Preparing for lessons is very time consuming but I thought that the preparations for the second block was lighter. I was wrong. The students had a questionnaire that they should fill in and I thought that we could just lightly go through it. I thought it is information that we do not need to go through line by line. But when the lesson started, I noticed that the students wanted to go through the information in detail and I had not prepared for that kind of work. I did not have the answers ready myself. If I would have been more experienced, I would have just gone through the questionnaire and trusted the students information. But I was doubtful.
Instead, I had prepared for presenting information on "average wage" that I had used 5 hours to find!!! When presenting it, it was poorly visualized and I realized that I did not ask for the information that the students had found out first. The lessons did this time not go so quickly and I learnt many new lessons.
1. I should only give tasks to the students that I think are meaningful to do and that I will support
2. If we go through some task in class, we should do it in depth
3. I should give time to the students to answer - I should not fill in the silent moments
4. It is important to have a desk at the school with computer & printer so I don't have to loose time with technicalities
5. Have lesson plans ready the night before - that will guarantee better success (and better sleep)
Maarit! it´s normal make this kind of mistakes. I can advice you don´t plan so much in details, the lesson won´t be in your plan as suppose to anyway. You should have plan B always ready yes.
ReplyDeleteI think it´s important also give students changing during the lesson: not to do for instance for 2 hours the same grammar thing or only listening and comprehensions stuffs. Maybe the open questions are not always a good choice (in Finland at least ;) ). What about making the question that they have to answer in groups and then come out together with an answer? I think would unbuild the shiness. Good luck and remember YOU ARE A GOOD TEACHER.
Thanks for the feedback! I like group work but have realzed it is difficult to go through the tasks in a fruitful way. Teacher practice is awesome! And I really want to be a good teacher!
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