I have attached a digital copy of my Continued Professional Development Report in this blog entry. It is a reflection on the usefulness of the resources that I chose to assist me in the development of my English language teaching and professional development. It discusses the ease of use, benefits and drawbacks of the resources, my learning takeaways, and my recommendations for others.
I have attached a digital copy of my Final Self-Evaluation Report in this blog entry. It includes a list of my strengths as a teacher, areas for improvement, my focus for the future, and a reflection on the student teacher evaluation. It also contains a list of my practicum teaching reflections, my student evaluation questions and results, and a list of comments received by my students from the evaluation.
I completed the final two teaching hours on June 26th. I will reflect on both of the classes below.
I think that the teaching that I did for the reading course went very well. I fit the content for the review class into the Jeopardy game. Most of the categories that I set up were focused on reviewing vocabulary that the students have covered since their mid-term exam. One category had them use some vocabulary words in a sentence. Another had them identify other forms of vocabulary words. The final category centered around using the reading strategies that they learned in the course. I am glad that my sponsor teacher gave this activity as a suggestion because the students seemed to really enjoy it. It was similar to the Kahoot! activity because they could work with their group members to compete against other groups. My sponsor teacher helped me to think of categories to use in the game and I really appreciate her assistance with the lessons that I put together for this week.
There is one change that I would make to the lesson if I were to teach it again. I would make sure that my rules were consistent. The members of a few of the groups sat very close together and it was difficult to tell who was in each group. As a result, I accidentally asked the same person to choose a character/team name for another group. I also had trouble evaluating some of the responses to decide whether their responses were satisfactory. I had to ask my sponsor teacher for input in these situations. Sometimes she suggested to give partial marks to groups for their answers or suggested that I let other groups attempt to steal points from each other. These decisions were not consistent and I worry that some students think I favoured some groups over another.
Another thing that I worried about was that my instructions may not have been clear and could have caused confusion. In those situations, I tried to give students hints at what information they might be missing. For example, one of my questions provided a list of words to students and they were supposed to infer what the subject was. There were names of places (Cairo and Giza) and landscapes (Nile river and desert), in addition to landmarks and adjectives describing the topic. The group was quick to identify Egypt as part of the topic but were confused when I wanted a more specific answer. Rather than moving on to another group to see if they could provide a more specific answer, I pointed out other words like cameras and souvenirs to help them. I asked the group why someone would need them and what that says about the topic. The group eventually identified the topic as travelling (or tourism) in Egypt. I don't think that this was the most fair strategy to use in the activity, but I felt like the exercise was helpful for other groups too.
I don't think that the teaching I did for the cultural conversational class went as well as the reading class. I made the mistake of dividing the class up into groups with multiple students from a shared home country to discuss what we covered in the course and the similarities and differences between Canada and their home country. Students did not have much to teach each other since they had a lot of shared experiences. As a result, some of the groups just used the time to chat with each other about other topics. My practicum supervisor also mentioned that I took too much time reviewing past lessons and that the time could have been used better for a different activity. This is especially true since the students did not have to prepare for a test or final exam in this class.
I also had problems with a modified version of the game Taboo. I think that I needed to be more specific with my instructions because some students used words that they were not supposed to use (maybe they thought they were hints) and multiple group members tried to get the guesser to say the target word at the same time. There was a lot of confusion about this activity and I would spend more time modelling the activity if I were to use it in the future. I think that these mistakes were made because I don't have much teaching experience. Other teachers who have been teaching for a while know what works and does not work with students and so I will have a better idea of the type of instruction that I need to provide for my students after I gain more experience in the field.
I have chose only one resource to examine this week to help me develop my ninth and tenth lesson plans. The resource that I chose was published by a website called Busy Teacher. The website contains a blog where authors write about various aspects of teaching and it provides teachers with teaching materials that they can include in their lessons. The resource that I chose is an article that
was written by Claudia Pesce called "8 Top tips for giving your ESL class a review lesson they'll love." I chose this article because I wanted to read examples of what other teachers have used in their review lessons. I thought that it might give me ideas for materials that I could use in my final lessons.
