Category: Reflections

I am officially halfway through my practicum! Today the class was observed by my practicum advisor. I was nervous getting ready for the lesson to start knowing that my teaching was going to be formally evaluated. However, after students started to arrive my nerves settled. The goal of the lesson today was to have students talk about tourism and travel with minimum interruption from the teacher. The hope was to have students engage in a semi-fluent discussion with their peers. To try to engage the students more and facilitate more learning I adjusted our lesson format. Up to this point, the students were each assigned a role. This week only one student was assigned the role of discussion leader. The lesson also incorporated activities that made the students interact in the online environment using the interactive white board, shared notes and the public chat.

I think that as per usual there were pros and cons to the lesson design and activities this week. I thought that the use of the interactive white board was fun and that students enjoyed it. I also noticed that some of the quieter students were more engaged this week. However, the stronger students are still dominating the class discussion. I am beginning to wonder if the method of minimal teacher interruption is beneficial for the lower level students. These students may need more structure to help elicit conversation. I believe that there are benefits to having the class be very student centered, but in future lessons I may try to incorporate some activities that are more teacher driven to see if this helps the lower level students.

Regarding my teaching skills, I believe that there are several areas in which I can make improvements. I think that I need to make a conscious effort to provide summaries after each activity and at the end of the class. I also think that I need to make the purpose of the activities and the objectives of the lesson more clear to students.

For this hour of  observation I watched two VIPkids demo lessons. VIPkids is an online teaching company that primarily teaches children aged five to twelve from China.  VIPkids has a set curriculum and uses an interactive online platform to facilitate learning. Teachers are encouraged to use total physical response and a reward system in all lessons.  All lessons are taught one-on-one.

The first thing I noticed while observing these lessons was that the teachers were using total physical response as a method to teach. Specifically, the teachers used hand gestures, facial expressions and motions to convey meaning and teach new words. I like the concept of using non-verbal cues in the classroom to help facilitate learning. However, watching these videos made me realize that relying heavily on total physical response is very energy consuming.

In combination with the total physical response the teachers were extremely energetic and animated. Up to this point all of my observations had been of adult ESL classes and I have not yet seen this level of energy or animation. I think that this highlights one of the main differences between teaching adults and children. I will have to keep this in mind in the future if I am working with children.

I had two goals going into this week’s lesson. First, I wanted to incorporate correction throughout the class. Specifically, I wanted to use recasting and elicitation. Second, I wanted to speak slower and use level appropriate vocabulary. I am proud that I was able to give students corrections using recasting and elicitation.  My speaking speed was better this week compared to last. However, I know that my speaking speed is something that I will have to continue to monitor as I tend to speak fast when I am excited. In general, I believe that my teaching skills were better this week. I hope that I am able to see continual growth for the next eight weeks of practicum.

Something I would like to work on for the rest of practicum is making my classes more student centered opposed to teacher centered. It was obvious in this lesson that I was running the class instead of facilitating learning. During the discussion portion of this lesson I found myself leading the discussion and in doing that I did a lot of talking to try to get the students to join the conversation. In future lesson I want to be able to introduce the activity and have the students do most of the talking. To do this I will need to design lessons that engage the students and include activities that have a goal. I think that making my classes student centric will be a challenge in an online classroom. In next week’s class, I am going to try turning off my camera during student discussions. It is my hope that by removing myself visually from the discussion will encourage students to talk more.

For this hour of observation, I watched a recorded adult ESL class. The class had six students, all of which had different native languages. The lesson had an emphasis on grammar, specifically parts of speech and verb tenses.

The first thing that stood out to me while watching this class was the organization of the classroom. The tables in the classroom were set up in a ‘U’ shape. This set-up allowed the students to see each other and the teacher. As the lesson progressed, it became clear that the class was purposely arranged in this way to encourage students to participate in conversations. I had never considered before that the physical arrangement of the classroom can be used as a teaching tool. This is something I plan to incorporate into my own lesson plans.

