Peer Feedback 5

PEER FEEDBACK ON AYSUN ŞAHİN’S FIRST OFFICIAL

Aysun is such an active and motivating teacher that it is impossible in her lessons to be silent or not to participate. I did not attend her lesson, but watched it from the video, and I was really impressed. She uses her voice very well, manages the class perfectly. Moreover, she elicits answers from the students in a very effective way. I can say that her lesson was excellent.

What attracted my attention first was the use of the blackboard. I like the teachers who are uses it very well, and Aysun used it very effectively. She used the visuals, there was a listening activity and she provided the students with different kinds of materials as much as possible.

Aysun role-played a dialogue with her peer, and it was a good idea because it was obvious that studetns enjoyed watching it from the behaviors of the students. It was also effective in that students saw an example of the activity they were supposed to do later, and it made the task manageable  for the students.

The only weakness or the minor problem in the lesson as far as I observed was that there was much teacher talk. Instead of talking, and trying to explain everything, it is better to make the students speak. However, I also know that students do not like speaking at all, so I do not know what can be done. Forcing them will make the situation worse and worse, so we can say that teacher talk is better in such situations.    

Overall, Aysun will be a great teacher as long as she keeps her enthusiasm. What I suggest for her is that she should not talk much. Her activities are various and engaging, and she is very good at classroom management. It is a very successful lesson.         

Peer Feedback 4

PEER FEEDBACK ON AYŞENUR GÖKÇETİN’S SECOND OFFICIAL

Ayşenur’s second official was with the ninth graders, and the lesson is a perfect example of literature classes. She has such a positive relationship with the students that when I watched the video, I was convinced that Ayşenur is very good at communicating with the students.  As far as I observed from the video, she started the lesson with a concept map in order to introduce the topic; I think the students enjoyed it because they participated to the activity.

Showing some pictures and making the students guess what kind of a poem they were expecting was a good idea (I used this technique in my own lessons too) in that it helped the students to activate their schemata about the topic and enhanced students’ interest. What interested me most is that when she saw classroom management problem because some students were talking, she had a break in the lesson, and she started talking to these students. I do not know whether I can do such a thing, but I observed from the video that it was a great idea to behave that way because students started to listen to the teacher. I think having good relationship with the high school students depends on how the teacher empathizes with the students, and how she is knowledgeable about the topics students are interested in.

Although Ayşenur was good generally in her lesson; in my opinion, there is something that she should improve. She should use her voice more effectively because the students’ attention is attracted with the teachers’ louder voice. Therefore, she should think about it.

All in all, I enjoyed watching her lesson. I think that Ayşenur knows how to communicate with the students, which helps the teacher to conduct her lesson more effectively.

Peer Feedback 3

PEER FEEDBACK ON BETÜL ERBAŞI’S SECOND OFFICIAL

I watched the videos of Betül’s second official, and it is not so easy to understand what is happening in the class from the videos because it is not the same as we observe it in the class. I did not see the students on the video, but from the noise, I think the students were difficult to deal with. I saw some of them walking around. The students in the class must be very active because they are third graders, and they need action.

When I paid attention to Betül’s speech and the way she behaves in the class, I noticed that she is a very enthusiastic teacher. Enthusiasm is of great importance for me. Moreover, Betül is very patient with such noisy students, and this shows that she can stand even the hardest students in the class. Therefore, I think that Betül tried to manage the class in a calm way. Furthermore, Betül was very good at giving the instructions, and the activities she used were very engaging. Therefore, it was a very interactive lesson.

Although Betül looks very calm, she tries to manage the class using different techniques. As we are not real teachers of these students, the presence of the classroom management problems is of high possibility. However, we do not want any problems in our classes, so we try our best. What Betül did in the class is the same. She tried to make the students raise their hands before they start speaking because in most times she reminds the students of this rule. I loved the technique counting down from ten to zero, and I think it is very effective with young learners, but its effectiveness changes according to mood of the students.

            Apart from the classroom management problems, I think Betül’s lesson was successful. I believe that the classroom management problems were not due to Betül, but the students themselves. If the students had been managed effectively, the lesson would have been much more efficient. Overall, Betül’s lesson is an excellent example of good teaching.

Peer Feedback 2

PEER FEEDBACK ON HÜSEYİN AKSU’S FIRST OFFICIAL

            I was Hüseyin’s peer in his first official lesson. The students were sixth graders and there were only seven students in the class, so it was a very silent lesson. It was a literature class, and the students had read one of the stories of Leo Tolstoy, and Hüseyin’s lesson was based on this story. Overall the objectives of the lesson were met, but there were some weaknesses in the lesson.

