Category: Reflections

This class was quite interesting to observe. I paid particular attention to the T.’s tricks to keep a nice lesson flow, and manage the classroom in her favour.

Here are a few things that I’ve learned from her and will probably use in my own teachings:

• Every time she explained an activity to her ss, she used the elicitation approach after every single explanation to make sure that the ss listened and understood. For example she would ask them: what will you do? How long do you have? Alone or with a partner? How many questions do you need to answer?
• After every activity she included a few minutes for peer correction, which worked fantastically as it encouraged the ss to use the target language as they spoke to each other, increasing their speaking and listening skills at the same time. It also allowed more reflection than purely teacher-centred input.
• She then proceeded to have a group correction, and individually reviewed her ss whenever applicable.

In her next activity, she explained the simple past and, once again, depended on the elicitation process instead of lecturing. She wrote a sentence on the board in the past tense and asked her ss:
– When did this action occur?
– How do you know?
– Do we all agree?

I believe the ss appreciated being challenged by the teacher like this. Most times they guessed the answers correctly, which was ultimately gratifying and they associated this feeling with their teacher.

T. then proceeded to pronunciation and enunciation. She would ask her ss to listen to the way she spoke, the flow, the stress, and the intonation of the words and syllables.
Ss repeated after her as a group and then T. individually reviewed them.
It seemed like ss found the phonology exercise interesting.

T. moved on to a controlled practise. She asked the ss if they wanted to practise more and received a resounding, “YES.” It was easy to feel that T. successfully built confidence in her ss.

T. included a freer practise as well where she offered a greater choice and the opportunity in personalizing sentences using the target language. The activity increased their writing, listening, and speaking skills.

In her last activity, T. encouraged her ss to role-play. T. spent some time reinforcing that imaginative role with hypothetical situations. She successfully built imageries for her ss and helped them get in the shoes of a museum guide and a tourist for this role playing activity. There was a sense of fun and freedom in the room that facilitated an effective practice. Ss listened and responded to the instructions quickly. They seemed very much excited to start and their energy level rose considerably.

I stumbled upon this English class in Korea with an award-winning teacher.

The class seemed to be for intermediates.
A fairly large class of 20~

Here are a few things that I’ve observed:
T. used the elicitation approach often, as well as the “listen and repeat” method in her warm-up activity.
She asked ss if they knew what appetizers, entrées and desserts were, which they already knew. She asked for examples of each and they all cared to participate.

What has stricken me the most was her pace through the lesson. She was incredibly fast, but not too fast that the ss couldn’t keep up. It was just the right pace, enough to keep the ss engaged without losing them in the process.

• T. used various visuals of western food.
• They were well received by the ss.
• T. praised the ss every time they answered correctly and wrote their ideas on the board.
• Ss were eager to participate and hoped their ideas would be worthy of the board.
• T. included key words, vocabulary exercises, and encouraged ss to repeat after her.
• T. introduced role playing dialogues and the ss had so much fun with it.

Each group would come to the front of the class and role play.

• T. had bow ties for the waiter and menu props for the ss.
• Ss would get creative and improvise scenarios.
• T. encouraged peer ss to clap for each group that role played at the front of the class.
• That activity not only boosted their confidence but also increased their speaking skills, their public speaking skills, and listening skills.
• Ss raised their hands to participate as T. successfully enthused everyone.

To close the role playing activity, T. had a recap/review of the new phrases the ss had learned, making sure all ss could speak and pronounce correctly.

The last activity was an interactive game, like jeopardy. Ss were very competitive. Every student successfully answered every questions during the lesson. I didn’t feel that anyone was confused or lost. Everything had such a nice flow, a vibrant energy and tempo, it would be much harder not to get into the rhythm.

T. had one last recap/review with the students before finishing class.

“Gives yourselves a clap!” she said.

7th hour of observation – 3 more to go!

Adult class – High Beginners

I always try to write new things about every class I observe, however, this one was fairly standard.
Therefore, to avoid repeating from the other observations, I’m going to point out a few things I thought were interesting.

• T. used her hands to show word contractions for “I would” becomes “I’d”.
• T. used the “listen and repeat” method a lot to help her students retain information better.
• After a few repetitions, T. felt her students’ voice lowering and losing “Umph”, so she tried to bring back some momentum with some encouraging praises.
• She didn’t only rely on group activities to review her students, she individually reviewed them.
  – She used the explicit method and corrected pronunciations on the spot.
• She also used the elicitation method and relied on students to guess the answer to questions and activities.
• She encouraged group discussions and listened intently to the students pronunciation, but didn’t interrupt group activities unless she was asked a question.
• She wrote down students ideas on the board, making them feel that their contribution is essential to the progression of the class.

