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INTERNATIONAL BLACK SEA UNIVERSITY FACULTY of EDUCATION AND HUMANITIES PhD PROGRAM in EDUCATION SCIENCES Using Peer Coaching to Improve Teaching Performance of Novice English Language Teachers Abdurrahman KOCA Extended Abstract of Doctoral Dissertation in Education Sciences Tbilisi, 2016 1 Scientific Supervisor: Irina BAKHTADZE (Professor, Doctor, at International Black Sea University) (full name) (academic title) ____________________________________________ (supervisor’s signature) Experts (full name & academic title): 1.
Assoc.

Prof. Dr. Lia Todua 2.

Assoc.

Prof. Dr. Nino Tvaltchrelidze Opponents (full name & academic title): 1.

Prof. Dr. Knodel Ludmila 2.

Assoc.

Prof. Dr. Marina Zoranyan 3.

Assoc.


Prof. Dr. Irma Barbakadze 2 INTRODUCTION Over the last twenty years, a very large number of educators, researchers (Yoon et al, 2007; Bush, 1984; Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Ermeling, 2010; Joyce and Showers, 1982) have come to the conclusion that the traditional methods, workshops and conferences for the teacher development are ineffective for novice teachers, inadequate, time and money consuming.
Teachers say that traditional development methods do not offer permanent and long-term opportunities for them to change their classroom practice.

Farrell (2005) says that in the United States more and more schools are replacing the traditional staff development methods with school based staff developers.
Researchers have noticed that workshops that involve most traditional staff development methodologies do not give adequate time, exercises, or content important to advance significant change (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman & Yoon, 2011).

A study by Joyce & Showers (1996) shows that less than 15% of instructors acquire new thoughts learned in conventional staff advancement settings, for example, workshops.
The problem with traditional systems is that teachers do not have the required abilities to apply in the classroom what they learn during workshops.

On the other hand, while applying the techniques they learned, they have no opportunity to get necessary help or assistance from experts, or get any feedback.

A study says that teachers need to see new methods shown them in classroom setting (Garet, et al., 2001).
Over many years, researchers have considered the impacts of traditional teacher development methods and the findings they discovered were really conformable.

An article by Alexander Russo (2004) summarized for us these findings.

“To be effective, scores of researchers say, professional development must be ongoing, deeply embedded in teachers' classroom work with children, specific to grade levels or academic content, and focused on research-based approaches.
It also must help to open classroom doors and create more collaboration and sense of community among teachers in a school.” (p.2) Russo suggested that effective teacher development method must not be isolated from classroom setting and must be ongoing.

3 Another problem is that many researches claim that beginning teachers struggle with many different problems in schools.
“New teachers are particularly unprepared for dealing with behavior problems in their classrooms,” (p.3) says the study on the problems of novice teachers (Melnick & Meister, 2008).

According to Fry (2007) beginning teachers say that their pre- service education was not much help for their real experiences in the classroom setting.

“A bigger bag of classroom management tricks would have been helpful,”(p.225) tells a starter teacher (Fry, 2007).
And beginning teachers are complaining about the lack of support by their colleagues and superiors.

It has been identified in a study that novice teachers find the support they get on their first year as ‘poor’ (Hover &Yaeger, 2004).

More than anything else, beginning teachers often appear to have in need for (yet seldom get) helpful feedback on their teaching from experienced colleagues and administrators (Fry, 2007; McCormack, Gore, & Thomas, 2006).
All above said confirms the significance of the research topic.
The problem statement: Most traditional staff development methodologies, due to existed limitations, fail to advance significant change in raising qualification of the novice teachers; the lack of support for teachers from their administrators and colleagues raises the necessity of applying new approaches, namely a method of school-based peer coaching method which is founded on equal partnership of coach-coachee who wish to exchange and enrich the existed knowledge and experience.
The objective of the present thesis is to examine the effectiveness of peer coaching method on classroom practices of English language novice teachers.

The thesis aims to answer the following research questions: • Does the peer coaching method sustain the development of teaching skills among novice teachers?

• Does English language novice teachers’ peer coaching positively affect their classroom performances?
• Does the peer coaching method for English language novice teachers alter the students’ success in the English language?

