TESL 0170: Continued professional development report

I used many resources during my 10 hours of teaching, however, the main resource that was used is the ESL textbook “Skills for Success”. It is the coursebook for Level 4 students taking “English for Academic purposes “ course. All the students had a hard copy of the book whereas the teacher also had the ebook on the oxford learner’s shelf. 

This book proved to be a great help to me. When I was observing the class, I was given one copy by the sponsor teacher. While discussing the chapters, I observed that he used to open up the book online and display it on the smartboard. He would type, write, highlight and check the answers on the ebook. I did the same during my teaching hours. I found that the book is very easy to use and follow. The instructions in the book are very clear. It is divided into units of reading, listening, writing and speaking. There are 15-18 activities for every unit, including video, grammar, and vocabulary games, and alternate unit assignments, as well as a range of tools to encourage student communication, including the online Discussion Board and email. There is a question at the beginning of each unit which makes students think about the topic and gather some ideas. There is also a checklist of the learning outcomes for each unit which keeps students on track and help them achieve their goal. Videos in the unit are mostly documentary style and help in generating the interest of the students in the topic. Writing space is provided on the book itself so they can fill the answers on it and take notes. 

The online version of this book provides extra support for the teachers such as Multilevel teaching tips, Expansion activities, Background notes on the reading or listening texts plus the art in the unit openers, Grammar, and Vocabulary skill notes, Unit Assignment grading rubrics. They can also access Answer keys, Audio scripts and video transcripts, Communicative Grammar worksheets, Discussion Board worksheets with teaching notes to help with the online Discussion Board.

Speaking is supported with discussion points, and writing involves pair work and peer-reviewing, which naturally involves speaking and its various sub-skills. There is also a skill build on dictionary use for identifying word forms and importantly for finding the correct meaning. I covered that part in the class and the students found this useful, as they were having difficulty choosing the correct definition of the word from the dictionary. All in all, every unit has a strong integration of all the skills.

To be honest, I could not find any drawback except that when I was accessing the online version of the book, it would just get stuck there and not go to the next page. Also, the person who is not very comfortable with technology, using the online version is a bit of a challenge but they can take advantage of the printed version. 

I would recommend this book to the English learners who want to learn on their own, at their own pace.

TESL 0170: Teaching Journal and Self-Evaluation

My 10 hours of teaching was a great learning experience for me as I discovered so much about myself as a teacher and came to know what my strengths are, what are the things I need to work upon.

My Strengths as a Teacher:
I think what I did really well was building rapport with the students. During my observation hours, I started interacting with them and they were really comfortable with me when I started teaching them. They were comfortable asking me questions and I quickly earned about their interests, their level and the way they want me to teach them. For example, some of the students in the class were quick to respond and some took time to think. So, learning about them helped me a lot while I was teaching and I think this is my biggest strength, making connections with the students and knowing them. Even on the last day of my teaching, students came to me to thank me and said that they enjoyed my class.

Also, another thing I discovered about myself is that I am good at preparing and presenting. I spend extra time every day preparing my lessons and going through the content so that when I am actually delivering it in front of the class, it should not seem like I am teaching it for the first time. Though I do not have much experience in the lesson planning, I think I did a very good job at preparation and planning. There were times when the time management became an issue but I was able to handle it well.

Also, I have a good command over the class. I make sure that students pay attention to me while I am teaching. I speak clearly and slow enough that students understand.

Areas for improvement:

I understand that I still have a lot to learn and improve. The most prominent thing that sponsor teacher pointed out and I also realized is that I have a tendency to provide the correct answer to the student right away. I need to learn and incorporate different techniques of error correction rather than providing the answer immediately. I also tried it in the last two lessons which worked fine but I can still improve upon it.

Another thing I need to work upon is introducing more activities in the classroom to make it interesting. The class that I taught in was very curriculum bound so the class teacher told me that there is not much we can change but still while teaching the content, introducing little activities make it interesting rather than teaching every day in the same way. For example, there were 2 reading chapters, first chapter, students did individually and but the second reading was done in the groups in the form of activity. So, I think I would need to learn these techniques.

Future Plans:

I plan to gain some more experience in teaching by doing volunteering so I am thinking to apply for volunteer opportunities after this course because I am working full-time right now. At the beginning of next year, I will be moving to Toronto so I hope to have good teaching experience by then so that I can start my teaching career there. I am inclined to teach EAP students.