A couple of observations of the students:

• one student in particular was dominating the discussions in activities, however, no one else would speak.
• students participate less when asked about their opinions and ideas, but seem to participate altogether when they are given specific instructions (for example: listen and repeat).

The first thing that I took from that class, after observing it, was how the teacher developed a sort of sign language with her students. It was more than just body language. The students know how to interact with their teacher probably because it was learned in the very first class. I admire that because it not only builds, but also strengthens the student-teacher relationship. Another advantage of this sort of sign language is how much time is saved by using gestures instead of talking, and it also helps with not disrupting the flow of the class. Point – teacher!

What I also observed was the diction used by the teacher. The kids in her class respond really well to the manner of talking, as she is engaging, making jokes, and interacting with her students with an easy diction.
I commend her for constantly praising her students, I’ve already done my first hour of teaching and I find that praising students and using their ideas help them open up.

The teacher uses the Elicitation Approach to correct students! She pulls up an image on the board (for example: a picture of the beach) and has her students guess the answers, and the kids love getting it right. She quickly asks them to spell the words, integrating a pronunciation review activity. She also included a new word for them: skyscraper, and she explained the meaning of the word by dismantling it (sky – scraper). Good strategy. To make sure they’ve understood the word, she has them repeat and spell out the new word.

After the group activity, the teacher individually reviewed the students’ pronunciation. She encouraged the other students to listen to everyone’s pronunciation and even correct them when needed. Peer tutoring? I guess it works, but I’m not sure how I feel about students yelling in unison at one student’s mistake.

Overall, it was a great class. The flow was steady, the level of enthusiasm in that class could have broken the ceiling, and the activities were engaging!

The only minor thing that I thought was missing was that she didn’t ask the students if they had any questions during the class. Maybe they didn’t show any signs of confusion, or they have a sign language for that and no one used it, so she knew everything was clear.

The students in this class are all kids, probably around 12. They understand the basic English instructions and seem engaged in the activities provided by the teachers.

The teachers open with a controlled communicative activity where they provided the dialogues and used famous cartoon characters to make the exercise more relatable to the kids. They quickly move on to the listening activity. It all seems a bit rushed, which seems to work to their advantage because the children picked up on this energy and became very eager to answer questions as quickly as possible.

Transition back to the speaking dialogue, students engage in group practice and pair up. The teachers constantly praise the students with positive words and the kids seem to thrive on this, yearning to be recognized. “Excellent”, “good job”, “very good”,etc… getting called and having your name associated with a praise. Kids are living for this in that class.

I thought it was curious at first when the teacher used a hand clapping sort of beat to mark the end of an activity and have all the kids pay attention. It’s curious, but effective! In a class of possibly 30 students, it worked beautifully.

This is where I think it didn’t work out so well. The teachers brought in a song that the kids would learn and sing altogether. It was a very basic song that, in my opinion, missed the age mark for this class. When the teacher asked the kids if they wanted to sing the song again, they weren’t shy to say no. Was the song too challenging? I doubt it. It was a good educational song, and it was too bad that the children didn’t like it so much.

They move on to the “Last Word” game: a team activity. Compared to the song, the children LOVED this game. They get into competition mode and want to win so badly, which brought this thought to my head: kids thrive under pressure and team building activities, adults, not so much. I tend to thing that adults may prefer support from their teacher and peers instead of a competitive spirit.

Greetings, homework, etc… Let’s jump to what was actually interesting in T.’s class today.

T. wanted to introduce the idea of Logical Fallacies in class. I thought this was particularly interesting to help students use and develop more cognitive ideas as opposed to learning the rules of English. It is crucial for students to understand that English is NOT an art that needs to be mastered, but rather a TOOL that they use to convey their thoughts.

The importance of the logical fallacies is to engage students in understanding that their opinions, themselves, are of the utmost importance, not the vehicle they use to have them heard. Everyone is always so focused on correctness and how a message is transferred that no one cares about the result, and that result is lost all for the sake of correct English. Don’t get me wrong, correctness is important too, however, it is second to result. Here’s why:

I grew up learning that memorizing all the rules and spelling correctly are the most desired skills in English. I lost points in comprehension passages because my spelling and my grammar weren’t up to par even though my idea was correct. The form was more valued than the content. How does a student like me gain confidence in speaking when I need to focus on the way I respond, or the way I use my grammar and vocabulary? I stopped listening to you when I started worrying about my response…

This is what I feel are building up in students… This activity on logical fallacies opened my eyes to this idea that students are so self aware when it comes to responding in correct english that they would rather not say a word, and observe from the bleachers, or even under the bleachers.

