Dear FLE 404 PRACTICE TEACHING members,
In this post, you need to describe TWO puzzling teaching/learning situations that you have experienced in the practice teaching school in detail, which you find hard to understand and to take action against (an event which you do not know what to do). It can be concerned with some aspects of your own practice teaching practice, the learning process of the students in your practice teaching classes, the mentor teachers' classroom practice, their attitudes towards students,their philosophy of teaching,the student behaviour in class, or your own questions about how to act in a certain classroom-related situation. You need to do this task individually.You also need to make some suggestions for TWO OF YOUR CLASSMATES' PUZZLES.
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ReplyDeleteMy other mentor is a man who has a good British accent and who is highly idealistic, OK maybe too idealistic. We have only one hour with him during which he teaches to the 10th grades elective English course. He teaches short stories and analyzes them like we did in our literature classes in METU: climax, introduction, rising action, falling action, resolution, conflicts, themes, symbols etc. However, those things are too hard for those students. Additionally, he uses presentations -I think he downloaded them from somewhere and just did not care to make any adaptations- of which language is again too advanced for the students. I remember one: "Her determination governed the outcome." The class time flows as follows: He asks something, the class does not know the answer, and even though they do in some rare situations, they do not speak up, and he waits like 5 minutes, gives the answer, and moves to the next question and again the same pattern follows. That class had fun during our activities such as finding cause-effect relationships in the story, writing a different ending, writing dialogs etc and begged us to teach instead of their teacher. I really am sad for those students who cannot benefit from their teacher's instruction and sometimes I really want to tell the teacher about my opinions but I do not know how to do it or if he cared about my opinions at all.
ReplyDeleteDuring the second half of my teaching task 3, our mentor left us alone in the classroom. I was OK with it because last week the very same class had behaved really good and participated a lot. However, when their teacher left, they got a bit crazy. They did not want to sit down. And when the whole class was finally seated, a girl insisted to stand up and put some cream on and I had to yell at her -only a bit- and then they just did not stop talking. I waited and waited, no good. I made some angry faces, they did not work either :) Then Ezgi and I told them that we respect them and did not want to shout or yell at them and we want that respect back from them but few seemed to care. Then they finally started to follow the lesson but some students did absolutely nothing but talking their desk mates. I was really surprised in a bad way and did not know what to do.
ReplyDeleteFor the first situation İkbal stated,I can say that I feel same thing from time to time during teachings done by that mentor teacher. He is a good teacher but he is too good to be true for those students. I think he should change the way he teaches, simplify his language, he is too professional for those students. Also his students really hesitate to speak so he should encourage them instead of waiting for some time and then saying the answer. I know what he should do but I do not have any idea about how to tell these to him:)
ReplyDeleteThe second situation reminds me of my own experience that I had in one of my teaching tasks. In mine the students did not care about me, they were reluctant and this made me reluctant to talk to them. They were interested in any other thing than lesson. I was just a speaking model in front of the board. That was terrible! Nevertheless, I tried to do my best but I counted each second of the lesson and prayed that the lesson flew immediately so that I got rid of that class. In other words, I tried to keep smiling but I suffered a lot.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion for Ikbal's second situation is that they can use some attention grabbing things when they have that kind of class. To come up with an interesting suddenly in the middle of the lesson is very hard for inexperienced teacher like us but we can improve this as the years pass. Also we can find alternative ways as we gain experience but I think what we can do just right know is not to give up but to keep smiling and to insist on teaching with some warnings to the ones creating problems:)
ReplyDeleteThe second puzzling situation for me is the one experienced by my mentor teacher. She asked the students to do homework previous lesson. In the lesson, we were in, most of the students did not do the things she asked. When she learned this, she went crazy, just in the proper meaning of the word. She made them waited in front of the class and wrote notes to their parents on their notebooks. In the meantime, she yelled at a girl just asking a question to her deskmate. Not only did she yell at her, but she also humiliated her harshly. I felt weird about that. It was a strange situation.
