TESL 0170 Practicum reflection #3


Summaries and thesis statements, what an adventure! I have to say I was not very confident going into this lesson. It was a lesson taught to a class that I had never taught, a topic that was never really clear for me to begin with and I was being observed by more than one person. I found that my voice projected better during this lesson compared to usual, and the learners were extremely engaged and asked many thought provoking questions. These questions kept me on my toes and helped me learn how to better explain some terminology. Additionally, the learners struggled with a task that involved locating the thesis statement of a piece as a class. After more discussion of terminology, the learner were better able to find the thesis statement as a group. Overall, I think the process of finding thesis statements went well, however in the future I would work more on discussion of terminology and the general look and placement of thesis statements. 

I still tend to overplan my lessons, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, as I am always prepared if the learners finish the work faster. After discussing with the sponsor instructor, I have been working on making more comprehension checks as well as making sure to mix up the groups more throughout a lesson. I have been focusing my attention on that and getting better at timing. Through this process, I think I am getting better at determining the actual amount of time a particular task will take, however I plan additional tasks to make sure that if the class is moving quickly I have backup plans. Also, I think this is helpful because different classes work at different paces. This lesson went really well for both of those aspects. 



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