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Introduction

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Bee See
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26 views

Introduction

Uploaded by

Bee See
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction

I believe as teachers, we should be open about our strengths and weaknesses and
not shy away from working on them, as there is no teacher without a single
weakness. I have met plenty of teachers that, for some reason, find the word
weakness as a personal slight against them, so it might be more palatable to call it
points to improve on instead, to make sure nobody gets offended. But honestly, if
teachers are offended by the notion of improving and learning, I wonder who is
supposed to be for it.

I will be choosing 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses, providing evidence and


reasoning for each as per the assignment’s instructions.

Strengths:

LD1: Teacher creates environment conducive to learning and maintains levels of


motivation and interest

I have been told by observers that this is one of my strengths; students seem
relaxed and to be having fun during most of my classes. They are encouraged to
practice using the language in different forms without the looming pressure of
marks or grades. I always remind them if they made no mistakes, they would not
learn anything, meaning they would be in the wrong level.

My go-to method of bonding and gaining their trust and acceptance to build up
motivation to work is humor. I find it quite useful to tackle any questions,
objections, and comments they might have. For example, I sometimes have
confident students who outright ask, “Why are we doing this activity?” It might
throw me off at first, but then I respond seriously with as little teaching jargon as
possible as the reasoning behind this; for example, I once answered back with,
“Because our aim today is to work on your speaking, this is why the activity
requires you to speak to different classmates.”

I also do my best to respect the students beliefs and cultural traditions since I am
teaching in a Muslim country and some of our students see working with the
other gender as inappropriate. I do my best to encourage them and explain that
we are working, not chatting for fun, and more likely than not, simply
acknowledging their concerns and answering them with reason leads them to
accept and work on the task.

LD17: The teacher demonstrates an ability to adapt the written lesson plan as
necessary.

Usually, my main aims are what decide the flow of the lesson. I rely on different
sets of stirrers and mingle activities that work with most aims and mostly try to
elicit language and have the students discuss it in a real-life situation. Depending
on their perceived level of understanding and how challenging the language is, I
might elect to extend or shorten some stages I have in mind, or simply, at a spur
of the moment, change the whole task if needed. For example, I once had a
lesson where the aim was to use the possessive's. Seeing that the students were
quite capable of using it in the controlled practice stage, I decided to make the
freer practice more challenging. The plan was to have them use it in simple short
sentences to talk about different items that belong to people in their lives, but
then I decided to integrate a previously taught point as a revision and raise the
bar of the challenge where they then had to ask yes/no questions using verbs to
be about the items their partner talks about.

LD10: There is an appropriate variety of tasks, activities, focus, and roles.

Ever since doing the TYLEC, it has helped me understand the full extent of the
importance of varying between settler and stirrer activities. I always have a
planned mingle activity or some sort of challenge to have the students excited
and interested. For example, with worksheet-based revisions or language
consolidation, I try to make it more fun if I sense the students are a bit bored,
such as setting up a walking gallery for reading tasks or a reading race. But my
favorite is where I ask them to finish a set of questions (for instance, if the sheet
has 15 questions, in sets of 5), where after they finish it they would do a short
scavenger hunt.

Weaknesses:

LD13: Opportunities are given to learners to develop phonological subskills for


listening and/or speaking.

Coming from a background that is not focused on language or teaching, I feel this
is my Achilles’ heel. I still remember the first time a teacher was joking about how
inexperienced I am (in a friendly manner) and told me to phonologically write a
couple of words on the spot. I was stunned, as I felt that he was speaking a
different language. A few questions went through my head: What’s he talking
about? What are these scribbles he is writing down? What is happening?

I did my research later that night, and it was quite an eye-opening ordeal.
Extremely daunting, yet I gained the new knowledge of a few phonics signs that I
saw on the chart in class every day, as some of them are intuitive and easy to
remember. I do still feel a bit less confident, but I have integrated into my lessons
where we focus on a few sounds, especially the vowel sounds, as most students I
have dealt with seem to have difficulties identifying the difference between /i/,
/e/, /u/, and /a/. So, I usually start almost every lesson with a quick spelling test
using 5-6 minimal pair words to help them practice that skill.

LD20: Learners are encouraged to evaluate, review, and reflect on their learning

This was one of my weaknesses during formal observations, as it feels a bit


rushed, and honestly, I at times simply run out of time and choose to skip it. My
reasoning is usually that they can use this time to practice a bit more, but with
discussion with my colleagues, I understood how it can be helpful to ensure
students know what we took and look back on how we used it. So, I started using
exit tickets before leaving the class, where I would ask students a question they
needed to answer; it could be about the lesson as a whole or a question where
they needed to use the language taught. For example, in a lesson where we
introduced and practiced using vocabulary to describe people, I asked each of
them to describe someone in their family; if their answer was correct, they got to
leave; if not, they needed to stay and listen to everyone else before being asked
by me again, which motivates them to try and fix their mistake and focus on their
colleagues’ answers.

LD5: The teacher succeeds in implementing tasks and activities through clear
instructions.

Another point where I was given advice on how to improve is that I usually tend
to overexplain or repeat the instructions two or three times if I see any confused
faces. I started, based on my line manager’s advice, to try and chunk my
instructions, elicit from students who zone out, and finally write them as bullet
points on the board for them to refer back to it and minimize my TTT.

Word count: 1194.

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