understanding of your situation and may—depending on the time you have
available for the project—suggest further action strategies which can be
evaluated in their turn.
12 Make your research public. There are many ways of doing this, informally
or formally. On a scale of informal to formal, there are options such as:
talking to colleagues who are also doing action research; reporting to a
larger teachers’ meeting; giving a conference paper; writing an article. The
important thing is to find a way of sharing what you have learnt.
13 Read up on action research. The suggestions on these pages have barely
scratched the surface of what you can do—they include little procedural
detail and even fewer considerations of underlying issues. But they may
have awakened your interest—if so, then before you start work read one of
the many books or articles available on classroom action research. This will
help you to plan a really good project.45 Starting a teaching portfolio
To start, and build, a teaching portfolio is potentially a rich developmental
process, helping you to understand more about how you teach and which aspects
of your practice are most satisfactory. It is also one of the most successful ways
of demonstrating teaching quality. In many countries, attention is being given, in
educational institutions, to the importance of evidence of the quality of teaching
as a consideration for appointment to teaching posts and for promotion. The
following suggestions should help you to go about building up a representative
portfolio of your work.
1 Decide why you want to build a teaching portfolio. It is best that you want
to build one, rather than simply that someone else has asked you to build
one. If you are committed to continue to develop as a teacher, a portfolio can
be a valuable record of the work you undertake as part of this process. It can
also be useful evidence of the quality of your work with learners when you
apply for promotion, or when you apply for new teaching posts elsewhere. It
can also be a valuable discussion vehicle for appraisal interviews.
2 Check whether your institution already has specific criteria for a
teaching portfolio. Some institutions operate ‘Teaching Fellowships’, or
similar schemes, and have already spelled out the nature of a teaching
portfolio. If a framework already exists, you should keep it firmly in mind,
both while collecting data and annotating it with your own reflective
commentaries.
3 Start collecting data straightaway. Much of the content of your teaching
portfolio will come from your everyday work with learners. The most
efficient way of starting off a teaching portfolio is to decide what sort of500 TIPS FOR TESOL 85