4 The hypothesis of the study was: Novice teachers generally have problems with application of theoretically learned knowledge (methodology, classroom management, etc.)

and they get not enough support in their first years in teaching.
To sort these problems out and positively alter the teaching performance of English language novice teachers, it is necessary to: • develop teachers’ knowledge in their own fields • create opportunities for collegial support • create friendly and safe atmosphere among teachers.
Peer Coaching method has many advantages in compare with other teacher training methods because not only it proves to be effective way of achieving excellence for teachers but also improves students’ learning process and enhances their achievements.

If teachers were given the full opportunity to be involved into peer coaching, they would perform all their classroom functions more effectively.
The methods of research in the dissertation were: • review and analysis of existing literature on the topic • questionnaire • experiment • statistical analysis of obtained through questionnaire surveys and experiment data • interviews • observations Thus, the method of the research was mixed, both qualitative and quantitative.
Novelty The evidence obtained during the experiment leads to original conclusions considering peer coaching method as the most up-dated, original, cost effective, long lasting, efficient and both- teacher and student –oriented approach, where the students respectively have enhanced learning within the shorter period of time, compared with the effect of other cases when English teachers are exposed to other methods of training.
Based on the literature analysis, a modified and more detailed model of peer coaching method was developed in this research.

This research on the effectiveness of peer coaching model for English language novice teachers is new in Turkey.
5 Theoretical Value The theoretical value of the dissertation deals with the analysis and systematization of the existing theories of peer coaching and its affect on the performance of teachers, and offering an effective model to alter the teaching performance of novice teachers.
The theoretical bases of my research are as follows: • The analysis and comparison of various definitions and models of Peer coaching (Cox, Bachkirova and Clutterbuck, 2014; Wong, and Nicotera, 2003; Parker, Hall and Kram, 2008; Joyce and Showers, 1980; Renner, 2015) • Comparison of peer coaching to other traditional teacher development methods based on qualitative and quantitative analysis (Bowman and McCormick, 2000; Harris, and Watanabe, 1991; Joyce and Showers, 1996) • Developing individual model for Peer coaching leading to effective implementation of the coaching process (Bowman and McCormick, 2000; Joyce and Showers 1996; Vella, Crowe, and Oades, 2013) Practical Value Some practical recommendations on how to achieve the classroom effectiveness of English language novice teachers with the help of peer coaching model will, hopefully, raise interest among school administrators and leaders, also among researchers and practicing teachers.
Structure of dissertation The dissertation is composed of the following parts: Introduction, three chapters, conclusions, and appendices.

Limitations of the research The limitations of the study deal with the number of English language novice teachers who participated in it, the duration of the study, the fact that the experiment was held only in one country, at only two schools and the absence of the control group.
6 CHAPTER ONE: TRADITIONAL TEACHER DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING AS ONE OF THE EFFECTIVE METHODS OF TEACHERS’ TRAINING: DEFINITIONS AND PROBLEM HISTORY In this chapter, following issues will be dealt with: definition of peer coaching, traditional forms of peer coaching, advantages and disadvantages of peer coaching, psychological aspects of peer coaching and types of coaching.

What is Peer Coaching?

Peer coaching is a procedure through which teachers help each other to augment their abilities.
Peer coaching framework empowers educators to learn necessary abilities and techniques, for example, aptitudes with respect to innovation and instructional systems or strategies etc., which need to consolidate in improving efficiency of teachers.

Diverse sorts of aids can be given through Peer coaching which incorporate co-arranging learning exercises, displaying successful instructing, watching partners, teaching, and reflecting what they observe (Zepeda et al., 2013).
Peer coaching support progressing teachers' cooperation, which concentrates on improvement of students’ learning.

It offers educators learning in regards to classroom efficiencies through which they can enhance learning of students and teachers.

Furthermore, it also supports steady development and innovation of schools.
Peer coaching has many advantages and its main features are: • Trust: It is the most important aspect because if there is no trust in a partnership, you can not get the best outcomes and to be able to open up to your coachee you need to have a proper trust-based relationship.

• Private/Personal: It is important that whatever has been shared among the two in peer coaching should remain between them and the data should not be disclosed.
• Reassuring: A coach should be very supportive towards the coachee and try to fit in his/her shoes.

The coach should be able to admire coachees’ achievement but on the other hand, should be able to show concern or anxiety.

• Reciprocate the gesture: If one person in peer coaching is training another for a certain period of time, the other person should also take the initiative to teach that person for the same amount of time.