ReplyDeleteThe second puzzling situation Gizem said is not different event I witnessed in the pre-service school at all. Instead of going crazy, the teacher could have monitored her students while the students were doing things their teacher asked. As I see, the teacher even imposed punishment to the students by making them wait in front of the class. That is really awesome to encounter such an event in the modern present day. Instead, the teacher could have encouraged her students to do their tasks; moreover, she could have helped students do those tasks on the board all together. That is, the teacher could have handled with such a problem in the class by herself rather than writing notes to the students' parents. As for that in the meantime the teacher yelled at a girl who is innocent, unfortuanately it is a common case. A teacher should be patient and should never forget the basic reason of what he/she actually gets irritated. Maybe this student misunderstands her teacher and has got negative feelings towards her teacher; moreover, she will be discouraged from asking a question in the class. I cannot help feeling the same as Gizem feels.
ReplyDeleteif I were in a situation like Gizem's I would feel almost same things. Some teachers are really exaggerating the punishment. They cannot develop empathy with the students, namely, they ignore the students' feeling. They cannot think that their students may be offended to the lesson until the end of the year because to humiliate a student or punish him/her harshly may cause to lose the students completely, so as a teacher we should care about their feelings, needs and their problems. We have to think whether they have a problem related to their family, friends or the lesson or not. Of course, it is not our business to warn other teachers about their attitudes towards their students, but we can change ourselves and we can be a good model for the other teachers.:)
ReplyDeleteI want to suggest something for İkbal' second situation. I think we should have an extra plan for these situations because if we insist on continuing our usual plan our students may be bored with the lesson and it also becomes discouraging for us, so to entertain and gain them again we should have some amusing activities like games or something in which they need movement. After such activities, they may concentrate on the lesson again. On the other hand, we may have them watch a short movie or listen a song which attracts their attention.
ReplyDeleteWe were in Hasan Ali yücel Anatolian Teacher Training High School in this term and in one of our classes there was a student who talked on and on, but he was talking about the lesson and he was asking lots of questions during the lessons. Since we were not their real teacher we never warned him and we tried to answer his questions as possible. However, to answer his questions caused us to waste our time and so we sometimes could not carry out our plan. It became disappointing for us from time to time.
ReplyDeleteOur other problem was related to the general situation of all school. We prepared full lesson plans for our students during the term, but because of some common exams or some other reasons like that the teacher did not come to the school a few times or some technological problems appeared suddenly, we could not carry out our plans on time and we could never interfere in these problematic situations.
ReplyDeleteFor Pelin's first puzzle, I think answering that student for a couple of times and then saying "We can talk about those after the class,now I need you to focus on what is going on here." with a smile and deal with him in the break time.
ReplyDeleteFor Pelins second puzzle, I think that solutions for those will come with experience such as implementing a new plan in case of a technological break down. If you were a "real" teacher working full time in that school, you would have much less problems. For example, you would be aware of those common exams and would not worry about some one else's not coming to the class. Thus, I suggest that you do not worry about any of those because you cannot do anything about them as a trainee and they will be all gone when you are a "real" teacher :)
ReplyDeleteMy first puzzling situation was at the beginning of the semester. I had two mentor teachers in this semester. The first one got sick and had to leave. Then we went on with our second mentor teacher. The situation was about our first mentor teacher and her classroom management. She was really bad at classroom management. None of the students listened to her, there wasn't a seat order in the class, some of the students were reading books while she was teaching. Other students were chatting with each other. Some of them was playing cards. While those were happening, she didn't care any of them. She just wrote the rules on the board and talked to herself. One small group was listening to her and she just did the lesson with them. Even we were getting bored while she was teaching. It was like a nightmare for us to observe that teacher.
ReplyDeleteMy second puzzling situation is about one of my teaching tasks. In my teaching task, I was teaching infinitives with passive. When I was explaining the special situation of the model "need", one of the students ask me a very good question that I couldn't answer (and I am still thinking about that question). At that moment, the students started to discuss the question together and since I was also thinking about the question, an uncontrollable situation existed for me. Then I couldn't do anything for a moment and I said I would search about that question. Then my mentor teacher came to rhe board and answered it. However, the answer didnt even satisfied me. I saw that students also didnt understand anything about the answer. Shortly, that was a really annoying situation for me.
