This was my last presentation, students were ninth graders, and their level was pre-intermediate. There were thirteen students in the class, the topic of my lesson was modals, especially the use of can, could, should, must, would and the negative forms of them. Students had learnt it before, so it was like a practice lesson. I started the lesson with a warm-up activity because I wanted to have their attention at the beginning of the lesson so that they would participate during the lesson. The activity was breathe in and breathe out, it also helped me to create a good rapport with the students before I started the lesson. The students refreshed themselves with the warm-up activity, and I started lesson with a concept map of "holiday and the things they take when they go on a holiday". Then I got them to write what they should take in case of emergency, and I wrote the words students said on the board. After this pre-activity, I made the students watch two short videos about plane crush and getting lost on an island. I told them they were on that plane and they were alone on the island, so I asked the students what they should (not), could(not), would(not), etc. They all wrote sentences and I wrote some of them on the board. As for my post activity, I told the students they would found their own republic on the island, and would prepare a poster for which they should find a name for the republic, draw a flag, and state their rules they set for the republic. They prepared the posters and sticked them on the board. Then I chose a student, he came to the board and chose a poster, read it and the other students tried to find whose poster it was. and the rest of the lesson went on so.
FEEDBACK ON ASLI’S THIRD OFFICIAL LESSON
YanıtlaSilAslı is quite self-confident in her lessons so it is a big plus for her. She is also enthusiastic about teaching, and one can easily understand it from her behaviors in a classroom.
In her third official presentation, she starts the lesson with a warm-up to activate her students. It is a good start to wake the students up. Then, she continues with a concept map which is one of the best ways to activate students’ schemata, and nearly all the students say something. They seem engaged in the lesson and ready to learn but she stops for some reason and students get lost during this time; they speak with each other and they deal with the camera. However, she is able to catch their attention again with the help of a video. Visual aids save teachers most of the time.
After watching the video, she wants students to read a text. In the meantime, she walks around to control them. It is good that she does not have a teacher zone limited to the blackboard and to the table. Then, she organizes a pair work and helps them while they are working, which is also good. She uses the blackboard effectively, and students have the chance to see clearly what they are covering.
As for the republic-founding, I think it is the best activity of the whole lesson because it is more motivating than the others, and students enjoy it very much. Moreover, they all participate and have something to say. It is really creative and communicative. Not only do they use their imagination but also they practice the target structures and learn them better.
In conclusion, Aslı is very good at teaching, and I believe that she will be a great teacher because she really loves this job and makes much effort to be successful in this field.
I watched Aslı’s video of last official presentation which she conducted in ninth grade. The subject was modals and she used three different activities to revise the knowledge the students already knew. It was an effective lesson in general; however there were some points to be improved as far as I can observe in the video.
YanıtlaSilFirst of all, the activities she used were effective and to the point to teach modals. She had the advantage that the students knew the modals already, so she just wanted the students to use that knowledge in tasks they were involved. Although I think the brainstorming was a good activity to start with, breathe in-breathe out thing at the very beginning part of the lesson was very short and did not have much effect on students so it was not so purposeful. However, during concept map task, the students had a chance to activate their schemata and came up with enough amount of vocabulary about the topic.
In second activity in which the students work in pairs and write what they should/would/could do on an island alone was good, because the students watched sample videos first and could made connections with those scenes in the videos, which made the activity more authentic. However, while giving instructions to write their sentences, she could have given some examples to clarify what they were supposed to do exactly.
In the last part, bringing in a feeling of curiosity to the task was a really good idea, because the students are most of the time more motivated to take an active part in the activities. During all activities, she was calm and had a smile on his face, her voice was audible, and she had a good rapport with students, which all contributed in lesson’s success. I believe that she will be very successful in her teaching career.
I had not had any opportunity to observe Aslı’s performance until I watched her presentation on her blog. She made her third official presentation in the ninth grade, and her topic was modals. She covered basic modals in a contextualized lesson with the theme of “holiday”. She enabled students to practice different modal structures in an emergency situation during their holiday.
YanıtlaSilShe started her lesson with a warm-up activity: breathe in- breath out, which was successfully planned to make students wake up. Later on, she made a brainstorming activity to activate students’ vocabulary knowledge about the word “holiday”. During listing the words on the board, what I like was that Aslı asked further questions to all of the students in order to challenge them to think about more about the word. However, she could have spent much more time for this activity because it might have been helpful to the students for the following activities.
Another point I want to mention is that Aslı was very successful in integrating different teaching materials to the classroom. She, for instance, showed a short introductory video for the emergency situation which was the theme of post activity. In addition, she handed out a text, and assigned students to write down three sentences by using target modal structure. During this activity, students worked in pair. In the follow-up, they worked in groups. She was very kind and helpful to students. By walking around the classroom, she tried to answer the questions posed by groups. At the end of creating posters, she wanted students to put their products to the board, which was motivating and fun to students.
To summarize, I realized that Aslı is very enthusiastic teacher candidate. I believe that she will be a great teacher in the future with more experience in the field.