This is the way to achieve equality between the partners.
7 • Mutual benefits: Both coach and coachee learn a great deal from one another through coaching seminars.

• Active listening: Coachee is going to speak a lot about his/her experiences.

For a good coach, the most important thing is to be a good listener without judging that person and keep in mind that PC is not an evaluation but a learning tool that promotes shared learning.
• Reflecting upon the session: An important job for the coach is to mirror whatever has been concluded or discussed during the session.

Basically, the coach summarizes the whole meeting and puts forward his observations regarding that matter.

The coach is only opening up the options for the coachee.

• Not a mentor: A peer coach is nor a mentor or an advisor on the relevant subject neither does he entertain the sentences such as, I have been doing it or I have great experience and I’ll be helping you out.
Emphasizing priority negatively affects on the process as well as on the results of the coaching.

• Choosing proper attitude and proper tone is very important.

There is a difference between a coach and a friend.

Although a novice teacher is going to talk about your struggles and thoughts but the coach on the other hand is going to listen to more attentively and in return he is not going to give you any advices.
Rather, he would create a self-learning environment in which all the peers ponder upon the existing practices themselves and reflect upon the ways in which those practices could be improved.

• Peer coaching is not about teaching coach’s area of expertise like monitoring about health issues, managing finances, incorporating budgets.

• Peer teaching should not be mixed with counseling.
Peer coaching is applicable to those who are interested in bringing up change and getting closer to their professional and personal targets.

On the other hand counseling is about those people who seek advice for their problems.

As per Renner (2015) claims, it has been depicted that Peer coaching included proficient and expert mentors who help educators in their learning (Renner, 2015).
Educators learn, get trained and share experience from Peer coaching which encourage them to apply joint effort and determine their teaching pointed issues.

They likewise improve the relational abilities of companions, which assume basic part in building trust for educators.

Besides, use of every single procured aptitude and capacities get additionally taught by mentors (Parker et al., 2014).
8 Generally schools use to embrace this methodology of Peer coaching as it empowers instructors to get educated and improve their skills successfully which furthermore urge them to instruct such coordinated effort aptitudes by supporting one another (idea not clear!).

According to Goldman, Wesner, and Karnchanomai, (2013) Peer coaching upgrades performance of the people which encourage them in their learning process.
Also, in Peer coaching method mentors figure out how to make such cooperative environment, which urges educators to learn.

(Goldman et al., 2013).

Peer coaching is a viable methodology, which has been embraced by top performing schools of the world.

Educational institutes use to embrace this methodology keeping in mind the end goal to be more powerful.

This is proficient learning framework, which places thoughts into practice.

It is procedure, which empowers educators to gain from one another.
Educators give time, bolster, watch and impart their routines or encounters to one another (Cox et al., 2014).

Through this viable communitarian way, educators perform the act of Peer coaching.

Besides, According to Parker et al (2014) it has been portrayed that each great educator needs great instructors.

As indicated by Charteris and Smardon, (2014) Professional adapting requirements for schools can likewise be accomplished through peer coaching approach (Charteris and Smardon, 2014).
According to Nolan Jr. and Hoover (2011) Old methods which were utilized for upgrading educator's abilities and aptitudes incorporate instructional meetings, workshops, courses, gatherings and other activities.

However, peer coaching is generally new and the best method among them which enhances instructor's aptitudes in least time and cost (Nolan Jr. and Hoover, 2011).
Method of Peer coaching has wide range of advantages, which significantly incorporates no drawn out stretch of time for preparing, and no tremendous expense as workshops and classes.

To begin with, phase of Peer coaching methodology alludes to joint effort.

Educators collaborate with their mentor keeping in mind the end goal to recognize drilling needs and requests.
According to Chu, (2014), Peer guiding energizes progressing joint effort framework and concentrates on enhancing learning at more extensive connection.

It improves learning of instructors which straightforwardly affects on learning of students (Chu, 2014).

Consequently, to ensure the sheltered and propelled scholastic atmosphere for the students, different schools use to adopt diverse preparing and learning frameworks, which improve learning of educators.
Educators learning offer schools in adding to their capacities for more experts’ assistance with 9 learning.

As according to Thiessen, (2012) it has been identified that each school, which has consolidated Peer coaching methodology, has seen controlled at all levels through their school development process (Thiessen, 2012).

