Practice: Self evaluation

 Practice: Self evaluation

My practice from GPTE year 1st is coming to an end. It's a good opportunity to sum up what I have learnt, what potential do I have as a teacher. Also, what do I plan to change in the future and what are my new aims.

What I have learnt

Most experience I gained throughout the practice is documented on this blog. This is the first value I see, I can go back to this year whenever I want, rethink some issues and reflect on them. There was a lot of learning, like what materials should I use, how to approach the students, how to prepare myself for the lessons and much more. But there are some general lessons I remember most.

I've learnt that teaching is great responsibility and fun at the same time. On some lessons I was more responsible, which took the majority of fun part away. I was stressed, focused on checking the time too much, treating the students like objects not subjects. On the other hand, there were times where I was not professional enough. I treated kids like my younger sibling, there was a lot of joking or games but we didn't learn that much. I still think I didn't found the golden mean but I am aware that being a teacher means facing this problem on each lesson. It is more difficult as you have different students on each lesson and you are a little bit different (you can feel blue or be hungry). Adjusting the means, method, attitude, humor etc. is like mission impossible, but you have to do it.

Another thing that I've learnt is that conversation and dialog with your students is another fundamental factor of a good lesson. I cannot be a teacher who sits in his comfortable chair and just tells the students what they should do. On a lesson every person who is in the classroom is a part of a small society. To make it work we need to function well together. We need to take care of our needs. So if a student asks me if he can go to the toilet, if he can drink- I will say yes. But I also expect that if I say that it is too loud in the classroom, students will respect that and lower their voices or stop talking. And I, as the teacher, have the power to conduct the lesson in a way that is suitable for all of us.

What potential do I have as a teacher

That is a difficult question. I think I have some potential but I see plenty of areas which need to be changed, which I need to work on. The most important for me is that I want to learn, I want to experience new things and enrich myself.

Plans for the future

One of my goals is to improve my English. I know I have shortcomings and sometimes I feel like I don't deserve to teach English with the knowledge I have, especially when I look at other teachers. Another plan is to practice teaching as much as I can. I believe that when you practice any activity you get better and better at it. One more aim is to simply be human- teacher, so not to forget any of those natures.

Practice: Teaching individual CLIL lesson

 Practice: Teaching individual CLIL lesson

Teaching CLIL lesson for the first time was stressful. Here I will describe my experience, what worked, what didn't, what could have been done better.

What worked

As I've picked 3D figures for the topic of my unit, I can say that visual presentation worked. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with the students on getting to know and understand the idea of 3D figures. Most importantly, they were to calculate the volume of those figures on our next lesson so I thought: What can I do to help them with this activity? I didn't want them simply to multiply some numbers and get the score. This is not what math is about, and for sure not what CLIL is about. So I conducted many activities which focused on projecting and showing those figures.

My another idea which worked was to choose only two 3D figures and focus on showing the difference between them. I decided to do that because the whole volume idea was very new for the students. So I chose prism and cube, as these are the easiest figures for the beginning. They are most similar to the easiest 2D figures- square and rectangle. That's what I started with, and after few minutes of presentation we had this worksheet:

There are planty of examples of the 3D shapes in different sizes and configurations.

What didn't work

On that lesson I had difficulties while giving vocabulary. I assumed which words students know and which are new. That led to them asking similar questions again and again. Moreover, we did too less of repetition because after presentation of new vocabulary students weren't able to use them while working on different tasks.

Next thing is about me assuming what students remember from last year and what knowledge can I use. It appeared they need to hear one more time about the area of a figure as they couldn't understand the formula for the volume.

Two exercises didn't work because children couldn't work in groups or in pairs due to the virus situation. I didn't predict that and I needed to create new exercises on the spot.

What could have been done better?

I think my materials weren't good enough, I know I could have spent more time on making them clearer and better quality. Also I could have found more interactive materials, like 3D models. So far I do find something on the internet but I'm sure there are better sources.

