Category: Reflections

During this hour of observation, I noticed that the students were participating in the discussions far more than the first two hours I observed earlier in the semester. I noticed students speaking multiple sentences at a time, and making arguments about perspectives on Education – an abstract topic. Perhaps that was because the students had warmed up to the teacher or the virtual classroom. Whatever the reason may be, the increased participation perpetuates a better learning environment – especially in a speaking class.

I really liked how Jack provided a sheet of phrases and clauses that were related to discussing opinions, so that the students could have the opportunity to practice them during their group discussions. I believe that sheet helps students expand not only their vocabulary, but their fluency and confidence when expressing their opinions. This is something I would like to adopt as a teaching element.

The students had difficulties conversing in small groups. I assume this was because the technology they used created barriers to communication. The lack of face-to-face interaction just does not seem to encourage conversations. Perhaps this is just the unfortunate limitation of a virtual classroom. For a speaking class, a real classroom would be the ideal environment to encourage oral communicative learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRd7OK-O2zo

When I was watching this video, I noticed an interesting pattern with the teaching. The teacher introduced a little bit of new material, then he had the students get up from their desks to find other students to converse with, using the newly learned sentences. This sort of teaching pattern was repeated several times during the class, and I think this routine of exposure and application helped students learn efficiently, while having high student-to-student engagement. I also liked how the teacher gave many opportunities for the students to speak in general. It was almost like the students were doing more work than the teacher, but in a productive way that benefited the students.

I also liked how the teacher used clapping to show the stresses in a sentence. The relation between clapping and stresses required no explanation, but it seemed like the students immediately understood what the teacher was trying to accomplish, and I think it worked really well.

I could not find any negatives or challenges to his method of teaching. In a speaking class, I would strongly consider adopting this style of teaching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD66qUd2ioY

Since this video seemed to primarily focus on managing the class, I will make that my primary focus for the reflection – other than to say that I liked the class atmosphere and the teaching style. She was very friendly, adaptived to the students’ input, and supported a lively class, which all likely contributed to students opening up to speak.

The way the students behaved reminded me of the times I taught kids at Eagle Bay, except the students in the video were much milder. When some of the students got carried away with their own conversations, I believe the teacher handled the situation quite well. The teacher was assertive, and gave concise commands to listen to her. I think that method is needed to demonstrate how important it is for students to pay attention whenever the teacher or another student is sharing with the class. This is something I had to do many times at summer camp, and it is assuring to see that a teacher with more experience is using the same method.

In the video, I saw students checking their phones. The teacher did not tell them off, but perhaps the students were checking them whenever the teacher had their back towards the students. Frankly, I do not know what the best approach is to tackle this issue. I have heard of many arguments regarding whether students should have access to their phones during class, and I am still left undecided. As I gain experience teaching, I think I will eventually sway toward a side when I encounter students on their phones in class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnIe3c5xbzU

Above is the video I watched for this observation.

This English class was rather different to the other classes I have observed so far, because the class had a guest speaker/teacher talk about general ways to become a better language learner.

The class was given questions to discuss in small groups in English, but the class was mostly silent. I also heard some Japanese being spoken. This lead me to believe that the questions were too difficult or complicated to answer in English. I also think the teacher talked very quickly, and said informal words like “gonna” instead of “going to”. I think the combination of all of these factors lead to a lack of student engagement.

With that being said, I can understand the benefits when the teacher speaks quickly and informally – especially for advanced students, that a typical English class would not necessarily cover. A typical English class is a controlled environment simulating professional English, so it was good to see students being exposed to a more natural form of communication. I appreciate how the teacher gave the students an opportunity to listen to “real” English – regardless of whether that was intentional or not, and I would like to be able to adapt my language style depending on the language levels the students are at, or what the focus of the lesson is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niel3vqgwrU

Seen above is the video I observed.

I saw many good qualities to how the teacher taught the class material. Firstly, since I’m assuming this was a speaking class, she utilized the student pairing system very frequently in order to maximize the students’ time speaking. It was interesting that she was squatting while she was listening to the pairs discuss, even though she could very well have been standing up. I realized that that kind of body language was still important – not just to kids, but also to post-secondary students, and I would like to adapt that as part of my classroom teachings.

Secondly, I liked how she presented five word sentences and used her five fingers on her hand to mark the position of each word. This made teaching contractions of “I would” to “I’d” simple. Whenever the students forgot to contract them, the teacher just pinched two fingers together to show the contraction. She didn’t even say a word, and the student corrected themselves! I don’t know how significant it is to teaching efficiency and effectiveness, but I appreciate the little details that I can pick up as a teacher.

I did not like how low the enthusiasm of the entire class was. The students stayed in their seats for the whole hour, and some looked bored. The teacher even realized this problem and mentioned the low energy to the students. If she had planned activities that were more physically active, I believe this would not have been a problem. I understand that the classroom size was small, but it should be the teacher’s responsibility to be creative and keep the students engaged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sGGCMVu6yU

Above is the link for the lesson I watched.

I found the topic for the lesson (holidays) and the learning material to be very broad, and was not focusing on any specialized aspect of language learning. Although the lesson was very engaging for the students, I did not see much learning take place. The students seemed to already know all the English presented in the class, except for the word “skyscraper”. Because of the lack of learning, I don’t think it was a very good class.

