Category: Teaching Reflections

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 10

Hour 10 presentation

Since this was the last hour of teaching for the reading lab and attendance was entirely optional, we did not want to include new material. We decided to fill the class with fun activities related to review. However, our lesson plans were intended for a full attendance…

Unfortunately, only two students came to class, which meant that some of the more cooperative activities were going to take longer to complete. We ended up having to cut some of the activities short to make time for the other ones. In addition, the pace of the class was much slower due to the lack of students. Fortunately, we managed to keep the momentum going, and the students seemed to enjoy the activities. I think this was a great learning experience, as now I know what difficulties to expect when I will be teaching on the final days of a semester.

Hour 9 Presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 9

This hour was our second observation – the first observation lesson being on the 5th hour. I had thought that I could not teach any better than I did on the 5th hour, but am I glad to be wrong!

This hour, Sam and I designed our lesson plan to be heavily student-engagement focused. We wanted to make sure our students got plenty of time to apply the learned theory instead of spending most of the time rambling about it. I saw the students heavily engaged in their tasks, and they seemed to be quite interested in it too. I consider this a success, more so than the impressions I did on hour 5!

I also made sure to pay attention to the pace of my speech. Over essentially the whole TESL program, I have been trying to improve my speed without sacrificing precision. I think I was able to achieve that this time. As long as I put my mind to it, I think I can start speaking faster.

This was also the only hour excluding the 1st, where we did not go into overtime. That may have happened thanks to my improvement in my talking speed!

This has been the one lesson that I haven’t really found anything negative for. I think this lesson has been the best hour yet. Nonetheless, I can still very much learn from the positives, as I know what works, and how to model my future lesson plans.

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 8

Hour 8 presentation

This lesson was a great learning experience with regard to how online classes should be taught. We tried to have students individually work on their assigned tasks. We put them into individual breakout rooms, uploaded the presentation that had the exercise, and copy-and-pasted the instructions into the shared notes section. This meant that some students had to wait for us to get to them, and they were left hanging with nothing to do.

Having students to work on something individually is not a problem in a real classroom. Handing paper out to students isn’t either. That day I learned that micro-managing virtual classrooms is not ideal for an online lesson. We will stick to group work from now.

Apart from that, I tried to speak a little faster without sacrificing precision, and I think it went well, as they were able to carry out the work that we assigned. I hope to continue to improve my speech as I gain more experience teaching.

Hour 7 Presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 7

I think this lesson was a success, however, the lesson did not really involve teaching any new skills – rather, it was more of a review and practice session from what was learned last week.

Despite the lack of new teaching material, I still ended up taking a long time going over the reviewed material by explaining slowly. I may have even been showing some redundancies to my explanations. I suppose I do it to make sure the students understand what they are expected to do – I prefer to be precise with my choice of words than to speak quickly before I think about what I want to say. At the same time, I am worried that my slow speech causes them to lose interest and disengage from the class.

It would be nice to see my brain process my thinking into words faster without sacrificing precision. I will try to speak faster and hope my brain catches up to me in day-to-day conversations to try and remedy this problem.

Hour-6-presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 6

I think I was able to engage the students in the first minute of the class. Since the reading of the day was about pandas, I wore a bamboo rice hat to the class. That seemed to raise some interest in what the students were going to learn.

Although I think I do a decent job at explaining concepts, my slow speaking speed combined with my obsession for detail makes for a teaching session that takes longer than I’d like to make. I find that it’s easy for me to take a long time to explain something because I want to make sure the students understand what I’m talking about. I would like to improve my speaking speed without sacrificing precision and coherence, but I don’t know where to start. I always try to think before I speak, which is something I value. I could try to think faster, but I’m not sure how…

Hour-5-presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 5

Of all (just a measly five) the lessons I have taught, this one has been my favourite so far. As this is a reading class, I had to read the daily reading passage out loud to the class. The only minor detail is that the reading was a murder mystery which involved five characters – all of which I had to impersonate a voice for each character! Voice acting or impersonating wasn’t something I have ever really done before, so it was pretty nerve-wracking to be impersonating – in front of a class of students who look up to me! However, after getting feedback from the students, they seemed to like it, of which is obviously something I’m glad to hear.

We separated the class into two groups to find the murderer in the reading, and I was tasked with supervising one of the groups. My group did not end up finding the killer in time, and that was partly because only one student in my group was contributing, but it was also because I did not figure out a good system that helped the students in my group find the murderer. I have discussed this with my partner and supervisor, and have learned of ways to overcome this issue in the future.

I think I have realized that there has been a pattern in my teaching that highlights some strengths and weaknesses. Although I may be somewhat of an engaging (or fun) teacher, I seem to lack the skills, abilities, and/or organization in teaching the more serious parts of English learning, such as reading comprehension in detail. I should make an effort to think through how every step of the exercise processes work, and how I can accommodate the best learning environment.