ReplyDeleteHi all! My first puzzling situation starts with the first teaching task. The previous week, we , as a group, talked to our mentor teacher about these teaching tasks and wanted her opinion/preference about the grammar topics/subjects that we were supposed to teach. She wanted me to give examples related to ‘will ‘and ‘to be going to’ by preparing a worksheet since she stated that she had already explained these in detail. So, the following week, we went to the school. Before the lesson started, all of a sudden, she said that I should explain these topics in the half part of the lesson by teaching them in a deductive manner and maybe I could finish the worksheet that I prepared for the class by adding that the students do not know these since she did not teach them at all. I was really surprised and my friends, too. Then, I lectured as she wanted by ignoring all the stuff that I prepared for the lesson e.g. the lesson plan, worksheets. This was unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteAs for my second puzzling situation, it is related to the classroom atmosphere caused by the teacher. During every English class, the teacher just lectured in a very low voice and expected them to listen to her. She never made use of any worksheets or flashcards or audio-visual aids. She never adapted anything in the course book. In addition to this, there were lots of noisy students, most of them were boys in the classroom and a few girls who were disrupted by the boys irrelevant and spoiled behaviors. So, the teacher did not create an effective teaching and learning environment. She did not warn the students but just ignored them. When it came to the exam, they got low grades and the teacher got angry by telling that I had explained all of these and asked easy questions.
ReplyDeleteMy first suggestion is on Ahmet’s 1st puzzling situation which was related to the classroom management of the teacher. There may some teachers who are really effective in classroom management but some may not. So, I think, you may talk to the mentor teacher by explaining your observations and whether s/he is aware of this situation or not and then you may warn the students firstly making eye contact and then calling their names if they continue to their disruptive behaviors.
ReplyDeleteThis suggestion goes to Ahmet’s 2nd one I think, we all may encounter these kind of situations so what you did was reasonable by saying that you would search for it. However, your mentor teacher tried to explain it but it seems to me that s/he did not make a good job. So, the students were still confused about that question so were you. Maybe you could really search for it and then the following week by relating to the lesson with the previous one , you could make use of that question and thus they would not get confused.
ReplyDeleteMy first puzzling situation is the following: At the very first week of our practice teaching in Bahçelievler Anatolian High School, one of the students began arguing with our mentor teacher -their class teacher- about the seating arrangement. The girl arguing with the teacher was sitting just in front of us, and she bursted into tears because of the arguments she had. I, actually we with İkbal, became really sad because of the situation and told the girl not to cry. As soon as we said this, the girl started to complain about her teacher. She was soreally angry that, she kept complaining about the teacher. I was so puzzled that I could not say anything.
ReplyDeleteAs I wass doing my final teaching task, one of my students asked me "Gösteri ne demek?" Probably because I was excited, I could not remember the word, and I told her to give me a while to think. After a while I still couldn't remember the word -OMG, how ridicilous!- than I told her that I could not remember and I recommended her another version of the sentence without using the word gösteri. The puzzle came to me after the lesson: "Did I do something good by telling her that I could not remember, or was there a better solution?"
ReplyDeleteMy comment is on Burcu's first puzzling situation. I think the situation is very annoying and disrespectful. But these kinds of things could happen everytime, when we are working with someone else. So for now I think Burcu did the right thing by doing what the teacher said. However, when we start teaching on our own I am certain that using worksheet and extra activities would be in great importance.
