Abstract:

This paper details the findings of a research study about peer observation. Peer observation has become a pivotal aspect in teaching profession. The main purpose of peer observation is for the improvement of teachings for both the observed as well as the observer aimed at teaching and professional development, and should have no intention for tenure or promotion. Thus, it focuses more on formative purposes rather than summative. The reason why peer observation is found important is that some university teachers in Malaysia claimed they were not really satisfied with the result obtained from student evaluation of teaching (SET) but have done nothing to solve the problem. Whilst, some head of departments claimed that after classroom observations were conducted, they found that there were teachers who are not up to the teaching standards. Thus, this study is conducted to look at the English language teachers’ perceptions of peer observation and whether there are any possible challenges that maybe faced by Malaysian universities in introducing peer observation. The study is qualitative in nature with surveys, observation as well as interviews as the methods of data collection. Apart from this, a workshop was conducted with the English language teachers at one university in Malaysia to introduce the practice of peer observation in English Language Teaching (ELT). It is hoped that from this study the researchers are able to gauge as much information as possible to put peer observation into practice.

Keywords:

Peer observation, teacher effectiveness, professional development.