On 29th&30th march,I had attended two session of teaching at polytechnic.One was about Time managemaent and other was on teaching of ESOL.
Methods and strategies used:
In the session of Time management it was the class of about 24 students and the room was according to the situation as it was the classroom and not the lecture theater.The professor divided the class into three groups around the three large tables.She started by asking a few questions to the students just to check their previous knowledge about stress and time management.After that she gave the topic effects of stress to discuss within groups.During the discussion she went to each of the group to interact with them and to encourage the students to participate in the discussion.Whenever she found that any student is busy in doing something else and not actively participating in the topic she very wisely asked him a question related to the topic to get him involved.After the discussion of about 10 minutes she asked the students to share their views and own life experiences related to the stress and time management.She also used the whiteboard to write down the key points coming up from the students to encourage them and giving importance to their views.Everybody was taking interest and involved in the activity.There was a little diversification in the class regarding the age group of the students as there were two mature students and rest were youngsters.She also took care of this and very effectively involved them by asking them about their experience of their jobs related to the topic.
In the session of ESOL the class was of about 17 students and room was also the classroom . The facilitator arranged that in U-shape so that the whiteboard and screen should be visible to all.The environment was very congenial as she switched off some of the lights when she used the projector to make the screen clearly visible to all.Even before the starting of the session the objectives and learning outcomes wee written on the whiteboard to make the things more clear.The topic of the session was pronunciation and vocabulary.In the starting she also asked a few question about the topics the students had already studied just to remind them and check their previous knowledge.The prompt response of the students showed that the concepts were very clear to them.She used the projector to solve some tests on vocabulary by involving all the students.
Whenever she found that any student is facing a problem in understanding any word she related that with any example from life or by making a simple sentence so that student could understand that and it worked very well.She also changed the level of her voice and sometimes being little bit dramatic with gestures to make the lesson effective.One student was listening some music in the class, she has not stopped him directly but very wisely she took his head phone and used that to explain one topic.In this way she very wisely she made that student to interact in the class.It was the class of a variety of students from different countries.So there was a lot of diversification in the gender, language,culture and age level too.But she had taken care of all these things and very effectively involved all the students.She also provided dictionaries and some printed material to all the students to make the things easy and to provide access to all the learners.The session ended with a quick review of topics and some homework.
I think that the methods and strategies used in both the sessions were flexible and due to this only everything was clear and easily accessible to all the learners.
Why the methods were flexible?
The methods and strategies were very flexible because these were used by keeping in mind the diversification of the students regarding their maturity level, language and culture etc.As the facilitator provided some printed material as well as used the projector to provide access to all whether they were reader-writer or visual learners.
What I learnt?
From these two sessions I have learnt that there should be a flexibility in teaching methods according to the subjects. As in the first session the session was like group discussion where as the second one developed by using projector and solving some tests by involving all the students.Both were different from each other but according to the need of the subject and topics.So, I'll definitely try to apply these methods in my further studies as well as teaching practices.
Methods and strategies used:
In the session of Time management it was the class of about 24 students and the room was according to the situation as it was the classroom and not the lecture theater.The professor divided the class into three groups around the three large tables.She started by asking a few questions to the students just to check their previous knowledge about stress and time management.After that she gave the topic effects of stress to discuss within groups.During the discussion she went to each of the group to interact with them and to encourage the students to participate in the discussion.Whenever she found that any student is busy in doing something else and not actively participating in the topic she very wisely asked him a question related to the topic to get him involved.After the discussion of about 10 minutes she asked the students to share their views and own life experiences related to the stress and time management.She also used the whiteboard to write down the key points coming up from the students to encourage them and giving importance to their views.Everybody was taking interest and involved in the activity.There was a little diversification in the class regarding the age group of the students as there were two mature students and rest were youngsters.She also took care of this and very effectively involved them by asking them about their experience of their jobs related to the topic.
In the session of ESOL the class was of about 17 students and room was also the classroom . The facilitator arranged that in U-shape so that the whiteboard and screen should be visible to all.The environment was very congenial as she switched off some of the lights when she used the projector to make the screen clearly visible to all.Even before the starting of the session the objectives and learning outcomes wee written on the whiteboard to make the things more clear.The topic of the session was pronunciation and vocabulary.In the starting she also asked a few question about the topics the students had already studied just to remind them and check their previous knowledge.The prompt response of the students showed that the concepts were very clear to them.She used the projector to solve some tests on vocabulary by involving all the students.
Whenever she found that any student is facing a problem in understanding any word she related that with any example from life or by making a simple sentence so that student could understand that and it worked very well.She also changed the level of her voice and sometimes being little bit dramatic with gestures to make the lesson effective.One student was listening some music in the class, she has not stopped him directly but very wisely she took his head phone and used that to explain one topic.In this way she very wisely she made that student to interact in the class.It was the class of a variety of students from different countries.So there was a lot of diversification in the gender, language,culture and age level too.But she had taken care of all these things and very effectively involved all the students.She also provided dictionaries and some printed material to all the students to make the things easy and to provide access to all the learners.The session ended with a quick review of topics and some homework.
I think that the methods and strategies used in both the sessions were flexible and due to this only everything was clear and easily accessible to all the learners.
Why the methods were flexible?
The methods and strategies were very flexible because these were used by keeping in mind the diversification of the students regarding their maturity level, language and culture etc.As the facilitator provided some printed material as well as used the projector to provide access to all whether they were reader-writer or visual learners.
What I learnt?
From these two sessions I have learnt that there should be a flexibility in teaching methods according to the subjects. As in the first session the session was like group discussion where as the second one developed by using projector and solving some tests by involving all the students.Both were different from each other but according to the need of the subject and topics.So, I'll definitely try to apply these methods in my further studies as well as teaching practices.
Namarta this is a good description about your classroom observations. You have described the manner in which the teacher handled the diversity in the class and the range of methods used. You are right, flexibility is about using a variety of different methods in class and being able to respond to the students.
ReplyDeleteDid you feel that the methods were appropriate to engage the students fully i what they were learning?