The Effect of Lesson Study on Enhancing the Performance of MSA University English Instructors, their Students' Academic Writing and Satisfaction

Abstract

The study aimed at exploring the impact of the Japanese Lesson Study - based training program on improving the teaching performance, students’ academic writing performance and their academic satisfaction at MSA University - Egypt employing Jim Knight’s Big Four teaching framework that comprises four domains: Classroom Management, Content Knowledge and Planning, Direct Instruction and Formative Assessment. The Participants were 49 Pharmacy Undergraduate students enrolled to ENG201 (Research Writing Skills) for the academic semester (Spring 2018), one collaborating teacher and the Subject Supervisor. The study followed a mixed sequential explanatory research design of two phases i.e. quantitative data collection followed by a qualitative one. Quantitative data were collected through administering the Pre-post Test of Students’ Academic writing, Student’s Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness, and Student’s Self Evaluation of Academic Writing Performance. Qualitative data included analyzing data collected from semi-structured Interviews with teachers and students, analyzing Facebook statistics and teachers’ verbatim during planning and debriefing sessions. The findings showed that there is statistically significant overall improvement of students’ academic writing performance, overall students’ satisfaction of the four domains of teaching effectiveness and overall self- satisfaction of students’ academic performance and of writing sub skills.