Entry 6: My First Teaching

April 10th, 2014

I made my first teaching today. It was very exciting but I was very confident this time. I didn’t get nervous. Last semester, the teachings felt like a play to me. We wrote it first and then we rehearsed it several times and finally we were on stage with real audience. I had a morning class before my school-visits last semester. Every Friday, I left the dormitory as a student and I came back as a teacher. I was the student in the mornings and I had students in the afternoons. It was so strange. Because of this; teachings were nothing more than presentations for me. However, I didn’t feel like so this time. It was like I left my own apartment and took my books from the teachers’ room and had a little conversation with my colleagues and then headed to the classroom where my beautiful, bright students were waiting for me. I am sure that this isn’t realistic at all but I felt good and confident. That is what really matters for me. 

I want to talk about the lesson in detail. It was a grammar lesson, for one thing. They were still studying on simple past tense, so me and my partner decided to do some exercises because we don’t need to teach it again. As a warm-up, we referred to last week’s exercises. There was a person called Sam and the exercises were about his last weekend. I thought it would be clever to refer to that, but our review was oral, so our mentor teacher warned us that oral grammar reviews don’t work, especially in young learners. Using the words “regular” and “irregular” confuses them so it wasn’t a good idea for that part.

Apart from that, I think the lesson was quite good. First, they did an info-gap like speaking activity. They asked questions to each other and shared them with class. Finally, they played board game. They can move only if they form correct sentences with the given verbs and time expressions. Also, for those who come to the same square, there were extra questions. They really enjoyed it. Also, I made colourful dices and tokens for the activity and they liked them, as well. However, the ones who lost the game got upset. For example; İdil said she didn’t like the game. When I asked why her friend said because she lost. I should have said "Nobody lost, everyone is the winner." to encourage them. I should have motivated them somehow. Games can be tricky in such cases. The students are so obsessed with winning that they forgot that this is a lesson. Games are great tools for teaching English, but we shouldn’t let the students be distracted by them.

Here are the materials I used in class.