My reflection on student’s evaluation:

Overall, the feedback from the students was really good and positive. They mentioned that they understood the lectures well and that also reflected in the class activities they were doing and their tests. All of them mentioned that I spoke clearly and most of them preferred the group activities over the individual work. One student suggested that there should be more activities in the class and they should be given more handouts to practice.

TESL 0170: Teaching Reflection: Lesson 4

I delivered the final lesson on July 15 and this was only for one and half hour. Though I stayed in the class for the whole 3 hours and I and class teacher taught the class together and I got to learn from him again.

I started the lesson again by introducing the plan of the day on the board and checking homework. It took like 30 minutes to check homework as it was the reading exercise and students had a lot of questions about it. In my lesson plan, I only assigned 10 minutes for this. So, I got a bit nervous about timing but was able to manage well. I changed the plan and covered the grammar exercise until break which went really well. After the break, class teacher and I decided that students will practice the highlighting and annotating while doing a reading lesson. What we did was taking printouts for the reading paragraphs, divided the class into 4 groups and gave 3 paragraphs to each group. Then, we asked the class to highlight and annotate the paragraph and told them that later on, every student will need to explain their part to the other groups. After they were done, we changed the groups and formed new groups with the students with different paragraphs. Now, we asked the students to explain their part one by one and get the main idea of the reading. Students did it really well. It helped their understanding and ability to explain it to others.

One thing I would like to change with this lesson plan would be the way I checked the homework. As the class teacher explained that with the reading exercises, it is always a good idea if the students check the answers in groups and then if they have any doubts, they can always ask the teacher. It takes less time and is more effective than just us providing answers.

Here is the link to lesson 4:

Lesson Plan 4

TESL 0170: Teaching Reflection: Lesson 3

I delivered the third lesson on 12 July, again for 3 hours. I started the lesson by checking the homework. All of the students except 2 had done their homework so I gave their names to the class teacher and discussed the answers for the homework. Today, I also made sure to give some time to students to see if they have any questions in regards to the homework. Then, I started with the grammar part which is subjunctives. I had some practice exercise prepared on subjunctives so they practiced that. Then we started with the reading skill: highlighting and annotating and students practiced that in groups. During the break time, practicum supervisor came and we started with the reading. Students did the reading in pairs and at the end, we had a fun group activity on subjunctives. I gave 9 slips to every group and career names were written on the slips. I told the students that they need to pretend to be working in the school's career center and it is their job to give suggestions to the students who want to pursue those specific careers. every student will pick one slip and the next student in the group will have to make a suggestion. Students really enjoyed this activity. Practicum supervisor also talked to me after the class and I received very positive feedback. She mentioned that she wanted to see if I have implemented the suggestions that she made last time and said that I did that very well. She also praised that I speak clearly and at right volume and speed. I was very happy with the feedback and the response I got from the students.

One thing I would do next time would be to add more profession names to the career counseling activity for it to run a bit longer so that students can have a good practice on subjunctives.

Here is the Link to Lesson Plan 3:
Lesson Plan 3

TESL 0170: Teaching Reflection: Lesson 2

I took the second class on July 11, again for 3 hours from 9am to 12pm. The students arrive on time and I was feeling confident than day 1. The lesson plan and class went very well and I was able to complete all the activities on times, though some of them took longer and some took less time than what I thought.

The class teacher had given me a few suggestions and I learned the following things during this teaching session:

-After checking the homework and providing answers to the students, give students a minute to think and see if anyone has any questions. Students often don't speak up unless given a chance.

-Mistakes are good learning opportunities so rather than providing the correct answer right away, talk about that mistake. Give that student an opportunity to find the correct answer themselves. Also, if many students are having the same issue, discuss it as a whole class.

-How to pick students to answer? It is sometimes more efficient to pick a specific student rather than pointing at a group of students to answer because they keep wondering who should answer. Sometimes, let them check the answers with each other and then provide the answers, depending upon the time and difficulty of the exercise.