Here are my questions that this observation has brought:

1. How do you break this idea that your students are judged on correctness rather than clarity? Make them understand that, as teachers, we care about their ideas and their opinions, and that it’s ok to make mistakes because mistakes are the boundaries of language acquisition.
2. How do we instill in students that content is more important than the form?
3. How do we build their curious minds to ask questions and defy ideas for the sake of seeking knowledge? To develop critical thinkers, identify and neutralize the logical fallacies?

I read something in my research today about traditional learning methods: “I wrote this cookbook, remember the recipe.”

T. opened my eyes with his discussions today. He doesn’t want students to remember the recipes, he wants them to make their own.

I used to be a firm believer that the explicit models (understanding the rules and mastering them) were crucial to understand the logical patterns behind today’s way of speaking and writing (English perpetually changes); however, I’m slowly changing towards a more Intuitive Acquisition approach in order to help students breakdown the barriers that impede their ability to acquire knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

I was having a hard time figuring out what my strong qualities were, so, instead, I’ve asked people I consider to be my strengths to help me out with this task.

Here are a few things they had to say:

“Samantha has many of the qualities that are essential in a good teacher.  To me, the 3 most striking ones are:

A.  RESILIENCE

If Samantha happens to stumble in trying to achieve her goals, she will quickly get back on her feet, ready to start afresh.

B.  EMPATHY

Samantha’s ability to empathize is definitely an asset in teaching as it allows her to see people in different perspectives and to understand that we do not all learn in the same way.

C.  PATIENCE

Over the years Samantha has overcome her impulsive nature and has trained herself to be patient with people.  She has understood that no success is possible without patience.”    –    Dominique Sew (English teacher with close to 50 years of experience)

“I’ve known Samantha for the better of my life and she’s always been an absolute ray of sunshine in every room she finds herself in; I’d say this is one of her strengths period, and will certainly translate to a teaching environment as well.

Some of the traits that will make Sam a great teacher are things she’s exhibited throughout the years as a loyal friend and loving daughter and wife. She’s caring, understanding and very empathetic. She can put herself in someone else’s shoes and almost feel what they feel. I think that’s a stellar quality to have when teaching because it can allow you to accurately perceive how your teaching is being received and what needs to be tweaked.

Additionally, I’d say that Sam is a deeply creative person. She is an amazing artist, singer and photographer and expresses so much feeling creatively. Creativity in a general sense is an excellent addition to learned skills because you always have to adapt to different students and classrooms. Each student will have their own pace and learning preferences and creative teaching goes a long way in enabling learners with different challenges to successfully absorb what is being taught.

Sam is also a perfectionist, occasionally to a fault, and prides herself over work well done. Her stringent attention to detail can be perceived in the way she works, paints and photographs. This is arguably indispensable to teach ESL. Finally, Sam takes accountability. She will take charge of her students’ learning and make sure she does her level best to help them achieve their language goals.”    –    Nastassia Jagatsingh (TESL teacher)

“Samantha is someone who thrives in social settings thanks to her cheerful, friendly, and kind hearted nature. She befriends others and forms strong bonds without even trying, loves to laugh and tease with her loved ones, and has blind faith in those she trusts. She is optimistic, accepting and open-minded, and never one to shy away from a discussion or debate.

Although easygoing, she possesses a quick temper. Fortunately, she’s just as quick to forgive. Her passion is truly admirable. She is frank, honest, full of vigour and ambition. She is strong-willed yet open to feedback and other’s opinion. While she is always encouraging and empowering to her teammates, she tends to be hard on herself more than others whose capacity for action is not as great or inherent. She prefers to bear the weight of responsibility but knows when to delegate appropriately and keep focus on the end goal. She has great attention to detail and seems to energize herself by helping others.

She has a natural affinity for music. She uses her voice as a medium for relaxation, pushing her limits, and to passionately express emotions. She is very good at picking up on the energy of her environment and transcending her emotional responses in artistic ways like painting, writing, and with her guitar. Being from a family of musical aficionados helped her develop a keen ear, good taste, and great respect for anyone as passionate as her. She’s brave enough to sing in front a crowd of a thousand yet humble enough to appreciate the doodles of an amateur.”    –    Anooj Beeharry

T = Teacher

Class Activity breakdown:

1. Group Activity – Discussion about provided short text (45min – took longer than expected)
2. Class Activity – Fill in the blanks (15 min – on time)
3. Class Activity – Find the correct meaning of each word (6min – on time)
4. Class Activity – Vocabulary Definitions (6 min – on time)
5. Group Activity – Discussion / Debate about what should be and not be banned (15 min – on time)

As per my first observation, from Tanya’s class, teachers practice this ice breaking activity with the whole classroom where they are given the chance to speak about how they are doing or what they’ve done during the Victoria Day weekend. This could be a good indication of how the students feel about the day and how the rest of the class is going to unfold itself. Here are some observations from that particular moment:

• Taking an interest in the students’ lives eases their anxiety.
• I could detect anxiety and nervousness in students’ voice.
• Most of the students were shy. Probably fearing of saying something wrong and be judged on their English proficiency.

