During the class everything we planned may work or may not work. So, how can we foresee these? Actually we kind of can´t, since it´s truly impossible to see the future, but part of this job is possible to anticipate by class preparation and being reflexive.
In class preparation all the class can be predicted or expected by the class history of presence/absence, students´ performance (difficulties and what they consider easy) and what and how they like to do during class. Under all these elements the teacher already has an idea of what will be faced during the class.
Another element that a teacher should have is being reflexive. What is this? It´s the teacher reflecting about his/her practice in class.
During the class preparation usually teachers take notes on a paper about what they will do during the class and taking notes of what and how it went is a great way of checking if their class preparation worked and with time creating a historical of information that can base future class plan.
A valid tip is self recording your class even audio or video, with this a teacher can see him/herself in a different way. Because when teaching, teachers tend to think things are going well and the class will work perfectly, so this seeing yourself teaching is a great way to self evaluate your own practice. A second tip is having other teachers watching your class with a copy of your class plan, this teacher who is watching the class can give you a great feedback about it. To finish the tips is also really great to watch other teachers ´classes, with it you can grasp many ideas from other teachers and also check your own.
All these tips are valuable if well performed, many and great ideas can rise and increase your teaching skills. Don´t miss them.
I am.....
- Teacher Bruno Gon
- My name is Bruno, I´m a Brazilian English teacher specialized in Applied Linguistics. Currently I work for a language institute teaching adults and in a regular school teaching elementary and high school. I believe knowledge is something to be shared and that´s why I post my classes to everybody who wants to study/learn English. In the last years I counted and have been counting on many partners who are always there: Adriana Pin, Bhyanka Itaborahy, Claudio Azevedo (Movie Segments), Diego Cassionato (Inglês com Rock) and Dani Bertocchi... You guys are also "guilty" for it. THANK YOU.
domingo, 25 de setembro de 2011
sexta-feira, 9 de setembro de 2011
Planning a class
Planning a class is a very important step of the teaching process which is constantly overlooked and taken for granted, not to mention much deeper how it seems.
Planning a class is preparing the activity, checking how long it would take, how and what it will be done? Yes, but for sure these aren´t all. Indeed part of the class plan are these aforementioned items, however other items must be considered.
When planning a class the number of students need to be taken into account, the average of daily absences together with the activities plan (individual, pairs or groups), even if a totally unpredicted scenario happens the teacher must have at least to know how he or she will modify the activity in order to maintain the goal and don´t lose production.
After planning your explanations some questions should be asked:
Was the group itself considered?
How can I use their background knowledge to help them and myself?
Were students socio-cultural background considered?
Have I checked which and why other strategies worked and/or failed?
Do my students like this subject? What can I do to arise their interests?
All these elements should be considered in every class plan and one thing must be noticed. You, teacher, have a class plan. Get ready to modify it during the class or right before the class starts since what we plan to do is based on what happens most in class.
Planning a class is preparing the activity, checking how long it would take, how and what it will be done? Yes, but for sure these aren´t all. Indeed part of the class plan are these aforementioned items, however other items must be considered.
When planning a class the number of students need to be taken into account, the average of daily absences together with the activities plan (individual, pairs or groups), even if a totally unpredicted scenario happens the teacher must have at least to know how he or she will modify the activity in order to maintain the goal and don´t lose production.
After planning your explanations some questions should be asked:
Was the group itself considered?
How can I use their background knowledge to help them and myself?
Were students socio-cultural background considered?
Have I checked which and why other strategies worked and/or failed?
Do my students like this subject? What can I do to arise their interests?
All these elements should be considered in every class plan and one thing must be noticed. You, teacher, have a class plan. Get ready to modify it during the class or right before the class starts since what we plan to do is based on what happens most in class.
terça-feira, 30 de agosto de 2011
Feedback
Recently I have been thinking about giving feedback to students and based on the experience I live in the school I current work for and some articles I red during my undergraduate studies and after i realized something:
Encouragement must go to 100% of students. Many students when starting a new language they are afraid of trying because they don´t want to make mistakes in front of other, specially if they are adults. What a teacher should do? It´s important to show that making mistake is a part of the learning process, if the students are making mistakes it´s because they are trying, which means they are feeling comfortable enough to take risks in order to learn without these "mistake-making" worries. It´s very important to please any attempt made by any student. Why? Giving this recognition is a kind of motivation maintainance and as a consequence the students will always feel like trying.
