ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the issue of language teachers preparing to work as language teacher supervisors. Nevertheless, many educational organizations employ people as supervisors, and increasing professionalism in our field suggests that appropriate training is needed for this role. In response to the need, Bailey developed a graduate seminar to prepare language teachers and programme administrators for their roles as language teacher supervisors. The analyses incorporated in these tasks are derived largely from Wajnryb's three-part discourse analytic framework. She characterized supervisory discourse as sometimes being so heavily mitigated that the message can be obscured and described three specific types of mitigation strategies: syntactic, semantic, and indirect mitigation. Bailey says that awareness 'can be the first step for teachers in making a change', as she refers to Freeman's model of the constituents of teaching. Allowing the teacher to practice self-reflection in the supervisory session creates an opportunity to raise the teacher's awareness about some aspects of his or her teaching.