ReplyDeleteFor Ahmet's second puzzling situation, I can say that the situation may seem annoying at the first glance, still I think that it is a very good thing as it shows that the students are interested in the lesson, and participate the discussions effectively. What the teacher did was not right, appearantly, she could just have participated in the discussion by saying her/his idea, instead of dictating it. What Ahmet could do is thinking about the question afterwards as he did, and then discuss his findings with the students -especially with the one that asked the question- when the mentor teacher was not around -maybe in a break time, or so. :)
ReplyDeleteMy problem is a general one which is about using English or L1 in teaching. In one of my teachings one of the students (who is very good at English but who has always something confusing in my teachings) told me that he didn’t understand the meaning of the word “benefit”. I tried everything that came to my mind in order to explain it to the student. I gave some specific and concrete examples, he said yes I see what you mean but still I don’t know the exact Turkish counterpart of the word. In that case the only thing I could do was to give Turkish meaning, but I didn’t do it because for four years we have been taught that we shouldn’t use any Turkish in teaching English. I am really confused and most of the time I don’t know what to do. Should I use Turkish?..
ReplyDeleteMy second problem is about inductive vs deductive teaching issue. As we are taught that we shouldn’t give grammar rules to students, we should help them find the rule themselves. In all of my teachings I gave them a reading passage with the example sentences about target structure in it. Then I wanted them to find the rules or at least the differences in meaning by asking questions to them. But they couldn’t find any rule. The only thing they did was to say yes or no. you cannot imagine how I feel in such a situation. Did I do something wrong? Was the text too hard for them or was their level too low or….what was the problem I still don’t understand. After such terrible experiences I am really confused about the inductive teaching issue. Is it too hard to apply or is there a problem with me or with the students…..
ReplyDeleteThe second puzzling situation Gizem said is not different event I witnessed in the pre-service school at all. Instead of going crazy, the teacher could have monitored her students while the students were doing things their teacher asked. As I see, the teacher even imposed punishment to the students by making them wait in front of the class. That is really awesome to encounter such an event in the modern present day. Instead, the teacher could have encouraged her students to do their tasks; moreover, she could have helped students do those tasks on the board all together. That is, the teacher could have handled with such a problem in the class by herself rather than writing notes to the students' parents. As for that in the meantime the teacher yelled at a girl who is innocent, unfortuanately it is a common case. A teacher should be patient and should never forget the basic reason of what he/she actually gets irritated. Maybe this student misunderstands her teacher and has got negative feelings towards her teacher; moreover, she will be discouraged from asking a question in the class. I cannot help feeling the same as Gizem feels.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion for İkbal's second situation is to keep students be preoccupied with tasks, worksheets, or activities. Actually it is quite normal situation for the unexperienced teachers like us. Moreover, those students do not think that we are really teachers; that is, they know that we are actually students. So, it may be inevitable for the students to get crazy when the mentor teacher is outside the classroom. There is no need to be concerned about this situation since the time will be an exact solution for us. Experience is a primarily essential.
ReplyDeleteThe mentor teacher was lecturing in the class of the grade 7 students by following the course book. But the class started to make noise. After a while the mentor teacher said to the class that Arif would be their teacher in the class. And the mentor teacher sit down Arif's desk, and Arif became a teacher and cannot know what to do in front of the class, but when his friends asked him questions, he just said that he was not the dictionary as his teacher said in previous lessons. Then the mentor teacher wanted Şevval to be also their teacher and Şevval could not do anything in front of her classmates, either. The teacher did so in the class in order for her students to develop empathy with her and to stop making noise. However, while two students were trying to be in the teacher role, interruption occured in the class and the time wasted. I felt weird and blank in the class. Also, I could not do my observation task in that lesson:) I think the mentor teacher could have applied to different classroom management techniques in the class in the name of saving time.
ReplyDeleteI want to comment on Ezgi’s second puzzling situation. I think she did the right thing by telling that she didn’t remember the word. In such situations, when the teacher tries to conceal her not remembering or not knowing the answer, the students somehow understand it and they start to think very bad things about the teacher. Therefore, it is much better to be honest and tell them that we are also human beings and sometimes we can make mistakes or sometimes we can have difficulty in remembering a word. And I think sometimes the students respect more to teachers who reveal that they don’t know something. Lastly, I want to remind her a famous saying which was always reminded us “A good teacher should know sometimes saying “I don’t know” to students”
ReplyDeleteThis comment is for Pelin’s first problem. In such situations, it is much better not to answer the questions of such students. Sometimes we can even ignore them because such students ask questions to draw attention. Therefore, I think we should answer a few of his problems which we think important then we can tell him to ask questions during the break or we can say that after we complete all the tasks for today, we will come to his questions.