It´s also useful if your s tudents write compositions for you. Why? Because there is a good chance that these compositions are never shown to anybody else, which brings the though: These students write only to me, I´m the only person who reads them. So, why not make some comments beyond the corrections? Even if they show these compositions to other people, why not make some comments on what they´ve written? Making them heard or read beyond correction level will lead your students learning process to another level.
Encouragement must go to 100% of students. Many students when starting a new language they are afraid of trying because they don´t want to make mistakes in front of other, specially if they are adults. What a teacher should do? It´s important to show that making mistake is a part of the learning process, if the students are making mistakes it´s because they are trying, which means they are feeling comfortable enough to take risks in order to learn without these "mistake-making" worries. It´s very important to please any attempt made by any student. Why? Giving this recognition is a kind of motivation maintainance and as a consequence the students will always feel like trying.
It´s also useful if your s tudents write compositions for you. Why? Because there is a good chance that these compositions are never shown to anybody else, which brings the though: These students write only to me, I´m the only person who reads them. So, why not make some comments beyond the corrections? Even if they show these compositions to other people, why not make some comments on what they´ve written? Making them heard or read beyond correction level will lead your students learning process to another level.
segunda-feira, 22 de agosto de 2011
Being used and Being useful
The idea of writing this text came when I was coming back home after work, in a moment when many thoughts "downloaded" into my mind, a huge brainstorm.
I was listenign some music in which the chorus says "I don´t wanna be used, I wanna be useful" and many students questions such as "why this is important?" came to my mind and I started thinking about those questions and this sentence. It came to my mind exactly this, students wanna learn USEFUL things.
Let me give you an example, in the school I work for as a coordinator there is a lesson that basically deals with slogans and headlines. So, many of my students complain about this topic because isn´t interesting and they can understand easily since newspapers are read daily and the sports page use a lot of sarcasm and ambiguity. I understood their opinion because personally I agree with them although I never acknowledged it. The point is that I made it interesting for my students. How did I do it? I searched for something I called "minor elements". What in our lives we used those elements of sarcasm and ambiguity? Jokes can be one of them, culturally speaking Brazilian people make many jokes and many of them relies on specific situations under specific context which leads to specific vocabulary, ambiguity and useness.
The teachers´ role during the class preparation is observe what will be taught and to whom. Doing this the teacher can foresee these possible gaps.
I was listenign some music in which the chorus says "I don´t wanna be used, I wanna be useful" and many students questions such as "why this is important?" came to my mind and I started thinking about those questions and this sentence. It came to my mind exactly this, students wanna learn USEFUL things.
Let me give you an example, in the school I work for as a coordinator there is a lesson that basically deals with slogans and headlines. So, many of my students complain about this topic because isn´t interesting and they can understand easily since newspapers are read daily and the sports page use a lot of sarcasm and ambiguity. I understood their opinion because personally I agree with them although I never acknowledged it. The point is that I made it interesting for my students. How did I do it? I searched for something I called "minor elements". What in our lives we used those elements of sarcasm and ambiguity? Jokes can be one of them, culturally speaking Brazilian people make many jokes and many of them relies on specific situations under specific context which leads to specific vocabulary, ambiguity and useness.
The teachers´ role during the class preparation is observe what will be taught and to whom. Doing this the teacher can foresee these possible gaps.
New ideas
Hi guys
In this blog I´ll post some impressions and feedbacks on teaching and learning. I don´t have any specific ideas, views to follow. I´m just posting my own findings based on what I´m studying and my experience.
In this blog I´ll post some impressions and feedbacks on teaching and learning. I don´t have any specific ideas, views to follow. I´m just posting my own findings based on what I´m studying and my experience.
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