Hour-4-presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 4

This time, Sam and I decided to focus on teaching our class in halves – her first and me second. Since most of teaching is done with just one teacher, having a larger chunk to practice teaching made sense. During the first half of the lesson, I was supposed to be there for Sam for support to aid her teaching. And although I did help with clarification and other ways of explaining concepts and definitions, I failed to let Sam know the time and the pace that we should be moving at. As a result, the lesson covered only about half of our lesson plan and I did not get through to my teaching. I did not know whether it was a good idea to let my partner know about the time because I feared that would have disrupted her thinking and teaching. Since then we have discussed and resolved this issue, that in the event this happens again to either of us, we will inform each other to move on.

I’m glad to be experiencing these challenges now as it helps me learn what to do and what not to do for when I teach professionally.

Hour 3 presentation

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 3

I was feeling pretty cynical with the preparation of this hour, because I felt that the reading material we had from the textbook did not give much potential for an engaging class. However, I am glad to be wrong! I think there was a lot that went well for this class. We were able to create fun activities to keep the students engaged from what I thought would be a boring lesson.

We were also able to know the students a little more. We asked what the students’ favourite genres of  writing were, and we made note of them to tailor our lesson plans in the future.

I myself am starting to find comfort in the “zone” of teaching. I believe I am able to remain calm and collected, and I do not feel stressed out teaching.

Of course, this lesson did not come without challenges. The students that I thought were observing from last week’s lesson came back. Again, I was unprepared for this as I thought they were only visiting for that one time last week. For some reason I still thought that they were just there to watch like ghosts. Because of this, I ended up excluding them from participating for about the first half of the lesson. I ended up thinking they were disrupting the class whenever they spoke, but they just wanted to participate like any other student taking that class!

I learned an important lesson with teaching. I should be ready to welcome and include anyone that enters my class, as if they are actual students of my class. I don’t know if the two students will be coming back next week, but I will be focusing on creating the next lesson plan to be more flexible, and accept them as part of the class.

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Hour 2

2nd hour_Keynote_v2

Based on my own observations of myself from last week, I decided to focus on being a better initiator this time. I think that focus served me well in the end. I found the lesson to flow much more smoothly – the lesson transitions were clear with little to no awkward pauses. However, it did not mean that I was talking all the time. I believe I was able to allow for silence when it was appropriate, such as when the students needed to think on their own.

Despite my improvement for flow and initiation, the students were still sometimes reluctant to participate. Perhaps they were just shy and felt comfortable being silent behind their screens. It could also be that they haven’t gotten to know Sam and I very well, and that may have affected their desire to participate.

The two extra students that came into the class was a surprise, as Sam and I did not tailor our lesson to involve them. I had the impression that they were there just to observe – kind of like a ghost that sees but does not interact with or influence their environment. It turns out that they wanted to participate in the lesson! I was completely unprepared to deal with this due to being stuck in a sense of confusion, because what I thought their intentions were was different from what they actually did.

Overall, I am satisfied with how the lesson went. I feel like I was able to fill the holes that I was responsible for filling, and I’m excited to see what our next class reveals.

First-hour_Keynote

ESAL 0370 Reading Lab Lesson Plan – Week 1
I went into the first hour of teaching this lab with no idea what to expect. I have tutored students many times before, but in tutoring, the students were the ones to ask questions about problems they did not understand. In other words, it was always the student that initiated to find solutions to their problems. Teaching was the opposite – I had to initiate and provide the students with questions to educate them.

I found initiating to be my biggest struggle during the hour. As I am a slow paced thinker who is also comfortable with silence, it was difficult to continually engage the students. There were times where I felt like I should have spoken to move the class along, but instead I hesitated to speak. During those times, Samantha (my co-teacher) saved me from losing momentum of the class, for which I am very grateful. From now I will try to follow my gut instinct to take the initiative, because while tutoring may not require it as much, it is crucial as a teacher to be the one to initiate.

I had another challenge to face, and it was being very careful about my choice of words. I was always paying attention to how I spoke, because my students would likely not have understood had I spoken faster, or used complicated words. I believe I communicated quite well, as I did get responses to the questions I asked. However, looking back at it now, I do wonder if my speech was too slow or too simple. Perhaps the students are more capable at understanding my dumbed-down speech. To find out, I suppose I would have to experiment in the way that I talk in the following lab hours.

To my surprise, the class ended only four to five minutes after the official ending time! Not having a clue on whether the amount of content in the lesson plan was appropriate, being able to finish on time was a big concern of mine, and I expected the class to be either too long, or too short. I am glad to have been able to finish my first lesson in a reasonable time.

This is just the first hour. There are many more to go, and there will be many more mistakes to learn from. As scary as they may be, I hope to welcome them all with open arms, so that I may improve my skills as a teacher.