ReplyDeleteMy second puzzling situation was at the 8th grade students’ classroom. We were waiting for the teacher together with students in the class. All of a sudden a woman came to class. After a while the mentor teacher came to the class and the woman asked our mentor teacher to give speech for only 5 minutes in front of the students. The woman was a parent who would organize year end prom. Her speech took long time and some girl students objected to her related to the prom. For example, a student said “you did not call my mother and tell about the restaurant which you would choose.” There was a state of tension between the parent and students in the class. The mentor teacher only waited for speech to finish. But when she recognized that it would not finish, she had to interfere to the speech. The woman went away from the class. Then the class went into the chaos. Girls who object to the woman disputed with the girl whose mother had been the woman in the class. The teacher got angry with the situation a bit. She warned girls because of their rude behaviors. A few girls started to cry. On the other hand boys found this situation nonsense and made fun of girls. The situation was such a tragicomic that we could not know how to behave and what to do in the class.
ReplyDeleteFor Belkıs’ first puzzling situation, I suggest using Turkish when it is really needed. Sometimes, students understand the meaning of a word in a sentence but they are not satisfied unless they are told what the Turkish counterpart of that word is. In those situations, we may ask the students in the class “OK, try to guess. What could the Turkish word for ‘benefit’ be?” After eliciting some answers from them, we can say the Turkish word for it.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, using L1 in a language class should not be a taboo for teachers. Sometimes, it saves time. In some situations, it is needed to increase the awareness of students. Using Turkish while teaching English can turn out to be an advantage if we use it effectively.
I want to comment on Burcu Deryan’s first puzzling situation. If I were the teacher in that class, I would try using ‘I messages’. For instance, I would say “When you make noise while I am talking, I can’t make myself heard. It upsets me when you don’t listen to me.” I believe that using I-messages generally work. When we use them, students don’t feel offended because we only talk about our feelings. Students will be more eager to listen to us when we build an effective communication with them without blaming them or shouting at them.
ReplyDeleteIn one of my teaching tasks, a student who is sitting in the front started to play with his mobile phone. When I realized that he was interested in his phone rather than the lesson, I walked towards him but he didn’t give up playing the game on his phone. Then I asked him what he was doing in a friendly way and requested him to put it away. Then he put the mobile phone in his bag. I continued the lesson hoping that he wouldn’t play with it again. However, five minutes later he started to play with his phone again! This time I was annoyed but I didn’t do anything. I just ignored him until the end of the lesson because I couldn’t find a better way to deal with this problem, which made me feel bad.
ReplyDeleteMy second puzzling situation is similar to Ezgi’s. Students were having English exam. Our mentor teacher left the class to us and went outside. Students were allowed to use dictionary. One of them asked me the meaning of “tatmin etmek”. I couldn’t remember the word at that time. I said “I couldn’t remember it now but I will say it in a minute”. A couple of minutes passed but I still couldn’t remember the unfortunate word. I felt very bad at that moment. I was afraid that the student would think I didn’t know anything about English. Those kinds of thoughts still stress me out. I am not sure about what to do when I can’t remember a word that a student has asked.
ReplyDeletemy first puzzling situation was about my first mentor teacher. ıt was our first week and this was our first lesson to observe. ıt was a grammar lesson. the teacher was teaching in order to/so that grammar points. she asked students to open their notebooks and she asked them to write what she was saying. she just say the rule word by word and asked students to note down. ı got shocked because ı didn2 see such kind of methodology before. ıt wasn't deductive teaching even. after finishing writing, she asked students to do the exercise in the book. ı was wondering how she could be sure that students could get the rule without giving any example.