Throughout the lesson the teacher used a variety of correction techniques. The teacher frequently used recasting to correct minor errors in pronunciation and word choice. Often the teacher rephrased what the student said, with emphasis on the correct pronunciation or word choice. The teacher also used elicitation to get the students to correct mistakes in which she was confident they knew the right answer. I noticed that this teacher didn’t seem to provide direct correction. I believe that using a variety of correction techniques throughout the lesson is important because each student has a different learning style. Overall, the teacher provided a lot of corrections. I believe that the volume of corrections was because the focus of this lesson was accuracy. If the focus had been fluency the teacher most likely would not have given the same amount of corrections. However, I thought that the teacher provided enough correction, without overwhelming the students.

For this observation, I observed an online advanced communication class. The students in this class are adults, all with unique cultural and social backgrounds. While watching this lesson I made two important observation. First, I noticed that having students present independently requires a lot of positive reinforcement. Second, I observed how important material and topic selection is.

For most of this observation the students were presenting independently. During the presentations the teacher gave feedback to the students and often provided positive reinforcement. The positive reinforcement was given at times in which the students were struggling to form a sentence or were visibly nervous. The positive reinforcement encouraged the students to communicate more. Perhaps more generally this teacher creates a safe space where students can feel comfortable learning. In the future when I have my own class, I want to create a similar atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement.

During the second part of the class the teacher showed a video. The video showcased a somewhat controversial opinion. I believe this was done to stimulate group conversation. I found it interesting how impactful the video was. Just by having the students watch a five-minute video the teacher was able to test listening comprehension, have students’ express opinions and introduce new vocabulary. I think this activity was so successful because of the video selection. The video was short enough to keep the student’s attention, the topic was interesting, it had subtitles and showed body language.

For this observation, I observed an online combined topics class. The topics covered in this class were intermediate grammar, pre-intermediate reading, basic oral communication, intermediate oral communication and intermediate reading and study skills. In addition to the mixed topics this class also has a mixture of low beginner, beginner and intermediate students. The students in this class are adult learners from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. This observation showed me the importance of being adaptable in the classroom and using level appropriate language during instructions.

The teachers original plan for this class was to go over the answers for the homework she had assigned the previous day. The homework was from a book, that all the students were supposed to order online. After a few minutes of asking questions about the homework it became apparent that none of the students had completed the homework. This led to the teacher asking if the students had received the textbook yet and most had not. The teacher quickly altered her plans for the day. Instead of reviewing the homework she provided students with short excerpts from the book to work with. This series of events showed the importance of being adaptable. Sometimes, nothing goes as planned and the teacher still must facilitate learning. I think this also shows how important it is to have a breadth of professional knowledge, so that a new plan for the lesson can be devised quickly.

The mixture of levels in this class allowed me to observe the language the teacher used with each level. When communicating with the low beginner students, the teacher used short concise sentences and emphasized key words. When working with intermediate students the teacher used longer sentences, didn’t provide as much emphasis on key words and used more complex verb tenses. This showed me that it is important to tailor everything in class to the level of your students, including feedback and instructions.

For this observation, I observed an online mixed level class. The class pre-intermediate grammar students and pre-intermediate writing students. In total this class had eight students, but a few students were absent. This observation was of interest to me, as this was my first time observing a mixed level lesson.

To accommodate for the varying levels, the teacher separated the students into study rooms for the entire class. The teacher introduced the activities for the day to the whole group and then spent approximately twenty minutes in each study room. This use of the study rooms made it hard for me to observe all the students. Additionally, this use of the study room meant that some students spent up to forty minutes without interacting with the teacher. I think that teaching a mixed level class in an online environment presents unique challenges and that the teacher did the best that she could to address the issues. However, I do think that this particular use of the study room created a barrier for learning. There appeared to be a few students joining the class by cellphone. Unfortunately, not all the features of Moodle are accessible on a mobile device. These students were unable to use the public chat or scroll through Moodle while listening to the lecture. This impacted the success of these students in completing the required class. I think that in this case not having access to the proper technology also acted as a barrier for learning.

The teacher used several techniques that I will try to employ in my own classrooms. Specifically, I noticed that the teacher was used short concise sentences to communicate with students. The teacher also emphasized certain words to convey meaning or importance. These techniques are not ones that I have seen in my other observations. I believe these techniques were used because of the level of the class. Most of the students were new beginners. The short simple sentences enabled the students to understand the teacher. The teacher provided lots of positive feedback to the students. When a student got an answer right her tone of voice changed, and she made sure to tell them that they were correct. To access learning the teacher called on individual students to answer questions.

