Reflection #5 – What a week…

April 4, 2014

I feel like I have been staring at this blank document forever.  Not because I’m trying to think about what to write…but because there’s so much to write about…

First off, this week has been very hectic.  Last weekend, we had a teachers meeting and we were supposed to talk about some ongoing issues, and basically start fresh with a new canvas.  It’s the beginning of the school year, and this is the time where a lot of parents are looking into new hakwons – a lot of students dropping and joining.  Our hakwon keeps growing so we’re supposed to start new classes this week.  We did, however, we had one teacher quit this week.  There was so much drama between the teachers but we we’re all trying to keep it behind closed doors.  I don’t want to go into details, but it was extremely difficult this week.  On top of all this, my mind has been all over the place.  Some of my classes are relatively new, but I keep getting more classes, and as my knowledge as a teacher continues to grow, it was getting pretty overwhelming and stressful. 

Despite everything that’s been going on, one of the things that have been on the top of my head was warm-up and greeting.  It wasn’t something I have really thought of.  We run a pretty busy schedule from the afternoon to the evening, with a maximum class size of 8.  We see all the students in the halls before our class starts and talk to them even before they start class with a different teacher.  So I was trying to figure out how I could incorporate it into my lesson plan.  Although I made a conscience effort to try greeting the students more and trying to make them relax, I wanted to really focus on two of my classes – one on Tuesday and one on Friday. 

For Tuesday’s class, there was so much drama boiling at that point, at the same time when we were starting our first classes on that day, I couldn’t really prepare for it.  For my Friday’s class, I usually went by a book and went by the previous teachers ideas and lesson plans.  But this week, I decided to try something totally new.  It was a speaking class for four 9-10 year old boys.  Up until now, they would do some reading, there would be specific questions that they would ask each other, and I would give them points accordingly.  However, they had difficulty reading, they were young so they had a hard time concentrating, and basically, I felt I wasn’t teaching efficiently. 

So this week, I planned my lesson by starting my greeting by asking them, “How are you doing?”  I don’t usually write things on the WB before hand, but I tried to use it as much as I could before the start of my class.  So I decided to write their names on the side (so I keep an ongoing record of their points); today’s topic; and the question on the board, thinking that the students would know what to expect.  I would first start off by asking individually how they were doing, and then I would get them to ask each other.  Then I would ask them questions on what they brought into class, because they would always have snacks or something new from the previous class. 

However, it didn’t go as planned.  First, the previous class ended really late so I started late.  This is a problem because I have other classes that start right after one finishes.  So I had reduced time and there was a lot of “activity” going on because of the start of new classes.  Also, I expected them to ask me if they could speak Korean because they wouldn’t know how to say a lot of things, but when I asked them how they were doing, they either said, “I don’t know” or kept doing other things (ex. eating food, joking around).  I tried asking them individually, but I was getting the same response. 

Because I was pressed for time, I decided to just move on.  I knew that if I had tried asking that question in different ways, the students would have gotten really bored.  Then, I kept thinking if I had to do a warm-up or preview that made the students interact with each other, even though it had nothing to do with the topic.  But I didn’t think it would have been good for my class – time being one reason.  Today’s topic was thinking about what we can do for our parents on special days such as Mother’s Day.  My plan for the enabling objectives was for the students to learn words that relate to house chores that they would do at home.  To activate schema, I’m not sure if I thought of it correctly, but I thought of doing it bottom-up.  I wanted to review some vocabulary first, so when they listened to the CD of the main passage, they would have a better understanding of what it was talking about, and then they could use those words throughout the lesson. 

I printed and cut out the vocabulary words so that I can show them and have them repeat together.  I asked them what they were and they answered back using their L1.  I was quite surprised because they understood most of the words quite well.  After I showed each word, I taped them to the board.  After, I showed them pictures of the word.  I asked them again what they were and they answered quite well again.  Then I taped those onto the board as well.  I then made two teams of two, and had them match the words with the pictures.  By doing this game, I thought it would be a fun way to activate schema, help them understand the vocabulary for the lesson, at the same time recycle TLC. 

For the rest of the lesson, I felt it went well.  I had planned to ask them questions about mother’s day and what they do to help out, but they tried using the words that were on the board and I felt they did a great job.  They are young and at times, it’s hard to get four energetic boys to pay attention, but they were able to find the words they were looking for to answer my questions and fill out their worksheet.  In previous classes, they didn’t have too much fun reading and writing, so I tried to reduce that a lot by playing a game.  Rather than having them speak sentences, which I have been doing in the past, I tried to get them to practice on their vocabulary by playing BINGO.  I was worried that they wouldn’t have found it fun, but to my surprise, they had fun, and I realized it was helping them with their reading.  They couldn’t read and catch the words quite quickly.    

When I first started class, I was worried because my class time was reduced by 10-15 minutes.  But my next class came late, so what I thought of cancelling from my lesson, I just went with the flow.  If the class came, then I would just stop, but I was able to cover most of my lesson and they seemed to have fun with our new class style.  I really wanted to record this class, and I was already, but there were so many interruptions and disturbances that prevented me.  It took me several hours to prep for this 40 minute class, but I feel like I learned so much.  I tried to see if I could go more dialogic, but as soon as I tried, I realized there was that moment of silence and confusion, so I just made it more monologic. 

Everything was so hectic and I was so worried about this lesson, wondering if I was going to miss anything, not do anything, etc.  I had to manage my time really well, but once I started the BINGO game, I was just starting to feel at ease, and feel more comfortable.  Next time, I’m going to have to record, think of a better way to do the warm-up, and have them practice speaking more sentences, where they can also practice saying to each other (dialogic interaction).  Next time, instead of talking so much about what I did, I realize I have to record more of myself so I can see where things went wrong, and think about how to fix them.  More planning, but more reflection and corrective action!