TESL 0170 - Practicum reflection #4


This afternoon was the 4th 2 hour lesson that I taught during my practicum and I only have one more after this. Today, I have a great deal to reflect on because I got the chance to teach two lessons with essentially a lunch break in between. It gave me great perspective as to what it would be like to teach English as a second language full-time, and I have to say, I loved it! While teaching always has its ups and downs, today was a very rewarding day. I finally managed to get my timing just right during this lesson as well as mixed up the groups and pairings throughout the lesson so that learners got a better understanding and perspective during the discussions. This is always something that I intend to do during my lessons, however I often found it difficult because of timing, but this time because the timing was on, everything else fell into place. 

I also used the learners names more and more as well as feel more comfortable working with the learners and knowing what the learners’ interests are.  In particular, I felt that the discussion activity worked very well. The learners had a good debate and it helped the learners to express their thoughts and opinions in English. Additionally, the listening activity went very well as the audio recording was clear and at a pace that was understandable to the learners. 

Working with my sponsor instructor throughout this course has helped me to better my teaching approach with adults.  In this instance, my sponsor instructor recommended that I switch groups up more regularly during a class. During this teaching session, I took that advice and changed groups more regularly.  This helped the class because it gives learners different perspectives and a chance to listen to people that they don’t usually listen to. This was also true for the discussion section of the class as differing opinions brought about some level of debate. Overall, I really appreciate this advice and will use it more in my future teaching experiences.

Vocabulary presentation: 


Lesson plan: 


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