One standard method, if it’s appropriate to your learners’ literacy levels, is to use some kind of evaluation questionnaire. This should be anonymous if possible. Learners or trainees should have the option to reflect on your teaching without fear of penalty.

You can do an evaluation survey like this either verbally, with a paper-based format or with online technology.

Verbal evaluation

If you have low-level learners, or if you know that writing the responses is going to be a barrier you may need to get another tutors or workmate to help carry out a verbal evaluation. This means that someone will need to ask the evaluation questions and record student answers.

This can work in a group setting or individually. If you do this in a group setting, you need to make sure that all members of the group feel that it is a safe environment to speak up as they need to. If this is not the case, you may need someone to speak with each learner individually and interview them if you want to get useful evaluation data.

Paper-based evaluation

A paper-based format is straightforward and most people will have tried something like this at some stage if they’ve been teaching for a while. The usual process is for an independent person to distribute the questionnaire while you are out of the room. The same person then collects the questionnaires which are sealed in an envelope.

Online survey

If using computers and other technology is not going to be a barrier, you can create online evaluations. You can make the online version identical to a paper version. Or if it’s appropriate, you can make online evaluations more detailed using branching question technology to glean more information from the student.

If you want to experiment with online surveys make sure that you keep in mind the computer skills of your learners. If you want to have a play though, check out some of the following sites that will allow you to make online surveys. The basics are usually free:

• Survey Monkey.
• Polldaddy.
• Google Forms.

Which of these would work for you and your learners?

• Verbal evaluation
• Paper-based survey questions
• Online evaluation.