Today, you saw 7 mini-lessons taught by your classmates, and performed one yourself. For me, even after 15 years of teaching, observing other teachers always provides me with new ideas, questions about my own teaching, and different approaches to old topics. Think back over the teaching demos that you saw, and comment on how they will affect your own teaching - did you learn a new technique, new ideas, things for teachers to be aware of, new ways to focus on a topic, etc? In other words, what'd you learn today and how did the lessons speak to you about your own teaching?
As always, be nice, be thoughtful, and be detailed.
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I learned that one of the best ways to learn is through an interactive, interesting activity. I also realized that it helps tremendously to have a script/outline of the objectives for the day to reference while I am teaching.
ReplyDeleteI learned that it is important to maintain control of the classroom, which can be lost by having "dead time" or grouping too many "social(?)" students together- which can be fixed by giving such students jobs and responsibilities on which to focus their energy.
ReplyDeleteDitto, Jungernaut's comments. Interaction is truly the way to be most effective in teaching a class which is actually how I normally teach. I will incorporate more group work after experiencing it today, however, because I found out how truly fun it can be! I will also try my best to write instructions on the board more and avoid being too wordy. Preparation in writing before the class, by means of a lesson plan, is extremely helpful. Thank you to everyone in the class for such informative and well-thought-out lessons. I believe the presentations today confirmed the importance of changing activities every ten to fifteen minutes. It certainly makes the class go by soooo fast! I will keep this in mind in my classroom. Also, a cheery attitude on the part of the teacher is critical for the students. I feel this was reaffirmed today, as well, since y'all were happy presenters.
ReplyDeleteJust to reiterate some of the things Jungernaut and Ronda said I feel like I learned a lot about the importance of group work in a language classroom. When executed correctly group work can really get the learners involved in their learning. The keys seem to be to remain energetic and excited about the activity you want your students to do, make it fun, interesting and relevant and monitor the groups while being prepared to answer any questions the students may have. The Uno game and Yilamsn activities were two of my favorites and really helped to highlight a lot of the keys above.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I found very helpful was the lesson planning. Actually, I may never have used or tried to use a lesson plan if I had just gone out to teach English somewhere. This exercise really highlights the importance of being prepared for class. Lesson planning is a great way to stay organized and focused on what you need to get done for the day in context of the whole semester as well as plan out exactly what you want to say in class. I butchered what I wanted to say instruction wise so I really want to figure out how to better explain the activity Katie and I did.
I had one more thing I wanted to say but I can't remember what it is... Maybe I'll post again later.
After seeing everyone teach today and experiencing it myself I found that being prepared can go a long way. I think that if Jason and I had rehearsed what our lesson was things would have gone smoother and our lesson would have come out clearer. I learned that paired work is really helpful and that props can be a lot of fun. I agree with Jason that we need to be energetic and excited about our lesson. What made Yilmin so much fun to watch was the fact that he was so enthusiastic about what he was doing. I definetly got to see just how much of a beginner I am and how I need a lot more training if I'm ever going to teach.
ReplyDeleteWell, everyone has already pretty much said what is on my mind. Paired or group work is just so much fun, and it really helped me to feel able to speak up (I know, I already talk a lot in class, but if I was a new language learner, it would help). Seeing Derek lose control of the class to me and Matt really opened my eyes to possible problems for me down the line (thanks, Derek, for being such a sport).
ReplyDeleteAs for my own lesson, I really believed I'd thought it out well, and that I was just going to breeze through it. Boy, was I wrong. I agree with Katie and Jason: it would have helped immensely if I'd just practiced it ahead of time--out loud, not just in my head.
Yilmin' enthusiasm was great, but I felt we all were upbeat. This was a great exercise and I learned a lot. Hopefully I will do better next time.
Games and activities are almost always fun. I liked Derek's UNO because it was very easy to understand within a minute.
ReplyDeleteI realized that it wasn't easy to make an activity fun and to monitor all the groups at the same time. Interaction is very important in every activities. We have to make students think, talk, and share their opinions. Besides, Yuni's comment on the possible one-sided talk among students was quite impressive.
Lastly, I think I should have prepared more concrete instructions for the activity and HW assignment.
I really, really love Yuni and Ronda's folded worksheets. I will definitely be using this technique in the future. I also enjoy seeing new ways to teach individual components of language like tag questions, synonymous character traits, or ways to make practical vocabulary interesting. All of the ideas presented were very interesting and engaging.
ReplyDeleteI have to avoid rushing when I feel rushed, this is a habit I've been paying more close attention to since our demo day. I've made sure to watch my time more carefully so as to avoid the crush of squeezing 5 minutes of information into the last 2 minutes of class--things do get lost!