Here is what I've used, maybe it will be useful for some of you :)

https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/hexahedron.html

https://www.mathgames.com/skill/5.120-volume-of-cubes-and-rectangular-prisms

https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Cubes/

https://www.math-salamanders.com/3d-geometric-shapes.html

Practice: Reflection on planning and preparing the whole CLIL unit

 Practice: Reflection on planning and preparing the whole CLIL unit

It's not easy to plan one lesson. When I have heard for the first time that I have a task to plan a unit of 5- 8 lessons I didn't believe in myself. Despite that I somehow managed to complete all lesson plans and here is how I perceive the process.

Choosing the topic was one of the most time consuming task. On my practice I could create a math unit for 5th ar 6th grade. My mentor teacher helped me by describing what subject the students are working on now and what is she planning to do with them next. It narrowed down my searching process but I still couldn't decide on one topic. Finally I came to conclusion that I should pick something easy for me, that's how I can lower the difficulty of creating the unit. I thank myself for that thought till today, it for sure made my life easier.

I chose the topic of 3D figures. Next step was to choose specific information I want to present for the students. There are plenty of 3D figures and on starters I was devastated because I imagined that all of them need to be included in my unit. It took me some time to realize that even during my school years, grade after grade the difficulty of each subject grew. Jus as same as mathematics, it is a big process from the first geometry lesson to 3D figures. The same thing happens for the topic of 3D figures themselves. I took a deep breath and chose to focus on prism and cube. 

Because of the pandemic times we were told to write 5 lesson plans, not more, because the shorter the unit the bigger chance is to conduct it in a school. Next challange appeared: what those 5 lessons should include to create a CLIL unit? I wondered what other school subjects than math could concern the topic of 3D figures? At first I had an idea to include music education by presenting different instruments and calculating their volume. Little did I know that there are not mant musical instruments in a shape of a prism or a cube, which made my idea pointless.

I was devastated because few more ideas after long time of searching for the materials and writing the lesson plans turned out to be a cul-de-sac. What I have learnt after those hours of unsuccessful searching is:

The simpler, the better!

I've stopped to expect wonders from my work. I've realized that I plan the unit for students, for children! They want to learn math, not rocket science. Finally, I focused on the basic vocabulary (3d figure, prism, cube, volume, cubic centimeter), calculating the volume and I added a historical accent to the unit, a lesson about the Stonehenge. I tried to make it as easy as I can and add fun elements everywhere.

Here is an example of my worksheet. On the lesson we talked a lot not only about "Is it a prism or a cube?" but also about the aquarium, ice cubes and presents. After this lesson my students' homework was to write down in their notebooks 3 more examples of prisms and cubes they can find at home or in school. They enjoyed this activity and I am happy to focus on simplifying the message.

Whenever you get stuck on anything, no matter if it is teaching or studying or any other activity, I recommend taking deep breath and trying to switch your thinking on an easier truck.

Online teaching #3: How different or similar is the teaching online to in-class teaching?

Online teaching #3: How different or similar is the teaching online to in-class teaching?

The online-teaching is different than in-class teaching because of the adjective"online". On the other hand it is similar because of the verb "teaching". I will first focus on the similarities and then on the differences from my perspective, each of us can learn our own lesson from them.

Similarities

1. 

What stays the same in an online lesson are the people: teacher and students. In todays' situation this is for sure an advantage, as they know each other from the in-class time. That is why they can assume how the lesson will look like even though it is online, they can feel quite safe and calm.

This argument is not valid if the classes are all online since the first lesson till the last one.

2. 

Even though we changed our way of teaching we still teach the same curriculum. In case of teaching English, we just continue teaching vocabulary, grammar and all linguistic skills. Till the end of the year each institution aims to finish planned material. In my case, teachers from my school just need to continue and finish units from linguistic books that is what we would have done in-class as well.

3. 

Some teaching materials are the same. We just share the screen and the worksheet we would have printed is there for everyone. Moreover, we can show it in the right quality, with colors. I believe it is one of the biggest arguments for teaching online. Other materials like videos, recordings or online games are even easier to share because we use the computer anyway so we do not need to switch our brains from "writing on the board" mood to "using a computer" mood.

Differences

1. 

Environment where the teaching and learning takes place is different. Because of that teachers need to adjust the exercise and activities to the possibilities they have on an online lesson (e. g. breakout rooms). In my opinion crucial part of the learning is missing- the senses. We still have the auditory and visual but they are different than before. Looking at the screen is not the same as looking at a person who is in front of you and I believe it is a disadvantage. Moreover, we cannot use the sense of touch. The distance between teacher and students is palpable and clear.

