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.

Personal Learning Diary

PERSONAL LEARNING DIARY

         Technology has become indispensible for the people in today’s world due to its practicality and time-saving features. It is broadly used in language classes; furthermore, the use of blogs, web 2.0 and wikispaces by teachers and students increases day by day. We, as Fled 416 and 412 students, use blogs in order to develop ourselves professionally. I first started using a blog this semester as a requirement for my training courses, and I have some positive impressions and one suggestion about it.

To begin with, I see the blog as a diary in which I can save my materials, experiences, lesson plans, videos, and other important things for the future use. When I become a teacher, I think I will turn back to my blog, and will make use of it. In the beginning, I was afraid of using blog because I did not see myself as efficient as to use it. However, as time passed, I got used to using it and loved spending time on it; I enjoyed designing it. If I am doing something, I want to see a product in the end; and the blog has showed my products as I uploaded my videos, journals, reflection papers, and lesson plans. Therefore, using a blog affected my mood in a positive way. Moreover, my fear of not being able to use the blog disappeared when I made an effort to open my blog and publish something every day in order to learn how to use it.

Secondly, blogs are easy to reach so we can check what our friends are doing on their own blogs; thus, it saves time. Our friends can write comments about our lessons, so we can get much more feedback from them thanks to easy access to our blogs.

I have a suggestion about using blogs; it could have been better if we had been taught to use blogs at the beginning of this year. I think, we teacher trainees had difficulties in getting used to our practicum schools, in what to do and how to do. We had a school training course, but it was not sufficient for us because we did not have any opportunities to share our experiences with the friends. Therefore, using blogs would have been better if we had started using it in the first semester.

To sum up, using blogs motivated me, and enhanced my enthusiasm as a prospective teacher. I will not waste time looking at the books for the materials to use in the class, but access to the internet and open my blog. Having experienced its benefits, I will continue using it; and if the conditions are suitable, I am sure that I will make my students use blogs, wikis, and web 2.0 in order to see their progress.

Professional Development Activity

REFLECTION ON KEN WILSON’S SPEECH

            Motivation is one of the most significant issues to be considered in language classes because it opens the way to students’ world. Ken Wilson made his speech about motivation, and how teachers can make use of it by presenting several crucial points about the topic. I loved his speech because I was also motivated very much as a prospective teacher while listening to him.

            Ken Wilson started talking about the six motivational factors, and he emphasized that the most important factor is the enthusiasm of the teacher. I certainly agree with him in that teachers’ attitudes towards the students and the lesson really affect students. I always think about this issue, and come to the conclusion that if a teacher lacks enthusiasm, that teacher should give up teaching because he/she will be of no use to not only himself/herself, but also to his/her students. Students want to see enthusiastic and active teachers; in addition, it is of high importance for the students to be activated by their teachers.

            Secondly, what Ken Wilson made us consider is the strategies which can be used to in order to motivate students. According to Wilson’s speech, the first thing we should do before we start the lesson is to make our students curious about the topic. Making students curious about the subject matter can be realized with the use of visuals, asking them questions, and choosing the topic from students’ interest areas. I think if students are interested in the topic, teachers can do whatever they want in order to meet the objectives of the lesson. Therefore, teachers should be very careful when they are deciding on a topic.

            Some of the other significant points Wilson stated are that students should be challenged, given responsibility and allowed to use technology. The task we give students should be not too difficult and not too easy, but it should be challenging so that the students will make an effort and use their higher order thinking skills in order to achieve that task. Moreover, students will feel success and their self confidence will enhance when they are successful; thus, challenge is one of the indispensable things in language classes.

As for the use of technology, nowadays the life is difficult without it. I think we will not be able to use technology in every part of Turkey; especially southern and eastern of it, but the people living in the developed parts of Turkey are used to making use of it, so it may be very beneficial to use technology for the students living there. When those students are allowed to use technology, motivation will be provided for them.

All in all, Ken Wilson reminded us of the necessity of motivation and the ways of achieving it in our classes. As prospective teachers, we should always think about the students and empathize with them. The more motivation our students have, the more fruitful our lessons will be.

Journal 4

This is my fourth journal and it is about disruptive behaviors of students during the lesson, and in this journal I tried to explain what kind of attitudes we should have in such situations based on my observations and experiences in my practicum school so that I can come back to this journal and see which methods I can use when I become a teacher.

DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIORS AND SOLUTIONS

            Students are sometimes difficult to deal with, and they do not avoid displaying disruptive behaviors. As prospective teachers, it is our duty to find the ways of hindering such behaviors. However, it is not that easy because in my practicum school, teachers know what to do when a student is behaving in an undesired way, but the result is not always what teachers want. Whether they work or not, I want to tell you the techniques my cooperating teachers use and I used during my presentations.

            In the first place, when the teacher saw a student who was not listening to her or was speaking to others, what she used first was eye-contact. In the situations when eye contact was useless, she moved close to that student. It was very effective because the student could not dare to speak near his teacher. In another class, the teacher gave the student who was misbehaving an errand to do; for instance, and she made him clean the board, write a sentence on the board or turn on the projector. I observed that these kinds of errands made the student happy and self-confident, and interestingly, this technique created more positive student-teacher relationship. Moreover, teachers often tried to involve these students in the lesson by calling on their names, asking them questions about the text they were reading or do an exercise. These were what I learned from the cooperating teachers, and I want to continue with my own experiences I had during my official and unofficial presentations.

As teacher trainees, I think we confronted with more disruptive behaviors than the teachers working in the school because students knew that we were not their teachers. Therefore, we had difficulties in managing the class due to disruptive students in the class. In my second official (it was seventh graders’ class), one of the students finished his work much more early than his friends, and he began bothering his friends. I could not know what to do in such a situation, and then I thought that giving extra work to that student would work. I told that student he was successful so he finished his work early, and he could add some more things to his work. I think he loved my communication with him, so he turned back to his work. My other experience was with the ninth graders, who were teenagers so it was much more difficult to make them participate the lesson and do what you told them to do. It was my last presentation in the practicum school, so I was upset because I loved the teachers and the students and I felt as if I had been a teacher at that school. Thus, I was more relaxed with these feelings, and I was not anxious at all. In one of the activities I wanted students to make a poster and gave the instructions, but I saw that students are talking to each other. Then I chose one of those students, and asked him what I said and what they were supposed to do in the activity. He tried to explain, and I helped him in order not to humiliate him. It was effective because students stopped talking with each other and concentrated on the activity. Again in this class, students wrote sentences and I wanted them to tell their sentences to the class one by one. While one of the students was reading his sentence, others did not listen to him so I called on a student and asked him what his friend said.

These are some of the techniques I experienced during my training. I am sure that there are a lot more, but time will show them to use in the future and we will learn as we are experiencing them.

Journal 3

This is my third journal about the questions “How can you increase your classroom management abilities?”, “Can you communicate with the students effectively?”, and “Why is it so important to have good rapport with students?”

HOW SHOULD WE MANAGE THE CLASS?

         Teachers are always with students at schools, so interaction with students is inevitable. As prospective teachers, we should pay much attention to this issue because how we interact with students has great effects in our teaching. Being always with the same students might cause the relationship between teachers and the students to be too free and easy after a while. Classroom management is one area in which students, teachers, classroom environment, materials in the class are all included. Therefore, teachers may have difficulties in managing the class due to lack of control.

            What makes the classroom management difficult? I will try to give an answer to this question by giving examples from my training school experiences. In my training school; for instance, some teachers are very good at managing the class while some others cannot achieve it even for only five minutes. Considering the difference between these two types of teachers, it is of high importance for us to find classroom management methods. One of the teachers I observed was a native speaker, and there are a lot to say about classroom management in her lessons. First of all, both the teacher and the students did not listen to each other, they shouted at each other and the students did not respect to the teacher. When I first saw this situation I was shocked, and I thought whether they had a lesson or not. Before I observed that class, I had always thought that native speakers were better at classroom management than non-native teachers, but it is not actually so. In non-native teachers’ classes students obeyed the rules, listened to their teachers, and did what their teacher asked them to do.

            As for the classroom management in my official and unofficial presentations, it looked difficult to achieve at the beginning of the year. However, as I experienced the feeling of becoming a teacher, I became happier and more self-confident. I think I reflected my feelings to students, and we established a warm, personal relationship with the students. Therefore, we can say that it is crucial to make the students feel that we are really caring for them. If we can give the students this impression, there will be no problems at all. Students need to be cared and loved; therefore, everything is up to us.