ReplyDeletemy second puzzling situation was in my first teaching. ıt was a speaking part and we were talking about boy- girl realitonship. we were talking about the things to be done for boyfriend/ girlfriend. ı asked students for some suggestions. then one of the student asked me the English equivalent of 'göz kırpmak' in Turkish. ı knew the word but ı couldn't remember at that moment. ı got panic. ı didn't konw what to do. ı looked at my peer, she was triyng to say it, but ı couldn't read her lips as well. this was the thind that ı was afraid of. there is always a possibility of this situation. I got embarassed and ı thought that students' first impression would be bad. then ı just pretended not to hear the student and went on speaking. however, ı knew that tihs was not a solution and they were all aware of what's going on.
ReplyDeleteı had similar experince with Cennet. at that moment ı couldn't know what to do as well. however, then ı thought that it was a normal thing, teachers cannot know everything and they also should give this message to the student. so ı think Cennet you shouldn't feel stressful. noone can know eveything in their proffession. you can clearly tell the student that you don't know or remember the word. as it is allowed to use dictionary, you can offer the student to look up the dictionary together and learn the word. you should give the message to the student that sometimes you can be in the learner's position and you can learn something even from your students.
ReplyDeleteI want to make a comment for Belkıs first situation. I also experinced the event since she was my peer. yes we were taught not to use L1 in classroom.I agree this to some extent. it is good to use target language in clasroom,it provides students comprehensible ample input. However, sometimes we really get stuck and it would be better to use L1. ı don't mean using L1 in every opportunity. Belkıs, you tried every way, you created a context, you gave examples, but still the student had a problem with the meaning. then there was no need to insisting on using L2 in my opinion. because it would be very time consuming. In additon, it was just a word, so it wouldn't create such big problem to use a Turkish work. if we think, what's more important was to teach student the meaning of the word so if really necessary then use L1, no problem in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAt this term, I was a teacher trainee at Atatürk Anatolian High School and it was an inexpressible experience for me. The first puzzling situation I encountered there was about my mentor teacher's attempts to enable students to understand the change of pronouns in reported speech. No matter what she did, the students just could not understand that topic. They even want a table which shows them the change of pronouns, which is not possible at all because you know that we should concentrate on the meaning in changing them. Considering this situation, I am afraid that these science department students want to learn everything in language in tables, by concrete examples and in graphic. However, this is not possible all the time. Thus, I really wonder your suggestions regarding this issue.
ReplyDeleteThe second puzzling situation I encountered was when the students questioned me about the use of ‘having’ in passive with gerund constructions. As it is known, we use it to indicate the time difference between the two events. Their questions were not relevant because they were just wondering why English people are using ‘having’ other than any word to indicate this difference. Of course, I stated that it was just a rule and we can not know exactly why it is so but they were not satisfied. I actually believe that they just did it on purpose to make me feel inadequate but I really do not know what we should do in such situations.
ReplyDeleteAs a suggestion to Burcu’s second puzzling situation, I can say that it is all about the lack of motivation of the teacher and her lack of classroom management skills. As teachers, first of all, we should be ready and motivated for the teaching learning situation so that we can see enthusiastic students in front of us. We should not think teaching just as a profession through which we can earn money because it is all about human life and we may affect the lives of our students in positive or negative ways by our behaviors and attitudes. If I were that teacher, I would think about these things and act more responsibly towards my students.
ReplyDeleteThe second puzzling situation that Gizem put forward is really a serious one. We see that the students are not acting responsibly towards the teacher and the teacher is not thinking about their feelings at all. If I were the teacher, I would have stated the rules of the class at the beginning of the term and this would have also included the rules about homework. In the meantime, the rationales behind the rules could have been given so that the students would act more sensibly and responsibly. Even if the rule was violated after such a contract, I would not yell at the students and give them such weird punishment. I might ask whether they had understood what they were required to do because this situation may have arisen from the fact that the students could not understand what they were to do or they just did not have any idea about the topic. Then, I would want them to do it again after I give some hints about the homework. As for yelling at a student and taking the revenge on it, I really find it unpleasant because we should think about the feelings of our students and try not to reprimand them in front of their peers. If she had just kept an eye contact with that student, I think that it would have been more effective.