Peer coaching has been characterized in different ways.
Parker et al., (2015) propose that there is a lot of confusion regarding the idea of coaching and mentoring, and different associations, which are interested in the methodology, try to see its different aspects and interpret it in a number of ways.

Their examination concerning 13 distinctive formative connections proposes that a percentage of the key attributes of peer coaching are giving input, helping, supporting, is for lateral and has bi-directional purposes (Parker et al., 2015).
According to Bowman and McCormick, (2000) there are some central standards of peer coaching.

Peer coaching acts as an helpful, now and again proportional, relationship between two individuals who cooperate to set objectives and accomplish them.

The term defines a learning relationship, where the members are interested in new learning; they get together for learning from experts (Bowman and McCormick, 2000).
This approach focused on encouraging one another's leadership learning advancement and wellbeing where "dialog is the substance of coaching and the simultaneous change of practice.

Showers and Joyce (1996) use to remove verbal input from their coaching structure as they found that when the educators in their setting attempted to give one another feedback the coordinated effort between the associations regularly given way as the instructors felt their practice was being criticized (Zwart et al., 2007).
Furthermore, input that contains productive feedback for instance can be useful and warrants further examination.

Healthy feedback always welcomes coaching.

Two other key segments of peer coaching which must be recognized and examined are trust and reflection.

The significance of constructing a peer coaching relationship in light of trust is obviously distinguished in previous studies.

Another critical element of peer coaching is reflection.
Vacilotto and Cummings, (2007) recommends that training is characteristically an intelligent attempt, and all the members should be talented in reflection.

Reflective practice along these lines should be obvious in any peer coaching.

Furthermore, reflection should positively be a vital aptitude for any teacher (Vacilotto and Cummings, 2007).
10 History of Peer Coaching Starting in the middle of 1950s, national developments to enhance training concentrated on scholastic quality and social fairness started and by the mid of 1970s, instructors perceived that a hefty portion of those endeavors, when all around supported and affirmed by general society, at times prompted changes.
The absence of examination on how individuals learn showing systems and how schools effectively scatter advancements added to our disappointments (Farrell Buzbee Little, 2005).

Instructors accepted that educators could learn new procedures, come back to a school, and perform their new adapting easily and fittingly.

The association of the schools did not bolster the escalated preparing endeavors that happened in summer organizations or workshops amid the year.
Afterwards, in the era of 1980-1987, it is been started to trust that adjustments in the school association and in training outline could take care of performance issues or simplify them significantly, and that doling out the fault to instructors was incorrect.

In the result of working by associates in schools and colleges, comprehension of how individuals learn new practices and place them into practice has consistently been developed.
The training parts examined in that early work developed from what have been found in the early writings and it includes hypothesis presentation, displaying or exhibition, practice, organized and open-finished input, and in-class assistance with exchange (Wong and Nicotera, 2003).

In ahead of schedule phases of preparing of educators, diverse universities and schools have been built up which use to upgrade instructors aptitudes and capacities through showing them (Lowenhaupt et al., 2014).
After the improvement of 50% of 19-century universities, financial crises hits, Number of universities for training and educating men were closed because of their high cost, however ladies arrangements were less affected because of the financial downturn.

After that period number of uncertified instructors were started to surpass which made a dangerous circumstance for future eras (Gottesman, 2000).
Renner, (2015) distinguished that Teachers preparing were motivated to achieve learning through diverse ways.

Indeed, even now, assortments of systems used to be received by schools for enhancing the abilities and learning of their instructors.

These procedures or strategies incorporate training and improvement, instruction, workshops, courses, classroom learning, gatherings, peer coaching and so forth (Renner, 2015).
Distinctive training methods incorporates 11 conceptualizing, games, lecturers and organized demonstrations, group discussions, role play, ice breaker, field trips, meetings, fish bowl, contextual investigations, panels, basic episodes, micro teaching and peer coaching.

Icebreaker alludes towards such preparing project, which includes dynamic part of each member.
Non-aggressive environment of this type of training puts least weight on members, furthermore makes a solid bond in the middle of coach and member.

Distinctive schools and educators have received this procedure for improving the efficiency of their staff (Boyle et al., 2012).

Various staff advancement practices are called "coaching."
These incorporate "specialized coaching," "collegial coaching," "challenge coaching," "group coaching," "subjective coaching," and "peer coaching” to allude to the conventional supervisory method of pre-meeting or post- gathering.