Hüseyin integrated the technology into his lesson as much as possible, which engaged the students. The competition was a good idea with such a small-numbered class because in the competitions generally there might be a chaos, but with few students it functions better.

The last activity in the lesson was writing an epitaph, and it motivated the students very much. They loved the epitaph activity; I think I will use it in the future too. However, at the end of this activity, students were supposed to choose the best epitaph, and they did not remember the epitaphs their friends wrote. So there could have been some changes in the process of this activity.

As for another weakness of Hüseyin’s lesson, as there were only seven students in the class, they were very silent. I think in the classes where there are few students the teacher should make the class more active because silent students may end up with sleeping in the middle of the lesson. Therefore, the only suggestion I would make for Hüseyin is that he should use more action in the lessons. Moreover, he should show his enthusiasm to the students.

Hüseyin managed the class very well; he was like a teacher, not a teacher trainee.  I think the activities Hüseyin used were very effective because all the students participated. Overall, it was a successful lesson.

Peer Feedback 1

PEER FEEDBACK ON TUĞÇE AYDEMİR’S FIRST OFFICIAL

            I was Tuğçe’s peer in her first official. I think it was overall a successful lesson and I really enjoyed watching it, but there are some points Tuğçe should consider in her lessons. I will evaluate the lesson, give some feedback and will comment on how it could have been better.

            The lesson was done in the first graders’ class, so it was a very challenging situation for the teacher trainee because the first graders are very young and sensitive. She started the lesson showing the feelings by using her facial expressions. It was very effective because the students had the chance to see a real example in life (the teacher’s expressions) instead of learning it just looking at the pictures on their books. Students learnt the feelings quickly, which helped the lesson go on as planned. She showed the feelings in a perfect way; I think she can make use of this feature more and more in her lessons.

            Tuğçe knew all the students’ names, and she called on every student so she gave almost equal opportunity to speak in the class. I think as the teacher knew the students’ names, the students were more alert. So it helped Tuğçe to manage the class well.

            There were some weaknesses in the lesson. For example, in the last activity Tuğçe let the students choose their friends and it took much time. It could have been better if she chose them herself. If she had done so, she could increase the number of the activities because she would have had time to do another activity. One more thing I want to emphasize is that some of the students were lost in the last activity, some of them were walking around, and some of them were resting putting their heads on the desk. Therefore, being a bit rigid works with young learners.

            Overall, it was a successful lesson, and it was effective enough to meet its objectives. Except for the weaknesses, Tuğçe handled it well.

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.

Self-Evaluation 1

SELF EVALUATION 1

            My second official was done in a seventh graders’ class. There were eight students in the class, and it was a grammar lesson. My topic was reported speech, the students knew reported speech from the previous years, but they had not seen it this year yet. Therefore, I would make an introduction to the topic. As the topic would be introduced to the students for the first time, I thought that it would be a difficult lesson for me to cope with. However, it did not turn out to be so; I think it was a successful lesson because it met the objectives I put.

The lesson was not how I wanted it to be because I had to include what my cooperating teacher told me to do. For instance, she gave me some materials to use during the presentation. I had to obey that because after the day of my official presentation, the class would have an exam which would include the topic I would cover in the class. She gave me the slides and told me to use them while presenting Reported Speech. Therefore, I used about five minutes of the lesson to present the slides to the students, which really bored me because I do not like teaching the students in an explicit way. However, I tried to do my lesson as enjoyable and interactive as possible by adding some activities to the lesson. 

My most significant strength was that I am looking forward to becoming a teacher, and when I have the chance to have the control of the class, I make use of it as much as possible. Therefore, I forget about the cooperating teacher and my peer, I only see the students, and I do not feel any anxiety. This happened again in this official, and thanks to this attitude of me, neither the students nor I felt ourselves as an outsider. I love the students, so it was not difficult for me to create a welcoming atmosphere in the class.

My another strength was that I started the lesson with a game, which was “Chinese whisper”. I got the first student in the first row to find a sentence and whisper it to the friend next to him. Then, I asked the last student what his friend told him. This activity attracted the students very much and helped me to have a good rapport with the students at the beginning of the lesson. My cooperating teacher commented on this warm-up activity, and she said she found it very effective to make a beginning to the reported speech.

            I think the only weakness of my lesson was presenting the topic from the powerpoint. Although it was not my option, I had to do that for the sake of both the teacher and the students. I do not know whether I could do something different instead of presenting it. I made some students read it loudly in order to change the monotony of the lecture part, but I was not happy with that too.

            What I have learnt from this official and what I suggest for my friends is that teachers should not just present the topic, but make them learn implicitly because students enjoy this kind of learning.

            Overall, I managed the class well, created positive relationship with the students, and tried to motivate the students using engaging activities. It was an interactive and successful lesson. I loved it, so did the students.