Dear FLE 404 members,
For this assignment you need to describe a good lesson that you have taught in the practice teaching period. You need to explain the significance of this lesson for you within all the teaching tasks that you have done(i.e., why did you choose this lesson), what makes this lesson effective, what you learnt from this lesson, the strenghts of the lesson and the points to improve in this lesson. You need to justify your arguments by giving examples from the lesson that you refer to.
My best lesson was with tenth grades in which I taught first conditionals and modal verbs used for expressing possibilities. Firstly, we had a passage about a man in which several if structures were located. I took the attention of the students to that structure as a warm-up. This made them be aware of the difference of this structure it was good to use for that aim. Then I provided some examples on this via slides. We did many examples to use the new structure then we had a game at the end. I chose this lesson because all the students participated it. We laughed together. This was the first time that I became sad when I heard the ring for the break. I strongly believe that they had learnt this structure and this makes me happy now. I learnt that teaching process is something reciprocal, the more they learn the more you want to teach. I believe that I could reach each student about which I had problems before.
ReplyDeleteMy first teaching task in this semester was with the ninth grades. It was a good one in my opinion. I also thought the First Conditional. In the previous lesson, my peer conducted a lesson based on reading. Students read a passage related to Mexican traditions. I began the lesson by showing some sentences taken from the passage. Then I showed other examples from the PPT presentation. Students looked at the examples and guessed the pattern. They made me write the pattern on the board. Then I let them note down the structure on their notebooks. Afterwards, I showed a sample chain story as in the example: “If I lose my job, I will move to the countryside. If I move to the countryside, I will buy a pet dog. If I have a pet dog, we will go for a walk every day. If I go for a walk every day, I will get fit. If I get fit, I could get a new job as a sports teacher.” Then, I divided the class into groups. I gave each group a different prompt like “If I lose my job” and asked them to complete the chain story using their imagination as a group. Then we chose the best one among the stories.
ReplyDeleteI liked the lesson because students participated in the lesson. They enjoyed especially the group activity. It was my first experience in grammar teaching. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the lesson but later on I enjoyed it. Then students did, too.
My best teaching experience was my last teaching task with the ninth grades. In this lesson, I taught “gerunds” with its three features. I started to the lesson with the related examples from the previous lesson and then I showed lots of examples related to gerunds. After they got the basic points of the topic, I wanted them to give their own examples including “gerunds”. And then I wrote the examples given by most of them. While giving a detailed lesson related to “gerunds” I had them listen to music because I believed that some of the students would learn a topic accompanied by music, so I tried to give a lesson along with music for the first time. It was an extraordinary experience for me because I both gave a grammar lesson and had the students listen to music for the first time.
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ReplyDeleteI think my fourth teaching task I had this term was a good lesson. It is one of my personal favorites in all the teaching tasks. In this lesson, I taught “wish clauses”. For this topic, I thought a lesson based on the theme “wishes” would be an appropriate one, and I used that theme for the lesson. At the beginning of the lesson, I gave the students a very short fairy tale in which the character was granted three wishes by an elf, a traditional story. It involved some sentences formed by using the target structure. The students read the fairy tale, and I asked them what the wishes of the character were. The answers contained wish clauses. Then, in a related way to the reading text, I moved on to a slideshow, and showed them sentences that involved wish clauses. Here I explained the target structure to them, and tried to take their attention to the points I wanted to emphasize by asking questions. After presenting the structure on the slideshow, I wanted the students to complete the exercise on the worksheet. They rewrote the sentences by using wish clauses. As the last activity of the lesson, I wanted them to imagine that they were granted three wishes, just like the character in the fairy tale. I asked them what their wishes would be. They wrote them on the worksheet, and then shared them with the class.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest why I like this lesson is because I introduced the grammar structure in a meaningful context. In the previous lessons, this was always my aim, but in some way I couldn’t do it in the way I wanted. In this lesson, I was able to achieve this, so I am feeling better about this lesson. Another point I like about the lesson is that it had a theme, wishes. All the activities were based on that theme, and they were all related to each other. I think I like this kind of lessons, lessons that have a theme, more. In those lessons, the activities flow in a more natural atmosphere and students enjoy the lesson more, in my opinion. In addition, the students seemed to be interested in the topic of the lesson, and I think most of them enjoyed it. For these reasons, I think of this lesson as a good one.