2. 

Communication and interaction have changed on the lessons. We still talk to each other but it is different. The people we talk to seem to be closed in our computer, we can easily stop the conversation by just shutting the computer down. Only the subconsciousness of this fact can change the way we approach the conversation. Other channels of communication like "giving reaction" or "writing on the chat" have their advantages, like: they are faster, you can communicate with few people at the same time. But the disadvantages are there as well, the communication is extremely limited. For me "thumb up" can mean "I like it", for someone else it can be the statement "I agree", which are not the same.

3. 

Relying on the technology is another difference to mention. During in-class teaching we can still conduct the lesson without any technologies. When it comes to the online world, with a poor internet connection or lack of the electricity we are automatically disabled to function. Especially if this is the teachers problem, without him the lesson cannot be conducted. It is really big responsibility, nowadays teachers have a new profession: IT specialist. Moreover, there are unpredictable difficulties which are extremely annoying and leave us helpless. The same thing about students and their parents, even more, if they do not have enough computers at home they need to choose who works or learns today.

Can you think of other differences? Share in the comments!

Online teaching #2: Learning new skills

Online teaching #2: Learning new skills

There is no denying that online teaching is different than in-class teaching. Both include students and teacher but the difference is the place, classroom or online connection. If someone imagines it is quite similar I need to deny- they require different skills from students and teacher. The place influence each second of the lesson, each action and activity. Today I will discuss what new skills teachers need to have while online teaching.

The technology

The computer and internet are basic tools of online teaching. These are very broad ides, you can not lear how to use a computer in one day. It is a skill like writing or riding a bike. It requires practice, time, mistakes to learn and be more fluent while using a computer. Internet is a space inside the computer, so it is next step to learn what is it and how to function in the online space. If you read my post you probably can use the internet very well, so I guess you realize the internet is enormous and it takes plenty of time to learn it.

As with most things, if we grow up using the computer and internet (other technologies as well) it is natural and intuitive for us. In today's situation, I am lucky to be one of the people who were growing up in the online environment. It is natural for me to use different technologies and the internet.

But not all other people are as lucky as I am. The most experienced teachers are older than me, twenty, forty or even more yers older. It means they did not need to use the computer and internet on the daily basis before. It is not an obligation to use new technologies, we do not have such a law. But in a situation like we have now, time of pandemic, it is the only way to teach. I respect older people than me, older teachers. I believe I can learn so much from them and I feel so sorry for those who are overwhelmed by online teaching. For example, I have not used Zoom before but I have used Facebook, Skype or Discord, it was my basic communication with friends. And Zoom is a very similar program. In most cases older people do not have that experience.

Extra issue is to have your own computer which is advanced enough to work well, be up to date. The same with the internet connection, it can be slower or faster. That is also the case of having enough money to spend on new technologies.

Obviously, the higher technology skills teacher has the better. He can better control students during the lesson (enable screen sharing, accept students joining the lesson, mute someone). He can work faster and make the lesson more fluent. He can cope with different technical difficulties by himself, which makes students respect him more. That is why I perceive this skill as the most important one. 

Online resources

In the previous post I have described the online resources which I use most often. I gathered them since few years: worksheets, games, videos. But in-class some teachers tend to use paper worksheets and the content of a course book. So next skill is to find online resources, to google.

I perceive the fact of finding good and free online resources as a personal achievement. If you have ever done that by yourself I am sure you will agree. If not, I will tell you why is it so. When you find something that fits your topic and students it happens that:

the quality is poor
the content is slightly different from the one you planned (like "autumn" and "fall")
the author put some kind of protection for using his work for free (like waterline)

These are just few examples and they happen to me almost each time I search for some online materials. Sometimes I come to conclusion that it would take me less time to make the material myself than to seek through the whole internet.

Flexibility and openness

Even if a teacher is an experienced user of new technologies it is not enough to conduct an online lesson. Being flexible is priceless if we have technical difficulties or if our students have some. The problematic situations which may happen are unforeseeable. That is when the teacher need to make a quick decision, which is quite similar to the sudden situations in-class. But what makes us as teachers more effective in such situations? The experience and measures which we can take.

