Entry 11: Final Teaching

                                                                                                                           

May 29^th, 2014

Unlike my first two teachings, I was really nervous this time. Maybe, it is because it was literally my final teaching as a student. The idea that this is my last chance to cover up the teaching skills which are problematic for me was very discouraging. I won’t have another chance to practice my teaching skills. I mean, of course, I will continue to develop myself as a teacher when I am pursuing my career. When I become a teacher, I should be perfect and this was the time when I learned how to do to that. When I have my own class, it will be a good thing because we will have our own class culture and everything will be settled then; but I know that when I make a mistake in the beginning there is no turning back. At least, I feel that way. 

 When I move to the lesson, I can say that I wasn’t completely happy about it. It was a writing lesson (postcards) and there was a reading activity in the pre-part. Students were supposed to read the postcards and answer the questions in the chart below. It was a total chaos for me. They didn’t understand the instructions. I have always had that problem. I would forget the instructions part and distribute the handouts and they wouldn’t listen to me. Yet, I made sure of it this time. I believed that I calmly explained what they are supposed to do while showing the postcards and charts. Then, I arranged the groups and started to distribute the papers. Some students insisted that they want to be with their friends in the group but I didn’t let them. While I was distributing the papers, some students were asking their friends what they were supposed to do. After I explained it one more time, they began reading. However, some students were standing and having conversation. No matter how I tried to make them sit and read the postcards, they weren’t listening to me. I was going to each group and following their work. They were so slow. Since there was only one chart and they couldn’t write quickly, that made them slow down. I need to hurry because that was only the pre part. I told them to go back to their seat because this activity is over and we are going to answer the questions. There was another problem waiting for me. Their groups split and they couldn’t read each other’s writing, even their own writing. We lost so much time with that. This was the worst teaching that I have ever experienced. After this part is over, things got nicer. I explained the instructions and I asked them “Is it clear” a couple of times to make sure of it. I showed the fictional places where they pretend to be writing from. That was the moment I caught their attention, I guess. They were excited and enthusiastic about the lesson, which flared my enthusiasm to teach. I told them they can ask me if they don’t know a word, which was a huge mistake. I wrote each and every word on the board thinking that I was helping them, but I wasn’t. Actually, I knew that I should lead them to use dictionaries and find the words they need on their own. Yet, our mentor teacher does it all the time. Once, she warned us about how we should use the board. When students ask some words, she would tell them and write them on the board randomly. And she said “don’t write like me, be organized.” She said nothing about the vocabulary part. Then, I thought it was okay to answer students’ questions. When I was in Ankara Gönüllü Takımı ( a voluntary action to help the poor kids with their lessons) when my students ask me each and every word in his course book, I wouldn’t tell them directly. I would tell him to look up in the dictionary or make use of the words which he already knew. By making connections…. And I knew this when I was a sophomore. Sometimes, we learn good things from our mentor and sometimes we don’t. I cannot completely blame her but the fact that she was the one who says I can fail a class observation in a job interview with this attitude has really shaken me. 

Entry 10: Present Continuous Tense

May 22^nd, 2014

This week, the students started to practise Present Continuous Tense for the first time. It is really unexpected because they have already covered Past tense. I don’t know why they follow such a sequence. I cannot think of a reason, either. As far as I observed, they frequently forget the auxiliary. Is it because they just learned the topic or is it because of “Simple Present Tense – Simple Past Tense – Present Continuous Tense” pattern? Maybe, their perception of present and past may be interfering with their learning process. All of the activities are controlled. They just need to change the form and fill in the blanks. As I mentioned earlier, students need to form full sentences, which is very dull. For example; 

A: Is Rose doing her homework now?

B: No, she isn’t doing her homework now. She is cleaning the house.

I know that they should get used to the structure but this isn’t realistic. As a part of lesson, teacher showed a PPT presentation which is about simple present vs present continuous. The PPT was about Simpsons and their life.

e.g. Bart always ________(play) football, but he ________(study) now.

One of the examples was confusing for the students. They said Homer does both of these all the time.

Homer ____________ (eat) all the time but he ____________ (sleep) right now.

Besides, they get carried away by the popularity of characters. We design our materials according to their interest and hobbies. We try to include their favourite characters, games, movies into the lesson as much as possible just to attract their attention, just to engage them in the lesson more, but sometimes they are more concerned about these things than the lesson. For example, every time teacher move to the next slide, they got surprised when they saw the different characters in Simpsons and they started to talk about them with their friends. That’s not something unpredictable but we have to set the boundaries.

