Teaching Practice

TEACHING

Starting the teaching: the first lessons on Feb 23 - Feb 24
- Four lessons (two double lessons)

The core contents:

• What times of the day are there?
• What numbers are there between 30 and 100?
• What verb forms are there in different persons?

The chapter: the unit 5 and its exercises

Teaching methods:

• listening the chapter
• translating together
• students read aloud
• exercises from the textbook and teacher's guidebook
• a game
• homework: a word test

The lessons proceeded according to the plan. First we checked the homework and then moved on to the chapter and exercises. We had exercises that we did together as a group, some independent tasks, and pair work and games that they played together. The grammar topic of the day was verb forms in different persons. I gave them some homework for the next day. The students were active and asked questions about the topics.

During the observation I learnt that it is important to give the students opportunities to practise and repeat the same issues in different ways, and this is something I aim to keep in mind in my teaching, too.

For the first double lesson, I had collected a lot of exercises, but it appeared we did not have time to do all of them. Then I had to make quick decisions of what to leave out, as we needed to deal with certain issues anyway. For the next day, I had estimated better how many tasks we would have time to take, and thus my lesson plan worked out fine. I had also collected some extra tasks, just in case we would proceed faster. It is better to be prepared with some extra material as it would be an awkward situation, if you did not know what to do.

There came up some practical problems during the lessons: First, I had to write a lot of English words and translations on the transparency. When I sat and wrote there, the lamp of the machine hindered me from seeing the students and vice versa. Sometimes it was also difficult to hear clearly what some students in the back said, if they spoke quietly. For the next time, I figured out it is better to stand as much as possible and avoid sitting, so I will be ready to move closer to the students if needed.

Second, when the students played the games, I did not know how they were doing. The time was limited, and there were many things we needed to cover, so we did not discuss the games afterwards. However, I thought I would like to know, if they have any problems with games or, on the other hand, if games are too easy an activity for them. Because of this, I decided next time I will go and listen to their playing.

The problems I described above may seem to be quite simple and obvious things, but I had not thought about details like this before I started teaching. Some issues you can realize only when you are in the actual situation.

I asked feedback from the students several times during the lessons. I asked whether they found some grammar issues clear or needed more time with a pair work. I also asked whether they would like to have a word test on the second day or instead after the holiday. They chose the latter option, and I was fine with that.

After the first two teaching days, I got some new ideas for the next lessons. I plan that I will do a music activity for the students, where they will listen to a song and fill the gaps of the lyrics on a paper. I also searched for a learning video on the Internet. Next time we will have a chapter about being a customer in a café, so I chose a video with subtitles that deals with that.


The second time on March 9-10
- Four lessons (two double lessons)

 The core contents:

• What kind of food is there?
• How do I order in a café?
• What verb forms of the ‘be-verb’ are there in the simple present tense?
• How do I greet?

 The chapter: The unit 6 and the exercises

 Teaching methods:

• a word test 
• checking the correct answers of the word test on the second day
• Unit 6: listening, translating, and reading
• Learning food vocabulary and phrases for a café exercise
• Grammar: be-verb, reading together aloud
• Exercises
• a restaurant video

 
At the beginning of the lessons I gave the students a word test. Not all of them had studied for the test, so I gave them about seven minutes to revise. Somebody came late and started the test when everybody else was about finishing it. I gave the others the chapter of the day while the last arriver still took the test. I could also have told the others to start to work on homework, but I realize this only afterwards. I learnt here that there should always be a backup plan in case some students have finished their tasks while others are still performing.

We also watched a restaurant video, and I asked a couple of questions about the contents of the video. I had told the students the questions before watching it, and they managed to pick the answers quite well from the video. I think the exercise was useful as they had a chance to listen to something else than just a study book CD. My original plan was that the students could have written down the lines of the video from the subtitles, but the video was so fast that it was difficult to pause at every line. Thus I changed the method of the task.


The third time on March 16-17
- Four lessons (two double lessons)

The core contents:

• How do I use the auxiliary verb ‘do’ in questions?
• What different countries and nationalities are there?
• How do I tell about myself in an essay?