None of these ought to be mistaken for, or utilized for, assessment of educators (Lu, 2010).
Specialized coaching, group coaching, and peer coaching as in peer clinical supervision, concentrate on advancements in educational modules and guideline while collegial coaching and subjective coaching point more at enhancing existing practices (Gattellari et al., 2005).

All with the exception of group coaching contrast from our practice, in that their essential vehicle for enhancing or changing classroom guideline is verbal input.
CHAPTER TWO: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF COACHES AND COACHEES IN CREATING EFFECTIVE ATMOSPHERE FOR PEER COACHING Responsibilities of a coach If coach hopes to be fruitful at offering another instructor some assistance with improving student knowledge and skills, the coach needs an unmistakable thought of what parts he or she will play before starting training.

The following list of potential parts a coach may play is broad, however a modest bunch is critical.
Coaches help learners by: • Coach provides just in time resources or training Learners might need their coach to offer them some assistance with finding an incredible asset for a learning action they are arranging.

For instance, they may require an asset for an action that 12 requests that students how protect a rainforest.
Alternately they might need a touch of preparing on the most proficient method to set up a SkyDrive so their students can all the more effortlessly work together on a forest preservation venture with students in others nations (Wageman, 2014).

• Co-planning learning exercises Instructors who work together with coaches frequently need to take a seat for additional in detailed planning.
They might need a coach's help with changing a current movement on safeguarding woods to underline critical thinking, to draw in understudies in surveying their own particular work, to recast the action so it has all the more intending to the student' lives outside of school, or to utilize innovation so the understudies can impart their work to the group and get input (Crane and Patrick, 2014).
• Modeling or group instructing to exhibit powerful instructing Instructors who work with coaches regularly say this is the best type of coaching.

To see solid educating in practice, the instructor might watch the coach instruct, or the coach and educator might team teach.

Demonstrating is more than simply appearing.

Commonly the educator and coach might meet before the classroom visit to characterize what they will be concentrating on in the classroom and in their talk after this perception.
The reflection after the perception gives the instructor and coach a chance to talk about what happened, how the working together educator may receive these thoughts, and what sort of backing the educator may require from the coach as they embrace this practice.

• Observing educators and considering what they observed In the relationship of coaching, after trust is set up, educators will request that their coach watch them in their classrooms.
In the reflection that takes after the perception, it is essential to characterize what worked and why it worked so as to examine how the instructor could utilize what functioned in different.

This procedure of perception and reflection is the best type of developmental appraisal for teachers.

It is their key to deep-rooted learning.

These reflections additionally incorporate what the educator being watched may do another way next time.
This procedure of perception and reflection is the best type of developmental evaluation for teachers (Rich, 2015).

13 • Playing no part in instructor assessment.

As we will see in the blink of an eye, coaching lies completely on building a relationship of trust between the coach and the educators who work together with the coach.

Nothing would demolish trust speedier than having coaches assess their companions.
A New Yorker article on coaching truly puts the coach's part in context: "The faithfulness of coaches is to the general population they work with: their prosperity relies on upon it".

Peer Coaches rapidly get a handle on the parts they have to play, however before coach start coaching, they need some comprehension of the earth they will be working in (Landsberg, 2015).

Responsibilities of a coachee The first responsibility of a coachee is to listen actively.
Listening actively would require the coachee to perform a two-way communication between the teacher and the student.

Active communication involves using up more time as the student often repeats the teacher’s instruction to solidify the understanding of the concept.

However knowledge that is generated out of interactions using active communication tends to be embedded more strongly into the memories of the students as compared to knowledge generated out of passive listening.
Furthermore because of the two-way nature of the active listening the coach can assess the position of the class more easily if the students employ active listening (Rapp et al., 2016).

In order to be an active listener, the coachee must also be honest about two things.

The first responsibility is being their ability to grasp the concepts and the second being the ability of the teacher to deliver him the knowledge.
Failure to be honest in about any one of these subjects would lead to a communication barrier between the two parties, which would severely hamper knowledge transfer between the coach and the coachee.

The second responsibility of the coachee is to respect his peer coach.

This is important because the effectiveness of a lesson depends a lot on the coach’s respect in the eyes of the teacher.