I think it would have been more beneficial to introduce new verb tenses and vocabulary mixed in with some review. This would have had the students challenged, but not overwhelmed.

The lesson looked like fun, and the teacher was enthusiastic. That is something I would like to have when teaching a class. But I think she should have introduced some more material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJkaLf-44BE

Above is the video I watched for this hour of observation.

The two teachers leading this lesson seemed to have an extremely fast paced and structured lesson plan. It was interesting to see that the first half of the class was dedicated to traditional teaching (Describing pictures, practicing conversations, etc.), and the second half was dedicated to a fun and competitive game.  It seemed to me that all of these factors were intentional in order to keep the kids engaged and away from distractions. I think the strategy was to get through the more “boring” (from the kids’ perspectives) material as fast and as efficiently as possible, and to immediately apply what they have learned by playing games. I think this overall strategy was very appropriate for the students at that age group.

I noticed a very high level of participation and enthusiasm by the students. I also noticed that the teacher gave a slip of paper to every student that participated and answered correctly to questions. I don’t know what was on the slips of paper, but I’m assuming they used the “carrot-on-a-stick” approach to encourage participation. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to condition the kids this way, but it seems like the reward was effective to keep the kids engaged.

I believe the lesson was planned very well for kids. If I do teach English (or any other subject) to kids, I think I would mimic their overall lesson plan – study first, then play later. However, I won’t be using that same strategy on university students.

I observed an online class taught by Janis. The students in the classroom were enrolled for various courses, so Janis broke the teaching sessions into four different groups. I observed two of the groups in the first hour of the class.

I’m assuming that there are not a lot of students enrolled this summer. And as a result, there are joint classrooms that Janis has to teach. Since there are multiple classes in the same session, she has the students work on exercises in separate study rooms. I’m not sure if the format of the classes are conducted like this every day, but I did not see new material being taught to the students. Instead, Janis allocated half an hour for each group to tutor very small groups, and helped them with their exercises (perhaps it was exercise day). Because of this, the students had a lot of one-on-one time with Janis, and received detailed feedback from her. I also noticed that Janis spoke very slowly and enunciated every word carefully to help the students understand what she was saying. However, the students were beginners, so they had trouble understanding the questions that Janis had asked. Despite that, Janis was patient and repeated her questions slowly and precisely until they had understood.

It is unfortunate that multiple classes have to be merged into one, because Janis can only spend half an hour for each “class” to help her students. However, this method may be the best way to adapt to such a situation, and I learned the importance of having to be open to change teaching methods.

I sat in and observed for the Advanced Oral Communications class, taught by Jack. The session was two hours long, in a virtual classroom, and the theme for the session was controversies – specifically, how to defend one’s opinion.

First hour:

I could see that Jack was doing his best to maximize the students’ speaking time, and to help students have a good understanding of the topics at hand. For example, the start of the class was a brainstorming session to find synonyms of the word, “banned”, followed up with three things that are banned in their country, and why they are banned. I found the order in which these tasks were laid out were very beneficial to the students’ learning. The students had a good understanding of the word “banned” before they started discussing the things that were banned in the country. I also noticed that Jack tried to keep the students talking by asking a lot of follow-up questions. In order to ask these questions, I think it required Jack to be very attentive and interested in what the students had to say.

Despite Jack’s efforts to open the discussions to the students, the students seemed reluctant to participate in them. Perhaps it was the controversial topics – the students may have been uncomfortable with some of the topics, and did not want to share their opinion. Maybe it was the virtual classroom that allowed students to virtually hide themselves. Or, knowing that they were being observed, they could have been nervous about our presence.

Second hour:

The second hour mainly focused on vocabulary relating to controversial journalism, and the presentation of opinions on a controversial case.

Similarly to the first hour, Jack explained new vocabulary in detail so that the students could understand them. Jack also, once again facilitated lots of time and opportunities for students to speak. He knew the vocabulary was difficult, and sympathized with the students. Although the students were struggling with the new words, I believe Jack’s admittance of these challenging words made it less intimidating to learn.

The students got better at opening up on the second half of the lesson, but they still seemed to be rather reserved. Some were able to present their controversial cases, as well as being the Devil’s advocate, but some did not seem to understand the objective of the exercise. Again, I believe the reasons were a combination of those said above in the first hour.

I think Jack had done all that he could do to help his students learn. The largest issue to the class was the lack of students’ responses, and their negligence was the only factor that was detrimental to their learning.

I find this question rather difficult to answer, because I always feel like it involves me having to brag about myself, and bragging makes me quite uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I will persist.

In group conversations, I tend to be the person that speaks the least. This isn’t because I don’t pay attention or I’m disengaged from the conversation. Rather I prefer to listen carefully to what the speaker has to say, and I usually only speak up when I believe I have something important to say – especially if it’s advice that will uplift the speaker. In other words, I’m very intentional about what I say, and I desire people to succeed.

I bring these two characteristics of mine when I teach. I believe that by being intentional, I can communicate to my students with efficiency and clarity, as opposed to rambling on, and confusing the students. Also by wanting my students to succeed, I feel for those who fall behind, or do not understand what I teach. And so I try my best to help students to elevate their potential as much as possible. If I could have a lesson plan for every student I teach, I would!

In short, I think my strengths are that I’m intentional and compassionate, and I hope to continue to use my strengths in my teaching career.