Strengths
The feedbacks I get from both my tutors and
peers are fundamental to help me improve with the way I teach and for my
self-evaluation.
The first strength witnessed by both tutors and
peers is the good rapport that I establish with learners. A good rapport with
learners means higher motivation for learners, more comfort that they can
answer more confidently and with a higher degree of frankness. In addition the
good rapport enhances respect and facilitates the communication between
teachers and learners.
Second, during my
teaching practices I showed an improvement in class management such as dividing
them into groups and pairs; using material especially data show.
In my first teaching
practice, I didn’t use the data show and I exclusively relied on chesting, it’s
from the second teaching practice that I mastered its use.
Third, my peers and
tutors acknowledge my cultural awareness when I choose the warm up and lead in.
I usually start my lessons with topics they are familiar with and able to speak
about them. For example in teaching practice 2 I started the lesson with
projecting photos of famous shops in Turkey and asked about their shopping
habits; in teaching practice 5 I used the photo of a famous Turkish chef and
made them talk about his success story and compared with the success story of
the chef in their reading activity.
Learners loved the lead
in activities and were so engaged. They shared their shopping habits in
teaching practice 2; in teaching practice 5 learners spoke with zeal and
enthusiasm about the chef because they know the secrets behind his success
story.
Finally after each
teaching practice I become less stressed and more confident. For me it’s all
about practicing.
Developmental Needs and Action Points
Of course there is a lot of work to be done in order to improve my
teaching abilities. First, my main challenge is to comply with teaching
procedure, lesson stages, such as lead in, prediction, highlighting the target
language and free and controlled practice. Actually lesson planning has
to have a shape that changes from one lesson’s main focus to another; receptive
skills lessons (reading and listening) have a different shape from productive
skills (speaking and writing). Language that includes grammar, lexis and
functional language have different lesson shapes as well; either you rely on a
text or a listening track to present the language, or testing learners before
and after the lesson. It’s very challenging for non-experienced trainee.
Second, despite the improvement, I often fail to do a proper
feedback and diversify its techniques after every assigned activity to
learners. I often make it longer, example in teaching practice 7 I gave a long
feedback by doing a detailed reading of the ten questions of the reading for
detail.
In teaching practice 6, I confused between listening and lexis,
that means vocabulary and language. It was treated as a listening lesson not
lexis. marking the word stress and syllables on the whiteboard along with
drilling and phonetic transcriptions were totally absent during the teaching
practice. Fortunately I rectified in the following teaching practice and I’ll
rectify in the eighth teaching practice, that its main focus is grammar, and
make it a to standard lesson.
I also need to work more and more on my lesson planning,
vocabulary analysis and grammar and functional analysis. I confess that it’s a
major weakness that needs improvement.
Summary
During the course I have
learned a lot about English teaching. It’s a different teaching approach for
both experienced and non-experienced teachers. For example, it’s very
recommended to make the lessons more and more student centered rather than
teacher centered. Learners are now very familiar with foreign languages that
using topics they are interested in may facilitates their interactions with the
lesson and teacher and makes the lesson more interesting.
Finally, it’s very
useful to observe my peers during their practice and my tutors during their
demo lessons. It helps learn new teaching techniques and styles.
Plans for Post-Course Development
First
I will practice every technique and method I learned during the training. Not
only in English teaching but also in teaching Arabic and French.
Second
I will enroll in every conference, workshop, training and courses related to
English teaching. It’s the most efficient way to stay updated with new methods
and trends. Luckily it’s the era of internet, open resources and materials are
very abundant on internet.
Finally,
I will sign up for a DELTA course or any equivalent advanced qualification in
addition to a master’s degree program in English literature, history and
linguistic.
