Teacher’s Classroom Reflection Questions
- When you have completed your lesson, ask yourself these questions.
1. Did the students co-operate with their peers or seem to have much contact outside of class with proficient L2/Foreign Language users?
The students did co-operate with their peers. I think the best way to do this is through the instructions of the teacher. I said ‘talk to four people’, this made them at least talk to more than their partner. I think the next time I will get them in groups but mix the groups up.
My thoughts are on building a community spirit
2. Did the students often ask for clarification, verification, or correction?
All these factors are important for the lesson and I encourage them. I thought the students were using them. There were still some students relying on other students to help. I wrote some Concept Checking Questions (CCQ) for the students to ask. At least, it highlighted factors to address.
3. Do your lesson plans incorporate various ways that students can learn the language you are modelling, practising or presenting, in order to appeal to a variety of learning styles and strategies?
I got the students up in lines, and they had to sort out an order. I had pictures to relate the words. I think I should have done the opposites of some of the words to make the words clearer. Also, I think they could have learnt more, so I could have got them out to write more words on the board, although I did put three pictures on the wall and let the students get up and write their ideas.
4. Does your teaching allow learners to approach the task at hand in a variety of ways? Is your LLS training implicit, explicit, or both?
I think I use a variety of ways for the students to learn. Also, I go around the students when they working and ask them questions and check their work to see how they are tackling the task. This gives them a chance to ask questions.
5. Is your class learner-centered?
At times, I still feel I talk too much although I used a lot of group work. This group is tempered because the students always like to chat.
6. Do you allow students to work on their own and learn from one another?
I encourage students to talk to their partners. I try and focus them on asking their partner questions. I also had it in mind to get them conversing with each other. I have a feeling that at times I should allow the students to do my work and then they ask me questions. For example, in this class, I reviewed some sentences the students had written on the board about three pictures and all the students were quiet. This I thought was valuable time wasted. I think I should have given the pictures to the students and checked their work as they worked in a group.
7. As you circulate in class, are you encouraging questions, or posing ones relevant to the learners with whom you interact?
I think I do this well. It is fascinating because some of the students do not understand the questions you ask. This shows that they still need a lot of one-to-one practice. One lady in this lesson kept saying ‘I do not understand’. I made it a focus of mine to get her to understand. I feel as though some students are not real learners. They come to our school thinking that just following the teacher and speaking a few words makes them a student. So, by circulating in class, and encouraging questions I can install the learning spirit in them. I think also my relevant questions about their learning and showing that we are all in this together, they will benefit from asking questions and learning in this class.
8. Do students seem to have grasped the point?
My first exercise was to get the students to write some sentences about what they feel they want from this class. I think I should have explained it better. They were not sure why we were doing the exercise. Saying this though I feel if I give them the answers they will just copy and give the answers that are the right answers but not what they really feel. Again I can look back at the questions for understanding. If they do not understand they should ask.
9. Did they use the LLS that was modeled in the task they were to perform?
They were hesitant to use the sentences I gave them about understanding. Some were not sure why they had to do it. They do the task but for some reason, they hold back. I think this idea of LLS was new to them. I have 30 hours with the class and I will try to improve their ideas on how they learn.
10. What improvements for future lessons of this type or on this topic might be gleaned from students’ behaviour?
I think I will try to have the students working together more and mixing the groups up also. I need to install some questions for understanding that will always be needed. I will try and keep them thinking that they can ask the teacher when they do not know.
11. What did you do at the start that got them thinking?
For this lesson about general appearance, I first asked questions about their height, and length of hair. I then talked about my general appearance. I did this by using my hands. I also wrote a spider’s web on the board to help with the words.
12. How did the students show they were trying to acquire the knowledge?
I said to them ‘Am I short?’ and the students answered ‘No, you are short.’ This showed to me who was listening. Some students asked me for clarification. This was good because it became more personal. I also said ‘am I young?’ which most people said ‘no’.
13. How did the students show they had learnt the grammar point?
I made them write some sentences on the board about the pictures I had put up. I let them write freely without any checking then once they had finished I checked over the work. I also had them write in the book about themselves and their partner and I went around and checked this.
14. With respect to language acquisition, how can you show this factor has been achieved with your students?
This was the first lesson and I do not think that they could have acquired the grammar. I think for this first lesson it was just to show them the words. I think in the next lesson I will allow them to try and use the words as it is easier to write than speak.
15. What do you wonder about in your teaching and your students’ learning?
I wonder why so many students when they do not understand either forget about it or ask their friends. Their friends may tell them the answer but it is in their native language. This dismisses their chance to listen to a native speaker explain. I wonder why they think they can not ask for clarification.
16. What puzzles you about your students, the content, or the organization of your classroom?
I think the organization of the room is fine but the class is too big. My content needs to be more learner-centered and less talk from the teacher. I need to have exercises that allow the students to be puzzled and ask questions.
17. What aspects of the students’ learning do you want to understand better?
I want to know how much they have learned in the class. I want them to show that they have understood the lesson and like speaking their new language
18. What are some of your teaching situations that you are intrigued by or want to change? Why?
I want to change the way I use the board and teacher talking time. I notice sometimes that I can be talking and the whole class is listening but I could have done this task a bit differently and got the students to do the work.