Towards the end of the lesson, they wanted to play Hot Seat, which I mentioned before. Since they always play Hot Seat, their teacher made them play another game called English Wizz. (http://lingual.net/game/english-wizz/) It is like Jeopardy. They were really enthusiastic about the game.  They answered the questions in turn. Sometimes, some students got angry when their friends couldn’t answer the questions correctly, because they lose points when they give incorrect answers.

Entry 9: Reading Activities

                                                                                                                               
May 15^th, 2014

This week the lesson began with checking homework. There was a reading passage and the students read it aloud one by one. They were supposed to listen to their friends because a student should continue reading when someone stopped. Teachers use this method for centuries and I don’t know why. It isn’t meaningful. When students follow their friends, they cannot focus on the meaning and they can’t catch all the details. Apart from that, the comprehension questions were well-prepared: Multiple choice questions and cloze tests. I really believe that cloze tests are effective in learning. They can be a bit challenging because any word can be a question. Also, there were some referential questions in the worksheet. (What does “them” refer to in para/ line …?) I got surprised a little bit because I didn’t know that they ask this kind of questions in 4^th graders but I am happy about it. Referential questions are a good way of measuring students’ understanding of the text. It can be really important to know the agents of actions in some contexts.

They did the same writing activity. She wrote ten questions on the board. Since they will have an exam next week, they try to develop the students’ writing skills. I didn’t understand why they did the same activity twice but I think it is going to be the exam question. They don’t write too much. The main focus is always grammar unlike secondary school in METU College. 

Entry 8: Vocabulary Activities

May 8^th, 2014
 

This week, our mentor teacher made some vocabulary exercises with the students in the first hour. She introduced some unknown words to them and she gave them some keywords. The students tried to guess the meanings and the contexts where the words are used. They did semantic maps for each word and she asked them what comes to their mind when we say ……..? Students tried to draw some objects which can be useful for remembering the words. For example: a beaker for “experiment”, which I find very entertaining. Since they are young learners and they like drawing, this can be very useful. Some of the students may not like drawing like me but they can write related words next to each newly-learned vocabulary item which is similar to semantic maps is always a good way of remembering words. All students have their own style and it increases the diversity.

In some of the activities, she gave us a chance to “come on the stage”. At some point, she left the class to get something and I was leading the lesson. I realized that students haven’t grasped the meaning of “charity” correctly. It was pretty surprising that they think charity means poor. I tried to explain it without using L1 and it was like a big revelation for them and it was very funny. When our mentor teacher left the class and I took charge of the class, İdil asked me “Can I share something with the class?” I asked what it’s about. When I realized that it was something else, I didn’t let her. I feel like she always tries to manipulate the lesson when our mentor teacher isn’t around. Since she is a very strict teacher, she won’t put up with anything unrelated to class and the students try to use their chances when we are present.

By the way, the students have a class before their regular classes called “paylaşım saati”. In that hour, the students made an experiment about ants and they put their products in front of the window. When our mentor teacher saw that, she asked what they are. The students explained and our teacher said “You see? This is an experiment.” I was very impressed by that. It was so spontaneous, but very appropriate example. Then, she asked further questions about this experiment and she kinda drifted away from the lesson. The students are always ready to manipulate the lesson and they came to near the window and show the jars which belong to them one by one. 

Hot seat…….

I think it is a nice game and the students love to play it. The procedure is like this;

The teacher picks a volunteer student. S/he sits in a chair facing the rest of the class. T writes a word on the board and the students try to explain it. Another student comes and the one in the hot seat writes the new board. 

It is a very simple game, but they are dying for playing it all the time.

In the second hour, she gave them a writing assignment. They were required to tell about their last vacation. She wrote some guiding questions on the board such as:

•    Where did you go?
•    What did you do?
•    What did you see? 
•    With whom did you got there?
•    What did you drink/eat?

These questions were quite helpful. When students answer these questions one by one, they will end up having an organized paper. They need to use some conjunctions, but she also reminded them to use “firstly, secondly, finally” etc. considering their age and level, I think this is enough. 

 

This writing activity showed me that some activities can’t be done in all kinds of schools. I mean, these students have so much to tell. They have been to Paris, America, England etc. They tasted different foods and drinks. They have seen so many places. So writing can be a fun activity for them. They can enjoy what they share. However, the students in public school can’t go abroad to have a vacation, not even out of town where they live. For example, when I was in primary school, I used to go our hometown every summer and I used to do the same things. And I hated it when we come back to school and our teacher made us write about our holiday in Turkish class in the very first class of the semester because mine was always the same.