The level of attentiveness of a coachee is directly proportional to the respect that a student gives to his teacher.
Though establishing respect is part of a coach’s responsibility, the origin of the respect is always the coachee (Rathwell et al., 2012).

Murray et al., (2013) describes another responsibility of the coachee is to practice.

Not only should he be practicing, but rather he should be doing guided practice.

A guided practice is 14 superior to normal practice in the sense that it focuses on the weak areas of the student and hence allows him to learn more in a short period of time.
The practice must remain consistent in order to instill that skill well into the trainee.

Furthermore, only half of the practice lies in the act of practicing.

The rest half involves self- critical reflection of one’s skill.

The aim of this responsibility to reflect is to reduce the burden on the trainer.
Once the student develops detached critical self-assessment they would aid the trainee by improving the obvious flaws in one’s self-leaving the trainee of polishing the finer details (Murray et al., 2013).

Another responsibility of the student is to focus.

The focus should be of two types.

The first is focus in each individual lesson and the second is focuses on all lessons towards achieving a goal.

In the first type of focus the coachee must ensure that he focuses on one problem at a time.
This would ensure that the knowledge and skill that he has to take in do not overwhelm the coachee.

Furthermore all of his lessons must be focused towards having the ability to generate certain results that the trainee aims to generate.

The result of a focused learning should be judged by the accuracy with which the student can solve problems that he is trained to solve.
The more accurate that he is in his assessment and solution to the problem, the more focused was his learning, the higher his quality of training.

Peterson, (2015) defines another responsibility of the coachee is to stay self-managed.

The art of self-management lies in persistent and highly disciplined effort regardless of external rewards or punishments.

The self-management happens at two stages in the training.

The first is while the training is going on.


This involves making sure that the current skills being mastered are learnt properly.

In the second stage the student follow through on what was taught to them and keep learning new concepts regarding a skill long after the training has ended.

Coachees who fulfill this responsibility ensure continuous growth if their skills throughout their career (Peterson, 2015).

In chapter 2, a model of peer coaching method is suggested.
15 CHAPTER THREE: THE ANALYSIS OF THE STUDY DEALING WITH THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PEER COACHING FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE NOVICE TEACHERS The study involves several researches: • Survey concerning the effectiveness of traditional teacher development techniques • Survey concerning the need for peer coaching method • Experiment on peer coaching method (experiment itself, with pre-coaching – coaching – post-coaching stages, also with questionnaires measuring the effectiveness of English Language novice teachers before and after the experiment) The first research was necessary in order to decide if the traditional teacher training methods, i.e.
workshops or seminars, are effective or not.

The second research was necessary to show that novice teachers are in need of peer coaching method.

Thus, these studies lead me to the main one, which had to test the hypothesis of the dissertation.

The survey result concerning the effectiveness of traditional teacher development techniques showed that among the teachers in Feza educational institutions, traditional teacher training methods are popular.
More than half of the participant teachers had attended at least five teacher- training programs before the survey.

Only ten percent of the teachers did not attend any training programs.

Twenty percent of the participant teachers think that these programs had no affect on their teaching performance.

Forty five percent think that the effect was very little where the other thirty percent think that it was in normal level.
Fifty percent of the participants think that these programs gave them different ideas and techniques to use, but seventy five percent of the participants think that they had difficulties about applying what they have learned.

This shows that teachers can get new ideas and techniques in the traditional training programs but they face great challenges applying them in the classroom setting.
Thirty percent of the participant teachers think that traditional methods changed none of their ineffective classroom behaviors.

Forty five percent of the participants think that traditional methods are not effective enough as they should be more practical.

However limited in the number of respondents and geography, the research reveals results analogous to other researches, thus, can be viewed as trustworthy enough.

Traditional teacher training methods, i.e.


seminars, workshops, conferences etc., are somehow popular among teachers in Feza educational institutions but teachers are not satisfied with the result of these 16 methods.

Teachers think they can learn new techniques and ideas from those programs but while applying these techniques in the classroom, they suffer from lack of support.

That is why they are in need of some other methods.
The survey results concerning the need for peer coaching method showed that about sixty percent of novice teachers think that university education put too much emphasis on the theory and philosophy, where about thirty percent think it struck the right balance between theory and practice.

Only one teacher thinks that university education puts too much emphasis on handling the practical challenges of teaching.

