Reflecting on the courses
The reading course focuses on teaching reading strategies and supplements the materials with vocabulary that students should know as they reach the intermediate level. Reading strategies include previewing, noticing repeated words, and trying to find the main point and the details that the author includes to support that point. The textbook also includes opportunities to check reading comprehension, defining new vocabulary, and examples of how the words are used in sentences. The vocabulary textbook contains different words than the reading textbook. The words are presented in context and along with definitions, sentences, word families, homonyms, collocations and expressions, and in cloze activities. Students are often assigned activities in this textbook for homework since the textbook includes a variety of them and most can be done independently. Reviewing and correcting these assignments usually takes up about 30 minutes at the beginning of this class.
The conversational course focuses on teaching language that reflects authentic conversation and adheres to social and cultural conventions in Canada. These elements are presented in chapters that concentrate on particular themes like meeting and getting to know other people and participating in social events. The textbook incorporates these elements in exercises like social customs quizzes, matching activities, discussion questions, cultural comparisons, dialogues and role-playing activities, and case studies. The chapters are divided into three sections that each focus on a specific context that fits the chapter's theme, such as accepting or rejecting an invitation to attend a social event. Sometimes students are assigned short readings and/or social customs quizzes as homework to get them thinking about topics that will be covered in the following class. However, most of this textbook's materials are used in-class.
One of the things that I noticed is the difference in the students' energy levels between the classes. It is difficult to maintain a high energy level and level of student engagement in the reading strategies class. I think that this is because most activities can be done independently and that the nature of a reading class means that students are more focused on input rather than producing output. The sponsor teacher made the students work in pairs to complete some of the activities to add interaction. She also shared personal examples and had students use the words in their own sentences to share with the class so that they could have practice using the language that they learned. I like the idea of having students create sentences for homework that use the new vocabulary and having them share their sentences with the class would be appreciated by the students. I also think that I could make my lessons for this class more engaging by incorporating a quiz app either as a warm-up or closing activity. Another activity that I could include is having students use the correct word and form to complete or correct sentences. I think that this would be an helpful exercise because students found it difficult to do in the classroom quizzes and this would provide an opportunity to practice doing this type of task.
The students' energy level and level of engagement in the conversational class was much higher in the classes that I observed than in the reading strategies class. I think this is because the learning context and language taught in the class is applicable to their own lives and they are more motivated to participate and learn in the class. The very nature of this class is more interactive and it focuses on producing the target language appropriately in real-life situations. However, despite the material being interesting to students, some do not complete their homework because it does not affect their grade and there are no exams. The sponsor teacher provides personal examples to build rapport with her students and provides them with opportunities to relate the materials to the culture of their home country and to share their cultures with each other. I like the idea of having students compare and contrast their cultures in-class and I will look for opportunities to do so during my teaching hours. I think that brainstorming activities would allow students to connect the textbook materials and content to other contexts to give them examples of how they can use what they learn in class in their real lives. I will also try to think of personal experiences that I can use to illustrate concepts and build rapport with the students like the teacher has modeled. However, I think that including additional activities from other resources might be difficult since the textbook uses a lot of dialogues and role-playing activities, which take up a large portion of the teaching time.
