 
pronounce the words correctly. I felt the activity really 
suited its purpose. I think that, for me, successful teaching 
is when students are engaged, participating actively, and 
when they make progress in their learning.”
Task 1.1 
Think about a recent successful experience / activity in 
your classroom. Go over it in your mind’s eye. Tell someone 
about it if possible.
How do you know it was successful? What did you see,
hear and feel that told you it was successful?
What does this tell you about the meaning of ‘successful 
teaching’ for you? 
For me, successful teaching is when
Commentary
By asking you to reflect about a successful situation, we are 
inviting you to recall and describe the different aspects that 
made this experience a positive one. This exercise can be 
valuable since you can later use some of these memories
to try to re-live this successful event or build new positive 
events from it. 
Keep in mind, that ‘success’ in teaching doesn’t just mean 
helping students perform better in tests. Success can also 
be defined in a number of ways which go beyond 
assessment and which can also be valid. If you ‘see’ students 
fully engaged and you ‘hear’ their opinions as they actively