Self Evaluation 2

SELF EVALUATION 2

            I did my training in a private school, and my last and favorite official was done in high school with ninth graders. Although I started observing this class this semester, I got used to them easily and loved them very much. They had covered all the grammar topics, so the teacher let me to choose the topic of my own lesson; therefore, I chose modals and prepared the activities accordingly.

            I would have my lesson the day after they had taken their last English exam, so I was afraid that the students would not listen to me at all. My cooperating teacher told me this too. So I tried to choose the topic as interesting as possible, and I think I achieved this because to my surprise, the students participated in the lesson, and enjoyed doing the activities. I think what worked here was the choice of the activities because the students found the activities engaging.

            Firstly I will talk about my strengths. I started the lesson with a physical activity which was breathe in and out. Students loved that activity. The reason why I chose such an activity was to attract their attention, and it really worked. Then I made a concept map of holiday and the goods they should take when they are going on a holiday. As most of these students go on a holiday every summer, they had lots of examples to say, and I was happy to choose a topic which was related to their real life.

            The thing which attracted my attention while I was watching my video was the difference between my first unofficial and the last official. In my first unofficial I did not touch the black board, but in this official I spent most of my time writing words and sentences on the board. What changed my behavior was the comments I took from my cooperating teachers after my lessons because in first lessons I kept saying that I should have used the blackboard frequently because students learn more when they see it on the board. Therefore, I made use of the blackboard as much as possible, and I saw that my cooperating teachers were right because as the proverb says, words fly away, writings remain.

            Another strength of my lesson was that the students loved the last activity. In the last activity I told them that they were alone on an island and they wanted to found their own republic. They would prepare a poster, and in the poster they were supposed to find a name for their republic, to draw a flag of their own republic and write the rules of the republic. I walked around while the students were preparing the posters and observed that they enjoyed doing that. In the end, I made them stick their posters on the board and called on a student, asked him to choose a poster from the board and present it to the class so that they would guess whose poster it was. This activity activated the students very much, and I have learnt in this lesson that student like the activities in which they can use their creativity.

            Overall, I did not see and weakness in this lesson because it went as I planned, and it was a successful lesson I think. As my cooperating teacher said, I prepared the lesson well and met the objectives of the lesson. What I suggest for my friends is that they should choose the topics which are related to students’ own lives in order to provide student participation.