I really appreciated how T. went over homework and assignments that were due for that week, helping out students who may feel overwhelmed shows care and support. He encouraged them to not be behind and gave tips and advice about how to tackle the work. Therefore, I find that giving direction is very helpful in case students are lost and they’re too afraid to speak up (I think T. picked up on that).

One thing I retained that T. mentioned is that “conversation is a like a game of tennis where the goal is to keep the ball bouncing back and forth between the players as many times as possible.”

• Would a poor reply/response be considered a foul, a net, a miss?
• Would a too advanced reply/response be considered a smash, and the other person would struggle for a smooth recovery?

When T. feels there is doubt or confusion in class about the meaning of a particular word, he will ask for synonyms from other students. Relying on students to help out their fellow students. When nobody knows the answer, T. writes it down for them and elaborates on the purpose of the word or idiom (for example: Devil’s Advocate).

Another thing that caught my attention was when a student tried to articulate his idea, being from a different culture and speaking a different language can understandably cause the students to have accents, so when the student said “Gun Risence,” I expected T. to correct his pronunciation, but he did not and I understand why now; Instead, T. subtly included the same words in his response with the correct pronunciation. I thought that was very tactful and considerate. It’s always better to be mindful of your position vis a vis your students in a learning environment than telling them that they’re wrong (which could harm the student-teacher relationship). Correct your students when they ask for help, you see them struggle, or have issues expressing themselves and be tolerant of the mistakes that may slip through.

I thought T. was incredibly patient with his students and very inclusive of their ideas. Even if the students’ timidity presents quite a challenge to overcome, T. incessantly reassures them that it is ok to speak their mind, voice out their opinions and be heard. It may take a while before they take the initiative, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The only drawback during my observation:
T. asked for volunteers in the room multiple times, due to the high level of shyness, students do not really come forward to volunteer, which has unfortunately taken chunks of the allotted time for the course and caused a few topics to be missed that day.

Then the question is: is it almost always better to take control of the practice by picking out students to participate, or be freer with the practice and let students come forward at the cost of taking too much time of the allocated time? My guess it to prepare for both possibilities.

The English proficiency of the class ranged from low beginners to high beginners.

After observing Tanya’s class quite closely, I drew the conclusion that she is a very devoted teacher. Her teachings include constant care, regular reviewing, and inclusivity of all the members. I don’t think I could pick out the “underdog” in her class. She has made everyone feel at ease and safe in her teaching space by building a community where everyone can benefit from one another, and that’s something I truly admire. From the very beginning of the class, it is clear to see that she takes a keen interest in her students; She remembers their names and the quirky details about their life that makes them who they are. It goes without saying that, thanks to her previous classes, she successfully developed a good relationship with all of them, which helped with being very comfortable around her; comfortable enough to voice out their ideas and participate in her fun activities. In fact, she understood that very well: mix fun with learning, and you have a recipe for success. It is hard to be reluctant with the powerful energy and drive that she emanates.

What are the good qualities that I’ve learned from this observation?

• It is important to praise, and use your students’ ideas as often as possible to build their confidence.
• Active Listening and Repetitions are crucial to practice in communicative activities.
• Balance between control practices and free practices while increasing the difficulty (Be the training wheels of the bicycle until it’s safe to remove them, but don’t be afraid to put them back on when you feel that your student is about to fall).
• (Relatable) Role playing dialogues are fun and appreciated by students!
• Bring a lot of props to class! Visuals make the learning process easier.
• Review each student as much as possible until they grasp the lesson (no man/woman left behind).
• Don’t be shy to use body language, it is universal!
• Learn to read the room. If your gut tells you that someone is confused, it’s probably true.
• If you realize that you forgot to cover a specific topic, go over it as soon as you can.
• Build a logical pattern/link between your classes (the previous class was about body parts, her following class was about clothing).
• Build team spirit between your students, not competition.

If I have to point out one thing that confused me, it would be what happened during the second communicative activity. They are role playing with Tanya and students are speaking somewhat fluently, but not very accurately, and yet she isn’t correcting them.

Why?

My guess is that the conveyed message is more important than the proper formulation of the sentence?

Is she secretly assessing the students proficiency and keeping the issues for later to tackle one on one?

Would correcting them on the spot deter them from speaking again?

In conclusion to this reflection, I truly hope that my future students feel this comfortable around me and that I successfully keep their eagerness to learn alive.

After all, “if I can do it, so can you.”