Here is the link for Lesson Plan 2:

Lesson Plan 2

TESL 0170: Teaching Reflection: Lesson 1

Today was my first lesson and I taught vocabulary skill and Listening skill and I covered one listening chapter. Everything went well and according to the plan. I was able to cover the content in time. Initially, I felt a bit nervous but after half time, when I received the feedback from the class instructor, I got confident. Class Instructor gave feedback that I made good use of the board. My speaking volume and speed were perfect, not too slow or too fast and loud enough. He also liked that I was picking the students who were a bit shy in responding or who were participating less. One suggestion he gave me was that when one student is making a suggestion or sharing his opinion, we need to make sure that students listen to him rather than us rephrasing every time. So, it is important that we bring the other student's attention towards the student who is sharing his opinion. It can be done by asking other students whether they agree or disagree. 

The practicum supervisor also had positive feedback that I did a good job and I was well organized. She suggested that there should be more of a group or peer work in the class rather than them working individually. I felt that students were also comfortable and were asking questions.

Overall, it was a very good experience and I am looking forward to improve in the next lessons.

Here is the link to lesson plan 1: 

Lesson Plan 1

TESL 0170: Teaching observation Journal report

Here is the link:

Teaching Observation Journal report

TESL 0170: Teaching Observation Final Report

I observed English for Academic Purposes(Level 4) classes offered by the xxxxxxxx for 5 days( June 27,28 and July 3,4,5). Classes run from Monday to Friday(9am-12pm) and this batch started on June 24. I observed from 9am to 10:30 on Wednesday and Thursday. However, on Fridays, I attended the full class for 3 hours. The class consists of 16 students, most of them are international students. There are 2 students in the class who are French-speaking students from Quebec and came here to learn English under the Explore Program. Most of the students are from Asian countries. The classes that I observed focussed mainly on listening, reading and writing.

Learning Outcomes: Students learned different reading and listening skills such as use a chart to organize main ideas(Note taking Skill), preview and prediction, listening for main ideas. They also learned to use vocabulary in context and how to create an essay outline. 

Learning Objectives: The objective of the learning is to engage students in various activities such as classroom discussions, group discussion, peer review, games, expose students to use vocabulary words, make them use these words using different activities and material, have them participate in the online discussion forum to reflect their learning

Best Practices in:

Presenting Materials: I learned that it is very important to introduce the topic in a way that students understand and relate to it. It is always good to provide examples or tell a story while introducing the topic and then go on to cover the material. It is also useful to show pictures or videos on the topic. Also, check the student comprehension by asking questions and involving them in the discussion. Even in the teacher-centered activity, student participation should be encouraged.

Engaging students: It is very important to call the students by name. Also, I observed that the teacher had names of the students written on ice-cream sticks and put it in a jar, and when he had to ask a question, he would randomly pick one stick and call that student whose name is on the stick. It avoids the feeling among the students that the teacher is targeting them or putting them on the spot. The teacher would also move around the class to talk to the students while they have group/individual activities.

Responding to student questions: The teacher would answer all the questions immediately while new material is being presented and the teacher would address the whole class. During the practice session, if the teacher is being asked the same question by many students or if the teacher would feel that something can benefit the whole class, the teacher would again address the whole class and answer that question. If many students raise their hands to ask questions, the teacher would make sure to answer these ones by one while making sure that every student gets a chance to ask their question. The teacher would also answer student’s questions after the class if someone was shy during the class. The teacher would also ask some cross questions to help students to figure out the answer to the question rather than just providing the answer directly.

Incorporating technology: Teacher used the online Oxford dictionary to show the word meanings. The interactive whiteboard was mainly used while presenting new material. The teacher also used quizlet.com for playing vocabulary quiz, Edmodo (an online platform) for the online discussion forum and other computer applications such as Microsoft word, recorded audios and videos.

Classroom management: The classroom was very well managed. All of the students were moved to this level 4 class from other classes so they knew the classroom rules very well. They were very respectful towards the teacher and would wait for their turn to ask questions. The teacher would also manage the time very effectively. I observed on student taking longer than the assigned time to complete the activity so the teacher politely told them to hand over the sheet as the time is over.

Error correction: I learned the best practice for error correction is not only to correct them but also help the student understand the mistake, often relating to what they learned in the previous classes. If the focus is on the ideas, it is not required to point out the grammar or pronunciation errors, however, of the focus is on grammar or vocabulary, Teacher would correct the students by repeating and rephrasing the sentence, by giving them two options and asking which do they think is correct and by pointing out the error and ask them to correct themselves.

This was my first time observing the language class and it was a great learning experience.