About forty percent of participant teachers think that they were somewhat unprepared for teaching.
This shows that novice teachers are in great need for classroom practices.

The survey also showed that novice teachers get not enough support from their colleagues or school administration.

Forty five percent of the participant teachers rated the support that they got from other teachers or school administration in creating strong lesson plans and teaching techniques as ‘poor’.
Forty percent of the participants rated the support they got from other teachers or school administration in working with special needs students as ‘poor’.

As the questionnaire was applied to one group of novice teachers from Feza educational institutions in Samsun, Turkey, it only shows the tendency, but cannot describe the situation on a wide scale.
What this research shows that the novice teachers in Feza educational institutions are in need of support in their classroom practices and the correct application of peer coaching method can help them.

The goal of this experimental study was to find out effectiveness of peer coaching method on the classroom practices of English language novice teachers.

Correspondingly, three research questions were asked: 1.

Does the peer coaching method sustain the development of teaching skills among novice teachers?
2.

Does English language novice teachers’ peer coaching positively effect on their classroom performances?

3.

Does the peer coaching method for English language novice teachers alter the students’ success in English language?

17 To answer the first and second questions, a questionnaire, that helped me gain a better understanding of the kinds of things that create difficulties for teachers in their school activities, was used.
It is Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001.

Three moderately correlated factors have been consistently found in the TSES.

These are teachers' efficacy in: Student Engagement, Instructional Practices, and Classroom Management.

The questionnaire was held before and after the experiment to see if there is any change in teachers’ effectiveness.

It comprised 24 questions to understand the problems of teachers in school activities.
The questions were asked in Likert scale format, 1 (nothing) to 9 (a great deal).

To measure the effectiveness of the teachers in students’ perspective, another questionnaire was applied to 40 students from different classes in the same schools that peer coaching has occurred.

It is TEBS (Teacher evaluation by students survey) survey.

Students were applied the questionnaire before and after the study to see if there was any change in their teachers.
The questionnaire comprised 15 questions and was asked in Likert scale format, 1 (nothing) to 9 (a great deal).

To answer the third question, the students were tested for their English language skills.

Experiment group and control group were created from 16 students in each group.

All 32 students were from 5th grades and were chosen randomly.

Students in experiment group were chosen from classes where peer-coaching study was applied.
To provide reliability of the results, the tests used in both groups were the same.

Both groups were tested at the same time, before and after the experiment.

The test was English level assessment test by Macmillan.

At the end of the study, the average results in both groups were compared, to see, whether the experimental group did better than the control group.

The setting for this study was Feza Educational Institutions in Samsun, Turkey.
The experiment took place in 2 different schools, Feza College and Feza Berk College.

At the time of this study, schools had racially and economically diverse students population of approximately 1000 in grades five through twelve.

The schools had about 130 actively working teachers and supporting staff.

The participants for this study were 16 English teachers from Feza educational institutions in Samsun, Turkey.

Eight of them were coaches (mentors) and other eight were coachees.
Coachees 18 were novice (beginning) teachers who had less than two years experiences in English language teaching (ELT).

Five of the coachees had seven months experience and other three had about one and half year.

Four of them were males and other four were females and the ages were between 22 and 24.

The coaches (mentors) had more than 8 years experiences in English language teaching.
Two of them had MA degree in ELT, 1 had CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate and one had DELTA (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) diploma.

All sixteen participant teachers were volunteered to participate in the study.

The study was conducted in March, April, May and June 2015, during 12 weeks – 53 school days.

The administrative permissions were taken and the study was fully supported by the school administration and the staff.
Each group (a coach and a coachee) had about 18 classes (40 minutes each).

The coachees were teaching and the coaches were observing and vice versa.

After each lesson, they were having a feedback session of about five minutes.

They were discussing the weaknesses and appreciating the strengths they observed.

They were talking about the possible solutions if they observed some ineffective behaviors.

They were doing this in-group and/or between groups sometimes.
The total number of the lessons was 147 with 24 different classes and 437 different students from grades five to eleven.

Thus, the three questions, asked in the research were answered: • Peer coaching method sustained the development of teaching skills among novice teachers.

(TSES -71%- and TEBS -60%- survey results proved the significant success) • Peer coaching positively affects English language novice teachers’ classroom performances.
(TSES -71%- and TEBS -60%- survey results proved the significant success) • The language test results in the experimental group increased significantly (31,3%) compared to the test results in the control group (12%).

