Saturday June 3rd was my final micro teaching presentation.
I felt the least nervous of all my presentations.
It was a continuation of the Public Safety lesson from the previous Saturday in ICC class.
For the practice I started right away by modeling.
My modeling was OK but I should have read my Public Safety card first and then got the student to answer the question (What should I do next?). In my lesson plan I was going to get the student to read his/her card first and then I would answer their question. For some reason I forgot to follow my original plan. However, at least with the student I was able to guide him through the process by pointing out that he needed to answer using a modal verb (should, could, ought to, must). After the student's turn of answering my question he read his card and I gave an answer using a modal verb. At this point I repeated/rephrased the directions but I think it was not necessary as the students just saw two examples of how to complete the activity.
The activity was quite simple as students' just read their cards and the question at the end. Their partner will give an answer using a modal verb that is advice on how to address the public safety issue from the card.
The intro, directions and modeling took under 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I feel it was much better than before as I worked hard to reduce my teacher talk (TT) and to simplify my directions. However, my goal should be to get the TT and directions to even less with more practice and self-evaluation.
Next the students did the activity.
I am also working hard to comment less (talk) while students are working and to mostly listen and ask a few questions of clarification or for more information. I think that I am getting better.
One thing I would change with the activity is that I would get the students to change their cards each time with their partners. This would mean that each student would have the same situation card only once. I think this would spice things up a little with more change and variation.
Instead they used the same card for for over 2 minutes and then I got them to select another card for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
After collecting the cards I proceeded to the next activity. The students were put into groups.
In each group they were going to make a poster and a flyer/pamphlet about public safety. I made two rough drafts that I showed them (both the poster and the flyer). I walked around and showed both to each group one by one. However, next time I will change this. I will hand group 1 the poster and let them look at it for a minute. At the same time group 2 will look at the flyer. Then I will switch the poster and flyer between the groups. In my opinion this would be a better way for them to view the examples.
Self-reflection is something I need to continue doing. For example, a lesson on Monday.
This week I taught my LIES and TRUTH lesson with another class after teaching last week with one class of English Teachers.
I took my advice and some from the students too and I changed a few things.
First, I got them talking during the activating schema. I discussed white lies with them and then I got the students in pairs to ask each other if they use white lies and why, why not. This way the students got to talk more and me less.
I also got the students in the groups to read all of their lies/truths first (all four) at once instead of one at a time. This made the guessing of whether it is a lie or truth more difficult as each student wrote two lies and two truths.
After doing this activity I realized there is one other thing I want to change. Instead of me doing four lies or truths I might cut it down to 2 or 3. Also, I will get the students in pairs to discuss which ones are lies and which ones are truths, not after everyone, but after all 2/3/4 are read. This will speed things up and lead to less TT from me in my opinion.
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