For this observation, I observed an online advanced communication class. The class is made up of adult students with a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. There were a few students absent for this lesson, as such the conversation groups were smaller. Additionally, there was a new student.

During the warm-up, the teacher had the students say good morning in their native language. I thought that this was a great way to incorporate the student’s native languages into the class. This was especially clever given that the first activity was a class discussion on an at home listening activity about local languages.  During the local language activity, there were a couple of students who dominated the discussion and answered most of the questions. To get more of the students engaged in conversation, the teacher asked certain students open ended questions. One aspect of this class that I really liked was how the activities worked together. Each activity had different topics, however they related to the previous one in some way. I think that this lesson design kept the students engaged and encouraged critical thinking. When I do my own lesson plans, I will ensure that each lesson has a theme. The activities also increased in the amount of individual participation required as the lesson progressed. I think that this was smart given that the students in this class at times seem reluctant to participate. This allowed those students who were perhaps nervous to work up to answering individually with the camera on. I think it is still important to mention that there were a few students who refused to turn on their cameras. Facial expressions and visual cues are a big part of communication and thus use of the cameras is important in this class. In my opinion, students would be more willing to turn on their cameras if the purpose of using them was explained.

The teacher utilized the study rooms during this class. Before sending the students to the study rooms, the teacher laid out study room rules. The rules stipulated that when in the study room students must have their camera on and each person must participate in the conversation. The teacher also assigned leaders for each study room whose job was to keep the conversation on topic. I think that providing rules for the study rooms ensured that the activity was successful.  I will keep this in mind when having my own students do group discussions.

For this hour of classroom observation, I observed an EFL class in Korea. The class was composed of approximately 30 children in grade six. This observation demonstrated to me the importance of ensuring the pace of the lesson is conductive to learning, classroom management and providing consistent feedback.

Overall, I was shocked at how fast-paced the class was. At times it reminded me more of choreographed play than a classroom. With the fast pace of the lesson it was difficult to determine if the students were learning the material, or simply memorizing pre-determined phrases. Throughout the class, the teachers gave students who provided correct answers cards as a reward. In theory, I like the idea of providing some form of incentive for learning. Especially for this age group. However, the teacher frequently called on the same students to answer questions. This could be discouraging for more timid students. It also appeared that no new material was introduced during this lesson. This was particularly apparent during the game. At points during the game students were encouraged to think of the easiest words they could and to not worry about spelling. During the game there was little, or no corrections given. Additionally, classroom management did not appear to be a priority during this lesson. The students were having frequent side conversations in their L1 and in general the class atmosphere was distracting. The fast-paced lesson plan and distracting environment could have been barriers for learning.

I did appreciate that the teachers incorporated audio clips, videos, pictures and songs into the class. The variety of materials kept the class interesting. I also liked that the teachers demonstrated the dialogues before having students practice in pairs.

I had three main takeaways from this observation. First, it is important to find a balance between having a fast-paced lesson and ensuring the students have time to process the material. Second, I think it is important to provide equal opportunities for all students to demonstrate their learning. Finally, providing consistent corrections and feedback are an important part of learning.

Very seldom do I take time to reflect upon what my strengths are. When I do take time to reflect, I usually focus on what I would like to improve upon, my faults and weaknesses. In a world that preaches the importance of continual self-improvement and growth it can be difficult to pause and acknowledge the things that we already do well. In saying that, I find it very difficult to write about my strengths.

After a lot of self-reflection, I believe that one of my biggest strengths is being a hard worker. I think that this strength is showcased best by my experience as a competitive swimmer. I wasn’t the fastest or most technically sound swimmer in the pool, but I was one of the hardest working. My ability to work hard is also shown through the completion of my Bachelor of Science while working fifteen to twenty hours a week as a swim coach.

Another, one of my strengths is empathy. Empathy allows me to form genuine connections with people. It also allows me to perceive and understand the points of views of others. This understanding has allowed me to develop social emotional intelligence. Social emotional intelligence has helped me become an effective communicator, effective at working collaboratively and good at resolving conflict.

I believe that my strengths as a human being will also be my strengths as a teacher. Hard work and empathy will help me become the best teacher that I can be.