The chapter: The unit 7 and the exercises

Teaching methods:

• a café group conversation, presenting
• a word test
• games
• exercises
• writing an essay

  
At the beginning of the Monday lessons we revised food vocabulary with a couple of exercises. After that I asked the students to prepare a café conversation in a group, write it down, and then present it. I had estimated this task would take about 15 minutes, but they seemed to be keen on it, as the whole exercise took about 30 minutes. They planned quite a long conversation and did not take the easiest way instead. I find this task useful, as it guides students to think about what kind of words and sentences they would need in a real situation. The task worked fine, as the students seemed to be enthusiastic about it. I will definitely this method also later on.

I also showed the students one website for self-study.

On Tuesday, I gave them an essay to write. In the same way as the café conversation, I think this kind of writing task is useful as students have to think themselves about things they want to express and how to say them. During the writing, some of them asked me how to express certain things they hadn't studied yet. I think it's only a good thing, as this way they learnt a few new things that will come later on.

This time I was better prepared than previously with extra exercises for students who finished tasks faster than the other ones. First, when the students played a game, one group was done faster than the other one, as the latter one asked me a lot of questions and thus spent more time with the game. So I gave another task, a number repeating exercise, to the former group. Second, when the students wrote an essay, they finished it at different times. Luckily I had collected some grammar exercises for them, so they started to do them while the others still wrote their essays.


The fourth time on March 23-24
- Four lessons (two double lessons)

The core contents:

• How do I use the auxiliary verb ‘does’ in questions?

The chapter: The unit 8 and the exercises

Teaching methods:

• checking the correct answers of the last week's word test and errors in the essays
• checking the homework
• Unit 8: listening, an enquiry method: questions about the contents of the chapter, translating, and reading
• exercises
• pair work
• listening to a song and filling in the blanks in the lyrics
• vocabulary puzzle and other games
• another word test on Tuesday

At the beginning of the Monday lesson I returned them the word test and essays, and we checked some errors together. The students had produced wery varying essays depending on their skills. I had give them the instructions to write at least seven sentences and some optional questions that they could answer to guide their writing. Some of the students had written only the minimun, seven sentences, but some of them had written longer. Some of them had also used expressions that they hadn't yet studied and asked my help during their writing process. Because of these reasons, I couldn't really grade the essays, but I didn't think grading was so important here. The purpose of this task was that they would practise to express themselves and learn to tell something about themselves, and I think the task was successful in this purpose. In essay writing, they have to think how to express certain things and what kind of expressions they know or should know. Thus, I think that essay writing also motivates students to learn more, as they get a chance to use their language skills in practice.

The students have read the chapter 8 as their homework, so after listening the chapter I used the enquiry method and asked them questions about the contents of the chapter. They were able to answer the questions quite well. This was the first time when I used this method for dealing with the contents of a chapter, and I think it worked well. I asked questions before translating the chapter together, and thus the students had a chance to test and show their understanding of the text. During the first question they were a bit confused, and it took some time and my help before they found the answer, but after that they understood the idea. I asked the questions in Finnish, but since Finnish is only their second language, it is understandable that everything is not always so obvious. After the questions, I asked them to read a couple of sentences of the chapter and translate them in turns.

I also played one pop song to them and asked them to fill in the blanks in the lyrics. First I played the song in its normal music video. Catching the missing words was quite difficult this way, so the second time I played the song was in a video with lyrics. Then they got lyrics right. I think this kind of music exercise offers some variety to the contents of lessons. Moreover, I hope that it encourages students to notice that they can study English from different sources, such as music.


The fifth time on March 30
- Four lessons on the same day

The core contents:

• How do I tell about my family tree?
• What kind of plural forms are there in English?

The chapter: The unit 9 and the exercises

Teaching methods:

• checking the correct answers of the word test
• checking the homework
• Unit 9: listening, translating
• games
• exercises
• pair work
• listening exercise
• drawing a family tree and presenting it
• grammar: plural forms
• giving written feedback to me in Finnish on my teaching

At the beginning of the lessons I returned them the word test, and we checked some errors together. We also had some homework to check. Next, as usual, we listened to the new chapter and then translated it together.