Peer Feedback: Aslı Köşger’s Third Official Presentation
YanıtlaSilAslı did her third official presentation in a high school. Students are 9th graders and pre-intermediate. The class consists of 13 students. The lesson was based on practicing modals. I would like to comment on her lesson regarding her strengths and weaknesses.
Watching her video, I got impressed just in the first minute. While greeting students, she noticed students’ heaviness and asked them to stand up. She made them do breath exercise by which she could make a fresh beginning. Aslı integrated listening, writing and speaking skills successfully. She made use of various materials. Being alone in an island and setting their own rules, constructing legislation and drawing a flag for their island was an engaging task for students. They looked like enjoying doing it. After all, their production motivated them.
Aslı mostly called on boys. I do not know whether there were few girl students. But if not, she could have balanced it. From time to time, students showed off-task behaviors like chatting. Yet, most of the time she managed the class well.
She used the board effectively, so I think students could follow the lesson easily. She had a friendly approach toward the students. She seemed to establish a good rapport with them. Overall, she prepared a good lesson.
Peer Feedback on Aslı Köşger’s 3rd Official Teaching
YanıtlaSilI have watched Aslı Köşger’s third official teaching video on her blog. She is teaching ninth-grade students. And in this paper, I am going to give feedback on her teaching. I am going to talk about two things that went well and a point that can be improved with a focus on L1 use at the end.
Firstly, even though Aslı did not start the lesson with an interesting way, her main and follow-up activities were really good. Her topic was modal verbs like ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘can’, ‘could’ and etc. The students already knew about them. Aslı is making a revision of these modals by using a context. I liked the context in her lesson. She makes the students watch two videos about plane crashes. Then, they read a passage. After that, she asks them to imagine that they are on an island, because they did not die in the crash, and to form sentences using the modals. The students write down really interesting sentences as the context is attention-drawing.
Secondly, I liked the sequence of the activities. Especially the follow-up activity is quite engaging. After the students write down and share sentences by using modals, Aslı says that that they are going to establish their own republic on that island. They are supposed to find a name, draw a flag and write the constitution, namely the rules. I cannot think of any better follow-up for teaching modals in such a contextualized way. I would like to congratulate her for the creative follow-up activity. After everyone completed their posters, the papers were collected. Aslı called a student to the board; the student picked a poster and read it to the class. The class tried to guess the person who has done that by inferring from the rules s/he has written. The follow-up very well serves the academic purpose and provides a better peer relationship in the class.
Lastly, my humble suggestion would be ‘to improve monitoring skills’. At the beginning of the class, Aslı is kind of talking only to some students at the front rows. The students at the back (where the camera is) chats in Turkish and even one is murmuring a Turkish song. Aslı either is not aware of the situation or just ignoring them. A couple of minutes after she started the lesson, the classroom teacher interrupted and shouted at some students and said firmly: “Don’t speak Turkish!” With regard to this experience, I can say if she improves her management and monitoring skills, she is going to be a quite better teacher.
Aslı's real world
YanıtlaSilI watched Aslı's several successful group presentations at university, but where could I know that she was even more successful in her individual presentation in front of a real classroom? After watching Aslı's last official presentation I can honestly say that the teaching world is gaining a lovely new teacher:) Aslı's final teaching was presented in a private school and the lesson was designed for ninth graders. Ninth grade is a group of whom I am quite afraid, because it is pretty hard to attract their attentions because of the developmental stage they are in. However Aslı did a good job and she managed to control them successfully. The lesson started with a warm up activity, breath in-breath out. It is a good way to awake students who seem sleepy, but unfortunately does not guarantee that students' awakeness will go on until the end of the lesson. However Aslı was clever enough to continue her awakening activity in a different form. The theme of the lesson was announced, which was "holiday" and she wanted students to tell the things that they relate to the word holiday. This brainstorming and concept making activities work well, because thanks to them even shy students of the class make a contribution. After the concept mapping she asked what students could take near them going to holiday and what they needed in an emergency while they were on holiday. Students went on making contributions, because Aslı was a successful initiator. Following the brainstorming about the needs, one of the most exciting parts of the lesson came. Students watched a video about a plane crush and getting lost on an island. It attracted their attention a lot. By using this video Aslı wanted students to write things they should/would/could do. This created a meaningful context for students to practice modals. What is more they were logically ready to write about this context, because pre-activity prepared them to this stage. She might have used a group work here, which would help the students to produce more things cooperatively. However she didn't. Maybe she was right at this point, because the number of students in this class was 13, so it is small. Moreover some students are lost in group works sometimes, because some others dominate them. Therefore doing this lesson in the form of individual work may help her to see the each student's level of understanding about the use of modals. Finally students prepared posters of the islands their planes fell. Each student prepared their own posters and pasted them on the board. During this part Aslı walked around and checked each students' preparation process attentively. The lesson finished with a game in which students came to the board and chose one poster to guess whose it was. This was not related to the topic she focused on the main activity part, but the theme went on in a more enjoyable way. Doing grammar for the second time would bore the students. All in all Aslı definitely knows what she should do:)