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ReplyDeleteMy first puzzling situation is that the teacher was giving examples to the topic “ if- clause”. One of the students were asked to tell about his classmates' pschological features and he told "Ali is too childish and thinks that girls are crazy for him". At that moment, the students began to laugh at that student and the teacher also didn’t interrupt. At that time, it was clear that that student’ heart got really broken by all these harsh comments. I was about to approach that student just to say that everyone is different and unique but I couldn't. It was really sad to see that he was about to cry and as a result of all these, he became disinterested in the following lessons.
ReplyDeleteIn one of my activities, I asked students to think about activities to do in a concert area to make the crowd crazy. And respectively they told me that they could give free beverages, t-shirts, brochures etc. I wrote all of their suggestions on the board; and I started to ask their opinions on each one of them and give a score out of ten. Most of the suggestions got over seven or eight while only one of them got three. I was too puzzled by the score that I sad sorry to the student who made that suggestion but in a way I also couldn't help thinking that the student could possibly get hurt or demotivated.
ReplyDeleteAs for the suggestion to Merve's first puzzling situation, I can say that teachers are sometimes too oriented to conduct a lesson without reflecting or questioning their strategies. I blame this situation not on the teachers but on the system of hiring teachers. The government unfortunately hires teachers depending upon a multiple choice exam which is beyond testing or evaluating people's teaching skills. Therfore, I think that more in- service training and a career ladder for the teaching profession or performance- based system is a must in Turkey.
ReplyDeleteAs for Merve's second situation, I can say that this issue is always happening to the English teachers. I can recommend her not to worry about it. She can say things like " look up in your dictionary and let's remember together" kinds of things. All in all, we are all human and we can forget things easily as the others may do.
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ReplyDeleteFor the second problem İkbal mentioned, I can say we also experienced some kind of that situation. We had to do our second teaching and the mentor teacher didn’t come to class since she was sick. When we enter the class, they also got crazy. Everyone was talking about different things loudly. There was a chaos atmosphere in the class. Everyone was wandering around the classroom. We had to call them by their names loudly and wanted them to stop talking. But it didn’t work like İkbal’s situation. Then we tried to begin our teaching. At first, they seemed that they didn’t care what we were doing in front of the class. But when we began making an activity related to the topic we had just tried to teach, they stopped talking and started to follow the lesson; because the activity was a game-like one and they are always interested in games. So having such an activity back up may be a solution for these kinds of classroom management problems.
ReplyDeleteOne of our problems is that our mentor teacher always makes the students afraid of exams and quizzes. She treats the students by using grades, making exams. So whenever we enter the class, they always ask anxiously “Hocam, we have a quiz today, right?” When we say no, they got relaxed. They are always grade-oriented. They do not care learning English, but only getting good marks. They tend not to study the topics which won’t be asked in the exam.
ReplyDeleteTo suggest Tuğba for her first puzzle, I would say that it is sad but very common among teachers. Most of the time, they don’t even realize how vulnerable children could get. It is impossible to see how indifferent these teachers may get in contrast. These are the people who get a pedagogic education so they must be very careful about such things. Of course there are times to laugh in a classroom, but times when the teacher can laugh with the class and when she can’t are totally not the same. It is natural that children (and even young adults) can get quite merciless toward each other but this is when the teachers’ duty starts. She should make the difference between herself and those children. She’s the model/leader of the class, not a member of it who is waiting to be educated.
ReplyDeleteAs a suggestion for Nilüfer’s puzzle, I can say that this attitude of their teacher comes from our culture. At least this is what I think and observe around. This is the culture that families, schools, parents educate children in. We always try to scare them to get them do something. In the end, we are left with paranoid children with many personality problems. It is proved very well that nothing works this way and it is proved very well that approaching children with love and motivation helps and works a lot. The quality of education in Scandinavian countries would be the best example to this situation. I think in those countries they give children the utmost respect and they get efficiency most.