This resource helped me to understand review classes from the perspective of students. Review classes can be helpful for students by reminding them of content that was taught earlier in the course that they may have forgotten or remains unclear to them. However, students can become overwhelmed by the amount of content that they are required to know, leading to test anxiety. The tips included in the resource have helped me plan activities that let students practice what they have already learned in different ways without presenting too much at the same time. utilize materials that were taught earlier without. The following paragraphs list the tips that are included in this week's resource and discuss how I might incorporate them into my lesson plans.
a) "Wh- question grammar game" - This game allows students to practice using question words and formulating questions based on answers provided by the teacher.
b) "Present Simple wh- questions game" - This game allows students to practice formulating questions based on different activities and contexts.
c) "Grammar revision board game" - This game allows teachers to customize game boards with grammar structures that students must know for the test or exam. The example given has several statements that students must use to identify the tenses and appropriate words for the blank spaces.
d) "Yes and no picture game" - This game shows students a part of a picture and they must guess what is in it using clues. However, they can only ask questions that have a yes or no answer to obtain clues.
e) Worksheet database - This is resource with a huge variety of worksheets that teachers can use for their classes. Some are meant as general worksheets and others are designed for reviewing course content. Teachers can choose worksheets that suit the levels of their students and teaching context.
Most of the games listed by the author do not fit my teaching context because they focus on grammar. However, I like the 'Present simple wh- questions game" best out of all of the grammar games. It is too simple for students in my practicum placement but I think it would be fun to use in a high-beginner LINC classroom to practice forming questions and reviewing simple vocabulary. In addition, the worksheets in the database are not directly applicable for my final two lessons but I will definitely use them to search for worksheets in my future teaching.
Overall, this resource has helped me think of interesting activities that I can include in the final lessons for my practicum and in my future teaching. After reading this resource, I feel like I understand the needs of students a bit better. There is a lot of material that we need to go through for the courses that I taught in for my practicum. This could be overwhelming for many of the students even though the length of the courses is relatively short. I feel more prepared to teach in the review classes and I appreciate the ideas that this resource has provided.
References
Pesce, C. (2013, January 10). 8 Top tips for giving your ESL class a review lesson they'll love [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://busyteacher.org/14406-how-to-teach-review-lesson-esl-class-8-top-tips.html
This resource helped me to understand review classes from the perspective of students. Review classes can be helpful for students by reminding them of content that was taught earlier in the course that they may have forgotten or remains unclear to them. However, students can become overwhelmed by the amount of content that they are required to know, leading to test anxiety. The tips included in the resource have helped me plan activities that let students practice what they have already learned in different ways without presenting too much at the same time. utilize materials that were taught earlier without. The following paragraphs list the tips that are included in this week's resource and discuss how I might incorporate them into my lesson plans.
- Don't use long lists of vocabulary
- Don't use long lists of grammar structures
- Play games
a) "Wh- question grammar game" - This game allows students to practice using question words and formulating questions based on answers provided by the teacher.
b) "Present Simple wh- questions game" - This game allows students to practice formulating questions based on different activities and contexts.
c) "Grammar revision board game" - This game allows teachers to customize game boards with grammar structures that students must know for the test or exam. The example given has several statements that students must use to identify the tenses and appropriate words for the blank spaces.
d) "Yes and no picture game" - This game shows students a part of a picture and they must guess what is in it using clues. However, they can only ask questions that have a yes or no answer to obtain clues.
e) Worksheet database - This is resource with a huge variety of worksheets that teachers can use for their classes. Some are meant as general worksheets and others are designed for reviewing course content. Teachers can choose worksheets that suit the levels of their students and teaching context.
Most of the games listed by the author do not fit my teaching context because they focus on grammar. However, I like the 'Present simple wh- questions game" best out of all of the grammar games. It is too simple for students in my practicum placement but I think it would be fun to use in a high-beginner LINC classroom to practice forming questions and reviewing simple vocabulary. In addition, the worksheets in the database are not directly applicable for my final two lessons but I will definitely use them to search for worksheets in my future teaching.
- Variety
- Surprise the students
- Student questions
- Let students teach
- Introduce something new
Overall, this resource has helped me think of interesting activities that I can include in the final lessons for my practicum and in my future teaching. After reading this resource, I feel like I understand the needs of students a bit better. There is a lot of material that we need to go through for the courses that I taught in for my practicum. This could be overwhelming for many of the students even though the length of the courses is relatively short. I feel more prepared to teach in the review classes and I appreciate the ideas that this resource has provided.
References
Pesce, C. (2013, January 10). 8 Top tips for giving your ESL class a review lesson they'll love [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://busyteacher.org/14406-how-to-teach-review-lesson-esl-class-8-top-tips.html
This is a lesson plan for the cultural conversational class that I taught on June 26th. It provides students with the opportunity to reflect on the cultural differences between Canada and their home countries and to ask questions about Canadian culture anonymously. It also consists of several short games where students can practice using their listening and speaking skills.