My best teaching was the one when I made use of a speaking activity in the pre-reading phase of a reading lesson. The students were required to talk about any mysterious story they had heard. At the beginning of the activity, there was just silence in the class. I made students think about such a story and keep small notes of it that might help them during their speech. This really worked. The students were really interested in talking about some mysterious stories they had heard. They interacted with me and with each other during the speaking activity, which was really unusual for these students. I helped them explain their stories to the class and it was clear that they were really relaxed and they were enjoying the lesson. Apart from these, after a smooth transition, I asked the students to read the passage and I could get students’ attention to the topic of the reading passage by asking some general questions about the topic. I could also explain the meanings of the words the students asked in an effective way. With the help of this teaching my confidence in my teaching skills increased and this lesson is really important for me in this respect.
ReplyDeleteMy best lesson was with 9th grade students, ı was trying to just introduce future tense, I created warm atmosphere and as I know students’ names, I included their names in the activities so they really enjoyed and participated actively during the lesson.
ReplyDeleteI used fortune teller activity for teaching future tense, students were groups of two-three, and they showed their performance in front of the class. Then I distrubute them a reading text including both “will” and “going to”. This text was enjoyable because it was about young students like them. They made matching exercises and then they answered comprehension questions. Students said we wished we always had lessons with asisstant teachers.
I learned that I should try to have much more eye contact with the students, and I should give much more real examples or as my mentor says ı should mention today’s news like libya war, but I don’t want to give such problematic examples while opening my lesson.
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ReplyDeleteMy best teaching practice is the third teaching. Firstly I made students listen to a song to go over the previously learned material and then I gave them a reading to introduce the new topic. Then I attract their attention to the new topic which was a huge number of future tenses. After that, they did some practice on the various future tenses. The students seemed to enjoy the class most probably because of the song and although they didn’t understand most of it they didn’t quit; they continued to try. It was nice to see their determination to understand the song because normally they don’t even try to understand even a simple instruction and they don’t participate much in the activities. Also I was happy to see them smiling. Besides, I didn’t experience anything negative in that class. So it was a nice experience. I learned to the importance of using materials not attractive for us, but for the students. In addition, I (once more) witnessed the effectiveness of using audio visual materials especially the songs and videos.
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ReplyDeleteI think my best teaching in that semester was the fourth teaching task with seventh grade students in Sofuoğlu Primary School. In this lesson my peer and I focused on the reading skill with sub skills 'vocabulary and grammar'. I started to the lesson with asking students about the animals students like and saying some characteristics of animals through using comparatives and superlatives in order to help them relate their past knowledge with the lesson. They effectively related their past knowledge with the lesson. Then, I showed students some pictures of animals while mentioning the animals in order to form a schema related to animals in students’ mind and to make learning more permanent. So, students were more motivated to the lesson. Moreover, that I made students play a vocabulary game about animals in order to recall learned animal names in an enjoyable way was helpful for the students to be more active in the class and for their learning to be more permanent. Students felt satisfied with this game and we had a enjoyable time all together Finally, I wanted students to come to the board and choose an animal randomly, and then to tell the name of the animal and to tack it on to the correct title on the board after I explained the classifications of animals such as insects, reptile and etc. In that way I checked students’ understanding. Students both learned the classification of animals and enjoyed the lesson since they were active in the class.
ReplyDeleteHi everybody,
ReplyDeleteI think that my best teaching was the first teaching of this semester. In that lesson I thought the grammar topic “could/couldn’t, can, cannot” It was the first grammar teaching that I have ever done and it was quite successful. I tried to use the inductive method and did my best to do help students get aware of the structure themselves. With the help of video and some visual materials it happened a really enjoying and effective lesson. My mentor teacher gave really positive feedback after the lesson then I learnt that students also liked the lesson very much and they learnt the topic very well. It is really pleasing to learn that your students learn from your lessons.
