What is a teacher diary?
It is a bit like a personal diary where you record events, thoughts and observations. With a teacher diary you write about your experiences as a teacher.

Why should I keep a teacher diary?
It provides a focus for reflecting on things which happen in your class and why they happen in the way that they do. Look at this example of how a teacher records and reflects on a difficulty she was experiencing with group discussion work.

Tuesday 3 June
Did another discussion activity - disaster! Changing the way I usually group students didn't work. As usual, Paolo took over and imposed his ideas on the rest of his group. Prin sulked and refused to contribute. Petra and her group mostly stuck to the discussion but kept breaking into mother tongue. Anka and Lotty as usual said very little. What can I do? I feel I am not helping them to use English. I am getting demotivated with this.

Thursday 5 June
Reflecting on the problem of discussion work - maybe it isn't a problem of group formations, since trying new groupings didn't work either. Maybe instead it is that students don't know how to discuss topics in groups, as there is a lack of co-operation and not all of them participate. I need to explore this.

Friday 6 June
Had a very useful chat in the staffroom. Joan advised me to look at group roles such as facilitating, encouraging, co-operating, attention seeking, harmonizing etc. Jo suggested a couple of books. I feel more motivated now.

Tuesday 17 June
Tried some activities on group roles. I think they worked. I told class we would try out some new ideas for the way we do group work and they seemed receptive to this. Next lesson I will select an observer for each group and give them something to fill in about the actions that take place, eg helping, contributing, arguing etc. Then we'll use this to establish some rules for making discussions more effective and getting everyone to participate.

The diary helped her to state the problem and explore why the difficulty was occurring. By recording her approach to the problem, she is building a bank of ideas which she can refer back to in the future and also use to guide other teachers.

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