Reflection #2 – A Long Way To Go...

March 14, 2014

For my new speaking class this week, I wanted to review what we learned last week – the days of the week and some of the different types of weather.  There were was a lot of repetition and I tried to play games so that they would have fun and get to know me a little bit.  For this week’s class, I wanted to continue with the same idea, with them having fun, but I wanted to try having more student-student interaction.  This week’s lesson was about introduction – what’s your name, how old are you, and nice to meet you.

After a quick review, and doing it in a game format, where they were put into 2 teams, and were rewarded points.  It made them more energetic and seemed to have a good time.  Next, I wrote on the board of what we were going to learn.  I didn’t think that they would know what to say, so I wrote the question of what they were going to say on the board.  At any time if I asked them a question or asked them to repeat, if I felt that they were speaking loud enough, I would ask them to speak louder so that I know they won’t get tired or bored as easily.  Given their age, they liked to yell a lot, but I didn’t mind; I preferred that. 

Because this was just our second class, there was a new student, and all of the students didn’t know each other from the first place, today’s topic of introduction or “it’s nice to meet you” was suitable.  I tried to split them into teams and have them rotate asking each the other teams the different questions.  I tried to reward them points and after when I felt they got used to it, I told them I would take away points if they didn’t remember any names (although everyone remembered everyone’s names).

Overall, I felt the students had fun today, the new students got along well, and there was more student-student interaction, where I felt they were not too familiar with.  However, after reading the different articles and seeing myself in the recording, I realize that there are so much to learn and there are so many different methods of teaching.  I realized that what I’m trying now may not work for long.  Children always need to have some kind of change so that they stay interested. 

When recording, I decided to point it at myself because I didn’t think the students would have been able to concentrate, and also due to the time constraints, it would have been time consuming otherwise.  So I just recorded without the students really noticing.  I realize that some things may be working in this class, but the dynamics of my other classes are a little different.  I notice already that all this reading for the course is making me think of things that I never thought before.  It’s making my feeling of being scared and nervous in teaching this class, to a good nervous, challenging feeling.  After looking at the video, I realize too that what I think and feel, may not be quite be the same as what is actually happening.  There is a long way to go…