my best lesson was the last one probably. ıt was vocabulary teaching. ı taught some idioms related to expressions and emotions. my most succesful point in my teaching was the context that ı created. ı used survivor as a context to present the topic through ppt. it was a current issue and students all had an idea about this program. when they saw the context, they were really motivated and gave their whole attention to the topic. they had really fun while learning the idioms through this context. the examples were all from the program and so students would most probably never forget them. ı also prepared a mini quiz like paparazzi questions and asked students these questions. they had fun in this activity as well. they had chance to practice newly learnt vocabulary inductively through this activity. there was a smooth transition between my activities and my last activity was the most challenging one. ı sed group work as a competition. ıt was kind of a game as well. so students again has fun and challenge in this activity. it was really effective and enjoyable lesson that ı have taught.
ReplyDeleteIn my second teaching task, there was a reading passage about a memoryman and there were a lot of comprehension questions about the passage. Since I thought that it was too boring I adopted my lesson plan according to my students and added some memory games and videos about that man.I and students enjoyed every second of the lesson.I really realized how important adopting a lesson plan by taking students' needs and interests into the consideration is. Since I really enjoyed the lesson, I still feel happy when I remember the games. What made the lesoon effective was that I had prepared myself for the lesson. Everything was well organized and as I mentioned the lesson plan was adopted according to the students' needs.
ReplyDeletemy best lesson was with 6th grades when I taught "must" modal as rule defining structure and its negative form "mustn't" as prohibitions on my third teaching task. I choose this lesson because everything went perfect for me. I complied totally with my lesson plan even contingency. All the activites I prepared myself were liked by the students a lot and the degree of the participation were quite high. I remember explaining unknown words by not just giving them the Turkish counterpart but giving the hints of the meaning of the word via act outs. There were few problems related to noise level in class especially when I returned to board to write something, but I handled this problem quite well and exhibited good classroom management skill. It was my greatest teaching this term.
ReplyDeleteMy best teaching task was the second one I guess. The topic was " Dilemmas" and the language function was giving advices. As a post rading activity I asked the pupils to write advice letters. I divided the classroom into three groups. Each group was supposed to write an advice for the problem that was described to them. The first problem was a girlfriend/ boyfriend issue. The second problem was about using your parent's car without getting permission. The last problem was about the school. Each group wrote their advice letters, and they read them aloud. The advices of the students were various and they really enjoyed the activity as well as practising the language points.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the semester, we have lots of teaching experience; yet, the one that I can give as a good lesson example was my teaching task 3, with the most difficult students for me, 6-A. Interestingly, it was a good lesson because I was expecting a terrible teaching hour as we as a group were afraid of performing our teaching tasks there. The reason behind its goodness was thanks to my materials. My subject matter was if conditionals, type-1. I made use of colorful pictures to help the students understand some scientific facts. I, generally, give a lot importance to warm-up session in my lessons and my warm-up style made the things easier for me. My students liked the way I did so much that they ,suprisingly, actively participated in the class activities. We did all the things included in my lesson plan, even the contigency. Therefore, we enjoyed the topic a lot. ı found the lesson very effective and successful.
ReplyDeleteMy best teaching was my assess teaching. I ejoyed my lesson very much. First of all, the language skills were reading, writing and speaking. I feel very creative when my students start to talk. We played games, we had competition abpıt vocabulary items that they have learnt. When I saw them both learnt and enjoyed, I felt like a teacher.
ReplyDeleteHello Everybody!
ReplyDeleteMy best teaching was the second teaching task of the school experience. It was the best for me because I enjoyed the lesson as much as the students did. My first teaching task was not as good as the second. My mentor teacher said to me that I should give less time for the pair and individual activities so that the students would not have time to chat among themselves. I did so, even though I did not agree with her. But guess what? It worked! The students focused on the activities better than they did in the first time. They gave examples to the grammar topic I taught (conditionals) and thanks to their funny examples we laughed a lot.
As for the teaching task, I cannot say I applied what we learned in METU, since my teacher asked me to revise a specific grammar topic for the exam. I did a warm-up with students by showing some pictures and I formed some conditional sentences. Then I taught the structures by asking questions to the students and we made exercises. I was not the perfect lesson plan I prepared but it was the best lesson in terms of classroom management and time management. The most important of all, we had fun while we were learning.
S.B.