Lesson 2

PLANNING AND PREPARATION FOR THE CLASS

Lesson procedure presentation link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RXyhuqrHSEQs4N6jwFl78kVRQR7P7bkc/view?usp=sharing

The topic of the class was Transportation in industry. The objectives of the class were to read about transportation, learn technical vocabulary in the field of transportation, learn the vocabulary for vehicle, discuss pros and cons of various modes of transportation.
Preparation for the lesson took significant amount of time with developing tasks and professional procedure presentation. I used the text from the textbook, reading comprehension and lexis tasks were designed by me from scratch to meet the objectives of reading comprehension and building the professional lexis. I also used 2 digital tools in class preparation: Flinga for collaborative mind map activity, as a visual help tool, and Kahoot! for vocabulary meaning check/revision, which served as a fun and competitive way for students to remember the lexis.

HOW DID I FEEL BEFORE CLASS?

I felt nervous. Surprise. 😊 It’s a very big group of 34 students, 33 of whom are male. I had never had experience in teaching such big groups and predominantly male groups. I felt rather anxious about succeeding to manage such a group. I also felt prepared, I had a well-designed lesson plan and variety of different tasks.

HOW DO I FEEL AFTER THE CLASS?

Relieved and at ease and pleased that the lesson went well and smoothly. The objectives of the class were met. No problems arose.

WHAT WENT WELL IN CLASS? WHAT WORKED?
I managed to facilitate the learning process well, students participated actively, and they were truly engaged in doing the tasks. Students did not have any problems with understanding the instructions. Potentially confusing Flinga activity turned out a success. Students understood what they needed to do without any problems and proceeded with the task immediately. That tells me that instructions were clear. There was active group work, active feedback stages, and students stayed motivated and engaged.

WHAT DIDN’T GO SO WELL? WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?
I am actually rather happy with the way class went. There is nothing I would change.

MY STRENGTHS

• Engaging tasks
• Visually rich presentation
• Use of online tools that engaged the students
• Rapport

POINTS FOR IMPROVEMENT

• More confidence in a new teaching context

GUIDINGTEACHER’S FEEDBACK
The teacher had a very good feedback. She was appreciative of my tasks, materials, way of managing the class, rapport. Her only point for improvement comment was to forget the chair and never sit down during the class: present and instruct standing up and monitor the class during the activities by circling around constantly. I appreciate the comment of the teacher very much and I will take it into further practice. However, on having received this feedback I was perplexed as to the fact that I had recently been trained to do a bit differently in a renowned around the international TEFL world Cambridge teacher training program at British Council. Our tutors there emphasized the necessity of a central SEATED position in the classroom, and the trainees were reprimanded for standing up “against” the rules. The pedagogical justification for it is that if a teacher is standing constantly in front of the classroom it makes learning environment more teacher-centred than student-centred. On the contrary, when a teacher is seated at the same eye level with eye contact with every student it creates a more welcoming and student-centred learning environment.

According to Cambridge the TEFL teacher remains centrally seated:

• Starting the class, welcoming the students, small talk
• Giving instructions to tasks
• When students read
• Conducting feedback on tasks
• Wrapping up the lesson

Situations a teacher can stand:

• If they need to use the board or technology for meaning/form clarification or elicitation
• If they need to get students’ full attention for giving/correcting the instructions when the students are doing tasks, or they are distracted
• During pronunciation drill
• Monitoring if the crouching technique is not possible due to the classroom layout.

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teacher-positioning-classroom

After the teacher’s feedback I feel a bit conflicted as to which approach to classroom positioning to use. I would like to discuss it further with a tutor.