In terms of new technologies day by day computer scientists create new solutions, updates. That is why being opened for the novelties is highly helpful, it lets a teacher to function in the online world.

At the end of this post I wish all of us to have the mentioned skills. One big trade standing behind them is patience, so let's practice it every day and keep online- teaching!

The power of reading

The power of reading

Reading is one of the greatest ways of learning with pleasure. How can we apply it on the lesson? How to snick grammar and vocabulary into reading activity? How to make children interested in reading in the electronic era? READ and find out!

A reading lesson / Reading on a lesson

When I, as an English teacher, think of creating a reading lesson I think: I'm too lazy, there's to much work, let's not do this. I suppose most teachers feels the same. It's not an easy task to conduct a proper and deliberate reading lesson, and to prepare it- ever worst.

Nevertheless, reading is extremely useful skill. We require students to read the task, to read the text, to read the book. If we teach them everyone makes use. What can we do to teach reading in a clever, even sneaky way? As a teacher- woman I've got some ideas that I want to share with you.

There's no need for you to start a lesson with "Hello children, toady you are going to learn how to read". Let's find a way to get them interested (especially useful with young learners). If the story is about a girl who had broken her leg, we can start with a question: Have you ever broken a leg? I bet someone from your class did, talk about it, ask what happened, where was it, did it hurt?

After an emotional discussion, show a photo of a girl (any photo, but the name is from the story). Again, ask question (Is the girls sad, why do you think so, do you think she is in pain, what would you say to her?). After 5- 10 minutes of introduction, move on to the main part: give them the text with the story.

It's just an example of how can you engage young learners, how can you put them into the context. Make sure to pre-teach the vocabulary and to choose the grammar they are familiar with. Feel free to teach vocabulary and grammar using a story! It's great tool for students to learn unconsciously (as we do it by watching films or listening to songs).

Young learners...

Specific tips on how to make reading suitable for young learners, here you go:

• Introduce the topic - get your students ready for what are they going to read about. It makes it easier to understand the content even if they don't know all vocabulary and grammar. It could be questions (as I described before) but you can be more creative: prepare a mysterious box and make students guess what's inside or give them a puzzle to solve.

• Bring the story to life - the characteristics of younger students' development is that they perceive the world with their senses. You can use pictures, puppets, recordings, candles, even some food to engage them. Don't forget what senses we know!

• Prepare the text - kids are still learning how to read, they get used to the shapes of letters, words. Make sure to prepare: quite big letters; classic found (like Times); good quality print; copy for every student.

• Read together - prepare an activity when you can read the text together. After students have read the text by themselves, read it aloud and give students a task like: every time you hear a word "robber" make a policeman pose! You can also use the recording if you have one.

• A well known element - think of something your students adore, what do they talk about during the break (these days e. g. the game Brawl Stars or Minecraft). You can write your own story or simply add one element to the one you have. It can be a character, an element of the world, a catchy phrase. Don't overdo obviously, you still want them to be in a story, not a game.

• Let's play and be creative - except traditional exercises from a course book think of task for the students full of creativity and good fun (drawing a map, making a model of everyday use objects, writing a song). Students are really surprising, they can do much more than we can expect.

• Traditional tasks are good too - I mean tasks like: think of a title for that story; put the events in order; think of an alternative anding for the story; describe main characters; information gap activities. My advice is to mix them with something new, modern, creative, and there you go, interesting and methodologically correct lesson ready!

This is how I view making good use of reading as an activity during the lesson with young learners. Here's a link to valuable stories, all for free:

http://www.clarkness.com/Single%20Page%20First%20Grade%20Stories%20page%208%20levels%2036%20to%2038.htm

I hope you found my post useful, please share your opinions and ideas in the comments, we can all make a good use of sharing!

Online teaching #1: Preparing online teaching materials

Online teaching #1: Preparing online teaching materials

Using online materials is environment friendly- teachers don't print out plenty of copies for the students, they have them all in their computers- this for sure is an advantage. Other materials than worksheets are needed in just one copy, so a teacher can show it to the camera. Online working conditions make the materials quite different than before, and in this post I'd like to show how it looks like in my case.