References
Matheny, R. (2013). Grey Chevron Chalkboard with Plum Ribbon [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lesson-Plan-Binder-Cover-Freebie-Gray-Chevron-Chalkboard-with-Plum-Ribbon-748507
This is a lesson plan for the Reading Strategies class that I taught on June 26th. It focuses on reviewing the vocabulary and reading strategies that were taught in the course to help prepare the students for the final exam later in the week.
I did not prepare a lesson plan because all of the review topics and activities were included in a quiz game. You can view the quiz game at this link: here
References
Matheny, R. (2013). Grey Chevron Chalkboard with Pink Ribbon [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lesson-Plan-Binder-Cover-Freebie-Gray-Chevron-Chalkboard-with-Pink-Ribbon-744932
Reflecting on the courses
I think that the teaching that I did for the reading course went better than last time. The biggest obstacle that I encountered was that I had over-prepared. I planned an interactivity where students would be quizzed on the vocabulary from chapters nine and ten. However, I found out that the students had only covered chapter nine and had not yet been introduced to the other vocabulary. My sponsor teacher and I decided it was best to begin the lesson with the interactive activity instead of teaching it at the end of the class. This activity utilized a quiz app called Kahoot!, which I had the students download. There were some students who were familiar with the app and have used it previously in other classes. The competitive aspect seemed to engage most students. As a whole, I think that the activity was a success even though some students became less focused as the activity went on and were distracted by other things.
The rest of the class utilized the materials from the textbook. My sponsor teacher stressed that there is nothing wrong with teaching from the textbook and I wanted to try to incorporate them for the remaining time. Since the students were only familiar with the vocabulary from Chapter nine, I had more vocabulary that I could introduce if we finished the materials for Chapter nine. The vocabulary warm-up activity that I had created for the students went by very quickly and the students found it too easy. So much so, they asked me what they were supposed to do next after they finished finding their classmate with the matching card. I also had students take turns reading sentences in a cloze activity where they chose which vocabulary words belonged in the blanks.
If I were to teach the lesson again, I would further adapt the vocabulary matching activity. Students found the activity much easier than I had expected and adding additional stages to it could help make it more challenging. I don't think that the textbook activities require additional modification, so I would keep those the same. However, I would double check with my sponsor teacher which vocabulary she covered in class so that I would know which to start with and which require me to introduce new materials to the class. This would ensure that I would not add unfamiliar words as part of the quiz activity, especially since it was meant as a review activity and is less suitable for introducing new words. I think that the quiz could also be improved by changing some of the illustrations that I used because a few of them were somewhat ambiguous and may have confused some of the students.
I think that the teaching I did for the cultural conversational class went well. The theme for the class was reasons for meeting with a teacher or an instructor in an academic setting. Since my sponsor teacher has I encouraged me to use the whiteboard more often in my lessons, I made an effort to write down important information like expressions and reasons why students might want to meet with a teacher or an instructor. I tried to write some of the information prior to the start of class so that I would spend less time writing during the lesson. I think that this strategy was helpful because I had more time to talk to the class. Students also seemed more engaged and both the students and I had visual material to refer to. I think that the students completed the printed dialogues in the textbook without much difficulty. However, I think that the dialogue worksheet was somewhat difficult for the students.
I tried to help the students by directing them to look for contextual tools and to use the language on the whiteboard in their scripts. We went over the dialogues as a class after they completed them. I compared what the content of their scripts with the answers that I had prepared and shared other ways that they could have completed the exercise. I wanted to make the materials useful and to fit the needs of the students, so I included more feeling expressions. (e.g. "I feel stupid because...
) I realize that these are not pleasant things to say, but they reflect language that might help students express themselves authentically. For me, the key element that I want to focus on is providing tools for students to use in real life and that goes beyond using positive expressions that are prepared by teachers and curriculum and textbook designers. While I don't want students to think or label themselves as being stupid, they might feel that way when they are under a lot of stress. I think that some students appreciated learning the additional material.
If I were to teach the lesson again, I would spend more time teaching students about context and how to use it to infer the missing information about what the characters in the characters said in the dialogues. I think that some of the students had difficulty knowing what to write and how make the dialogues flow. I would include this topic in a separate lesson and incorporate teaching materials where we would focus on this specific element of conversational texts. Aside from this modification,I cannot think of any other things I would change or add to this lesson.