The hypothesis (at least for these groups of teachers and students) was confirmed.

19 Conclusions and Recommendations 1.

Professional development generally means an ongoing opportunity to learn new skills.
Effective professional development is seen considerably important for educational institutions for their success.

But these traditional methods are being criticized by many educators for their high cost, ineffectiveness, for being time consuming and having the low rate of success at the end.

2.

Most of the teachers experience only traditional teacher training methods, i.e.

workshops.
workshops.

Short, one-shot workshops or seminars often do not change practices of teachers and do not have effect on student achievement.

3.

The reason why traditional professional development methods are ineffective for novice teachers is that they do not support teachers in the process of teaching.

Even experienced teachers are having difficulties with applying new instructional technique at first.
In fact, according to Joyce and Showers (2002) it takes, on average, 20 practices of new skills before a teacher has mastered a new skill.

This number increases along with the complication of the skill.

4.

In order to change practices of teachers, professional development should be ongoing and should occur over time.

Teachers need to see new methods shown them in classroom setting.

If not, during the stage of implementing new skills, it is almost certain that it is going to meet with failure.
Without support, it is questionable that teachers will persist with the newly learned skill in this phase.

5.

It is better to deliver professional development in the subject area of teachers.

The newly learnt method can be acquired more easily when the teacher development method targets the specific skills in the setting that they will use them.

This has been seen to improve both teacher practice and student learning.

6.
6.

Effective professional learning communities can affect practices of teachers and increase the achievement of students.

In addition, with strong professional communities, student achievement can go higher in schools where collective responsibility, partnership and collegiality among teachers are advanced 7.

Peer coaching approach is a procedure through which educators give their help to each other.
They give their skill, criticisms, guidance and support to each other while keeping in mind the end goal of making themselves better.

Teachers help each other by providing 20 time, support, guidance, feedback and sharing the pros and cons of different methods, activities, skills or their experiences.

8.

Educational institutions use this approach in order to become more capable and successful.
This is such a professional learning system that puts ideas into practice and helps in the production of new ideas.

9.
Researches say and through this study it has also been proved that peer coaching improves some key skills of teachers, which include: • Establishing trust • Developing confidence • Questioning for understanding • Prompt action • Reflection and learning • Developing confidence • Leadership skills • Coaching skills • Problem solving skills • Capacity to address issues adequately • Capacity to give viable and particular input • Skills for communication • Capacity to appreciate and welcome others • Listening abilities 10.
Based on the above and literature analysis, a model of peer coaching method was suggested as one of the most effective, which demonstrated steady results and established a reputation of a reliable method in the long run.

Three main stages 1.

Pre-coaching 2.

Coaching 3.

Post-coaching make peer coaching method the most widely and effectively applicable by a large number of institutions and professionals.

21 I. Pre- Coaching Stage Peer Coaching III.

Post- Coaching Stage II.

Coaching Stage 11.


This model was assessed through questionnaires and experiment, which supported the hypothesis that following this model brings highly beneficial results, both for novice English language teachers and students in Feza educational institutions in Samsun, Turkey.

The application of this method can be recommended for other schools, universities not only in Turkey, but also in other countries.
Of course, additional researches might be necessary to fit the suggested model to each particular case.

12.

This model was assessed through questionnaires and experiment, which supported the hypothesis that following this model brings to highly beneficial results, both for novice English language teachers and students in Feza educational institutions in Samsun, Turkey.

The application of this method can be recommended for other schools, universities not only in Turkey, but also in other countries.
Of course, additional research might be necessary to fit the suggested model to each particular case.

22 List of publications: Koça, A.

(2016).

Effectiveness of peer coaching method to improve performance of English teaching (novice language teachers, case of Feza educational institutions, Samsun, Turkey).

Proceeding of 6th International Research Conference on Education, Language and Literature, Tbilisi / Georgia.

p. 410 – 420 Koça, A.

(2016).

Problems of novice teachers: challenges vs. support.
Journal of education in black sea region – Volume 1, Issue 2, p. 92 – 101 Koça, A.

(2016).

The benefits of peer coaching for teachers’ classroom effectiveness (case of international light college, madagascar).

Advance Research Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Discoveries.

Part 2, Volume 6.0, Chapter 2, p. 6 – 10. from http://www.journalresearchijf.com/ 23