Books and worksheet

I'm lucky- my superiors sent me the electronic version of all books I need, and with older groups I use Macmillan which has electronic program I use since the very beginning of my teaching here. So first few words on that, later I'll write about the materials I myself found or prepared.

First: the Yazoo 3 series (3rd grade). I share screen and show to my Ss the PDF with scans of the book. Here you can see the course book and the workbook.

I discovered how easy it is on my computer to write or edit in any other way the PDF file. You can see how esthetic the workbook looks like, the writing is just perfect. When it comes to the course book I had more problems. On the left page there are visible word written with a pen, so my kids would get the answer immediately and wouldn't be motivated to work on the activity. So I decided to spent my time and cover it with white rectangles, as you can see on the right page. This allows me to put the answers during the lesson after I elicit them from my Ss. It takes some time, but not much, I'm really amazed with the effectiveness of my computer (I use MacBook).

The recordings for this series I've got from my superior. He put it all in the online drive so me and other teachers can use it or download it any time we want. I just need to remember to "share the computer sound" on Zoom before playing it and it works smoothly.

Second: the Beyond series by Macmillan (A2+). Here it is:

You can compare 1. simple view of the book and the program itself; with 2. a screenshot of my notes on one of the tasks with the answers given by just clicking the red questioning mark next to it. Other buttons like this works differently: the book will take you to a page when the grammar structure is extended, the mouse will take you to interactive way of doing an exercise, there also is a button for the audio or video recording (so it easier than the Yazoo because I've got everything in one place.) You can also see "+" and "-" button on the right which make anything bigger or smaller. On the left I can see previous and next pages of the book in a small version. I just love using it, it's user friendly and very clear and intuitive.

My materials for Yazoo (3rd grade)

I mainy use the course books with my students. Sometimes I show them other worksheets I find useful, they usually present a grammar issue more clearly or have more interesting content. I also have flashcards with new vocabulary to focus only on them while drilling. My Ss enjoy playing different games with the vocabulary, like Simon Says or Charades- both games are really easy to play using video. I share the screen with flashcards like here (so that everyone remember how many and what words are we learning):

Other materials we use are very different Internet sources. I'll give you links and write few words about each.

1. https://anglomaniacy.pl

Polish website with very different vocabulary categorized thematically. You have picture dictionary and a lot of activities there to do. The vocabulary is universal so usually it cavers what is in the course book or sometimes add few words.

2. http://www.supercoloring.com

Color-pages that you can color online. Again, plenty of topics, the choose of a picture to color is very wide. Moreover, it works well if you "give control" on a Zoom lesson to a student (I do it as a reward at the end of the lesson usually). Before that you should explain to the Ss how giving control works and settle concrete rules as they can close the page or open anything in the Internet, and we would rather not have such situation.

3. https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperSimpleSongs

An example of YouTube chanel which has amazing songs for kids. If I find something that fits well our topic, Together with my Ss we listen to the song and try to sing along.

4. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/animals/ocean/animaloceanfindcountgame.htm

Other webpage where you can find educational videos and games (!). The one above is about the Ocean and See Life. My Ss enjoyed very much playing the games, so I really recommend.

My materials for Macmillan (A2+)

My rule is generally the same as above: I try to do as much from the course book as I think makes sense, but if I feel like my Ss'll need more practice I look for an interesting worksheet. I  try to find something more, like a video or kind of game, for every lesson so it's not just the course book (just like I did on lessons in the classroom). Here are examples:

1. Cultural differences video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO6N0ha22Mk

2. Ester traditions from around the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I3q9nAGnE0

3. Present Perfect: Have you ever...? - 20 questions game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u940E_QlqGs

If needed, I create worksheets myself:

The materials I mentioned are basis for my teaching, I do my best to do variations of activities using the same material to make it as interactive as possible. The Beyond series is really well done for that, I usually do group works or individual work as pare work is still something I didn't try online. On Zoom there is the option to put Ss in rooms, but I doubt they wold talk in English all the time and I can be just in one room at a time.

I hope you find some sources helpful and that you'd like to use them in your teaching. That's all in this post, stay tuned for more online teaching content :)