ReplyDeletePuzzle 1
ReplyDeleteI have experienced one of the hardest/worst puzzles of my teaching career this term. I was about to do my last teaching task (final teaching). Everything was set. I prepared my materials, lesson plans, activities, everything. I was enthusiastic about my lesson so I checked everything again and again. The next day, before I went to the school to teach, I went to a copy center to take my print-outs and photocopies. I checked things twice again. Then after a while a man entered in hurry. He was moving like a mad saying that he had hurry and needed to take some print-outs for his wife. He also asked my friend waiting in the line, who was waiting to get copies, to give her line up to him because his wife was a teacher and had class at school in the first hour. However, the situation of my friend’s situation wasn’t much different from his or mine. She would teach as well. Then after the little mess he caused, he took his copies and left even without checking he got the right ones. I and my friend Bilge went to the school after we were done with our copies and I took the first turn to teach. One of the activities I planned was doing some listening and vocabulary though songs. I would distribute them a page with lyrics and the students would do an activity. However, my copies were missing. I panicked right in the middle of class. I simply froze, without knowing what to do. Besides, I got disappointed, upset etc. I lost my mood to teach. Then my friend Sena ran and helped me write the lyrics on the board and this was how we could do the activity. In the meanwhile, I lost the control of the class because I just couldn’t care. At the end, the whole performance felt like a failure.
Puzzle 2
ReplyDeleteDuring my final teaching task, I needed to pre-teach some vocabulary as a preparation for a reading-focused lesson. I prepared colorful PowerPoint slides, clear illustrations and so on. I just wanted my students to see that PowerPoint so badly. However, because I was planning to teach at 11-H, I couldn’t imagine that I’d have technical problems with the projector. When I went to the school, unfortunately, it happened that I had to teach at 11-A and the projector wasn’t working. I couldn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to spoil all the activity just writing them on the board. But because I didn’t take their print-outs (it wouldn’t help me show the animations, anyway), I had no other choice. It just felt ridiculous. We are encouraged to use technology in classes whenever we can, but the real situation of state schools are not even close to that.
I want to comment on the first problem Burcu encountered. In the first semester, I also faced a similar problem, and it was very annoying as I talked to the teacher the previous week about my teaching task. I think Burcu did the right thing as there would be no use of distributing the students the worksheets, because they didn't know about the subject. As a solution to the problem Burcu should have talked to the teacher about the problem after the lesson. In his way the teacher might be aware of the fact she made a mistake.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem Nilüfe faced is a common one, and a lot of teachers makes their students afraid of the courses. At the end the students become exam- oriented and they don't like the course at all as they are obliged to study. Teachers shouldn't let this happen by encouraging the students about participating in the activities without thinking about their grades. The teachers should respect for the students, and if thy respect the students, students will respect the course as well as the teacher.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was carrying out my 4th teaching task, there were only a few students in the classroom due to an extracurricular activity. The students in the classroom didn't want to have a class as most of their friends weren't there. They sugested that there shouldn't be a class that day. I taught in the class that day, but the students weren't motivated at times, and they got distracted very easily. The situation was hard for me, because I didnt know whether I made the right decision about teaching in the class while there were only a few students in the class.
ReplyDeleteThe secon puzzling situation I want to talk about is a general one. I didn't face tihs problem while I was teaching, but I have been thinking about the problem for a long time, and I don't know how to solve the problem if I experience it. We as prospective teachers know that we have to cover the subjects in the curriculum. There are many subjects to be covered, but there isn't enough hours allocated for the English classes. In an environment like this it is ver difficult to perform our job as good as we desire. As prospective teachers what would you do if you had little time for teaching? Would you cover all the subjects although you knew that the pace was too fast for your students?
ReplyDeleteI wan to mention one of the problems during our last teaching. The problem was that the students tried to formulate the rules of participle clauses. while we were giving instructions, they were always trying to create a rule in their mind and we were unable to prevent them. they are 11th grade students and their department is science, that is why they are trying to formulate rules. what can be a solution for the students who are accustomed to deductive teaching and trying to put rules for every grammar topic?
ReplyDelete