Mirror Mirror on the Wall

For this blog I will be reflecting on my micro teaching,
mostly because I have not been teaching this week and have only been
grading piles of paperwork, doing loads of renewal paperwork, or on
vacation. :) Not much in the area of teaching to reflect on this week
sadly.



My teaching style hasn't changed that much, it
is still too teacher centered for my liking, but I have reduced the
AMOUNT of time I take in the class for myself. This micro teaching had
more student talk than the last one, with specific examples being with
the students asking each other the main question and answering each
other. With students guiding the answers to what I wrote on the board. I
did like this change, because it gave me some freedom in what I had to
say. I didn't have to explain everything, because they were the ones who
came up with the answers.

The thing I do have trouble with, when
it comes to student answers, is the need for guidance in small groups. I
try to make it so the students will naturally come to the same
conclusion I did before the lesson starts, but some groups need more
pushes in the right directions during small group time. This can be due
to one student having a stronger opinion and overriding the group, or
just a lower level group that focuses on a side part of the lesson as
important. This is not any fault of the students, but it makes it so I
have to be very careful how I word my questions and how much I should
predict what kind of "other" answers I will get to the questions I
pose.



For the white board. I did use it much more than
last time. I was able to even write down the answers the students gave
me on the board. I believe that gives them a sense of ownership over
what I write. I even incorporated the use of  different colors to focus
in on what the main idea or answer I wanted was. I am not sure if there
was a different way I could have done this, but I do feel there is room
for improvement when it comes to transitioning my students from talking
to each other to white board writing and discussion.



All
of the students used a sentence to ask each other the question, but
that was very manufactured. When it came time to do the asking and
answer to each other in pairs, many students fell back on short phrases
and one word utterances. (this is very typical of my normal classes, not
just how native speakers speak to each other) I feel when speaking to
each other that speaking in phrases is okay, so long as the meaning is
clear (and they are always speaking in English).


 I had three
different times when I spoke more than two sentences before letting my
students speak. This was in the beginning when starting out and I felt a
need to give context to my students for the phone calls. This is also
when explaining what we were doing for the writing and listening part of
the activity. I also spoke more when I wanted to explain the focus
point of my lesson. (What they look like)


I could have reduced
these with checking the student understanding (Do you remember what 911
is?) Or just jumping into the situation and having them fill in their
own context. I also could have cut down the teacher talk by asking the
students why I would color another part in red, and having  them come to
the conclusion of why.



I feel overall this
mircroteaching went MUCH better than last one. I felt that more of the
class was focused on the students. The students were more in control of
what was focused on and what they chose to say to each other. I was
better able to check in with students personally during the lesson. I
was also able to better direct the flow of the class due to knowing how
each group was doing.



Unfortunately...John's camera's
sound went weird during the recording. So you just have to look at
beautiful me with messed up sound. I will post the video, but all you
will see during it is MIC techniques and how I addressed the students
with body language.