19. What do you know about your teaching or their learning that you are interested in verifying?
I want to know that my language is not too slow or fast for the level and also am I testing them to their fullest.
The Famous PPP
If you can recall I mentioned PPP and it is a great first introduction theory about how to structure your lessons. I have added a video here to explain the process a bit more.
Dogme teaching
I have added this video from Scott Thornbury where he talks about the Dogme style of teaching. I mentioned this method as opposed to using ESA or PPP. There are, of course, other videos by him talking about Dogme and it would be wise to listen to them also. Dogme is a constructive method of teaching. The materials light theory, he mentions, is a great idea where you can work on what is inherent in the students and that is their knowledge of the world and how they perceive it and what relates to them instead of teaching unrelated topics that students, in a way, do not care about. Going back to the materials light aspect, I always found there was a queue for the Xerox and you were sometimes overloaded with worksheets and such like, so to be thinking in ‘materials light’ way could be so productive and get away from worksheet as a time filler.
Apps, Apps and more Apps (when will it stop!)
I now have a new iPad, and there are many Apps to work with. Also, after speaking to other teachers and using the web to find other useful ones, downloading them, I am presently overloaded with Apps. My endeavour is to find out which Apps suit my teaching style and others that have a real benefit to the students. As a side-note, one major factor is that I have an iPad, but my students are normally used to old computers. So, I just wanted to make a note of some of the Apps I found quite interesting. I did start using iTunes U, but this meant the students need to get an Apple ID. For any student, this would a task, so I would recommend using up Edmodo. This is a great site for uploading class material. I then ventured to NearPod which impressed me after using Prezi, Powerpoint, and Keynote. It is not your usual presentation site because you can add quizzes and polls squeezed into your presentation as you deliver it. It will keep the students busy. It also allows you to give the presentation to the students slide by slide when needed. Once they are signed on and you give them the code for the class, you are ready to go.
I do have many Apps, but the last one (I don’t want to bore you, too much) that I will mention is GoodReader. This one allows you to store all your class material. PDF files can be AirDropped to your students through the iPads. Once they have done this work they can send it back to you. This is great for marking as you can use your fingers (as like a pen) to mark their work and then send back to them. Hey presto no paper!!. Oh yeah, TeacherKit is a great way to remember student names, you take their picture and write their names underneath. You can take attendance with this too. I could go on but as you see from below this is my iPad with many more Apps. Good luck with your iPads if you have them (they are becoming hard to avoid)!
Thailand Floods: Been There, Done That
(690 words)
On the topic of the recent flooding in 2011 in Thailand, I was able to access the thoughts of ten Bangkok university students to gather enough data to enlighten me as to how best to proceed with putting together my essay. I first questioned what they already knew about the subject and what their attitudes toward the flooding were. I left some guesswork up to such questions as to their general age and cultural status was.
One of the first questions I asked the ten people was whether the flood directly affected them. I wanted to know whether the water got into their houses. Of all the ten answers received, not one was in the affirmative. A unanimous “no” to such a question both surprised and pleased me since it meant my job was that much more straightforward. I knew now I had to bring the flood to them. My essay now had a clearer purpose, namely to make this ongoing crisis more of an urgent reality to be collectively acknowledged as opposed to a distant one as it currently seems to be for the ten people I spoke with.
I elaborated the first question further with another that asked if any of them had seen the floods personally. All but three said ‘no’, and even the first and second of those two had to get out via the train because of where they lived to avoid the water that may or may have not come. The third said there was water surrounding her neighborhood, but not enough to keep her from coming and going as she pleased. We also asked if any of them had trouble finding food. They all said food was easy to get, it was the clean water that people had a hard time getting.
I then conducted three polls, first I gave three choices to the question; Do you think the flood was natural, man-made, or both? Two said it was man-made, three said it was naturally caused, leaving a majority of the remaining five who chose both. Citing the tourism industry, poor management, and global warming as just some of the causes for why the flooding has been worse than it has in the past. The second poll, which asked whether the flooding will happen again, yielded yet another unanimous vote saying ‘yes’. This indicated that the group was well aware that the flooding is going to get worse and more frequent if something does not change very soon. When asked how soon the next major flood will occur, seven said “in the next few years,” with one each saying “within a decade,” “in the next three to four years,” and 5th final one saying, “possibly sooner, next year if the drains are not fixed.”
Additionally, going by observations and some guesswork, the general age varied between the early twenties and thirties; the cultural status, albeit somewhat irrelevant in today’s globalized world, ranges from Chinese to Thai to German; the educational level is college-level; their economic status is likely middle-class on average; their occupations vary; and their attitudes toward me as an interviewer were in all likelihood positive, considering I gave them little reason to feel otherwise.
Looking over the results, I was much more confident than ever about my essay because I was no longer preparing for it blindly. It was all too evident that the flooding had a far less direct impact on the people I interviewed. Although some were greatly affected by this terrible occurrence, I did my best to bring about how this problem happened, what to do to prepare for it, and were things wrong in the first place. I feel most of the audience while fortunate for now will not be so lucky in the future. It tends to give a false sense of security to the people of Bangkok when no clear organization was shown from the beginning of this tragedy. Bangkok is predicted to be underwater in the next few years, within all of our lifetimes. This is a problem that should be addressed and remedied as quickly as possible, something my essay aims to do.