This time we had the vocabulary for the family and some exercises and games related to this topic. I also gave the students a task to draw their family tree and later present it. I had checked with the guiding teacher in advance that this task is appropriate for the class. The students seemed to like the task and they drew quite large family trees. When they presented their family trees, we all sat around a round table, and the atmosphere was relaxed. I think this task was very good for this group, and I am pleased that it worked so well as I invented it by myself (albeit there was a chapter dealing with a family tree in the book, so it was not a far-fetched idea).

Before finishing the lesson we also had a short grammar section, where I taught them different plural forms. They had come across different plural forms previously in the chapters of the book, but this time they got a table that showed how different plural forms are categorized.

At the end of the lesson I gave the students feedback forms to collect feedback on my teaching. According to the feedback, the students were mostly happy with my classes. Most of them said that the pace and level of difficulty were suitable. Speaking exercises were mentioned to be the best. Word tests and the family tree task was described to be useful, the former for studying the words better, and the latter for teaching the students to tell about their families. One student mentioned she did not like the music task so much, as the lyrics were too difficult.

After all the lessons I discussed the students with the guiding teacher and gave my assessment on their performance.



OBSERVING THE STUDENTS AND THE TEACHING OF OTHER TEACHERS

I observed English and Finnish as a second language groups as follows (32 lessons in total):

1. March 3, 2014: Finnish as a second language, 2 lessons
2. March 17, 2014: Finnish as a second language, 2 lessons
3. Mach 31, 2014: Finnish as a second language, 2 lessons
4. January 7, 2015: English, 2 lessons
5. January 14, 2015: English, 4 lessons
6. January 19, 2015: English, 2 lessons
7. January 29, 2015: English, 4 lessons
8. February 5, 2015: English, 2 lessons
9. February 5, 2015: English, 3 lessons
10. February 6, 2015: English, 4 lessons
11. February 9, 2015: English, 2 lessons
12. February 9, 2015: Finnish as a second language, 1 lesson
13. February 17, 2015: English, 2 lessons

Some notes from the observation

The beginners' English class, the preparatory education for immigrants for vocational training:

• The language of the instruction was Finnish.
• When the topic was countries and nationalities, the material contained the flags and nationalities of all the students in the class. The teacher asked everybody to tell his/her nationality. The contents was adapted this way to the class.
• I also learnt to know one good website for independent studying. The site contains word lists and the listening possibility.
• A video task: The class watched a learning video and wrote down the sentences from the subtitles. The teacher took notice of certain words and translated them. Then they had an exercise that asked how some Finnish expressions were said in English in the video.

The advanced English class, the preparatory education for immigrants for vocational training:

• The language of the instruction was English.
• When the class had a new chapter, first the teacher told shortly about the contents and then the class listened to it from a CD. After listening, the teacher asked questions from the class about the events of the chapter. First she asked open questions from the whole class, but later she targeted the questions to different students. This way, she used the discussion method to engage the students with the topic, activate them, and get everybody to speak. This group was an advanced English class, and thus they did not translate the text a sentence by sentence. This was a difference between this and the beginners' group, as the latter seemed to translate every chapter a word by word.

The overview

First, I observed six Finnish as a second language lessons in 2014. I noticed that the teacher started the lessons with a short casual conversation in Finnish, asking from the students about their weekend or talking about the weather. Students replied according to their skills. During the lessons, the students worked a lot as pairs on the exercises. They also played games such as dice board game, where they had to form the correct word forms according to the picture clues. The sections of grammar teaching were short, and the students were engaged by asking questions.

Later I decided to concentrate on English classes and observed several lessons of the preparatory education for immigrants for vocational training in a beginners’ group and advanced group. I also observed a few other vocational English lessons: bus driving students, the students of excavation work, and a preparatory class for Finnish students.

In the beginners' group, I noticed that the typical structure of the lessons was that first the group listened to the chapter, translated it a sentence by sentence and discussed the matters that appeared.

Second, they moved on to the exercises that were often done as a pair work. The social and entertaining aspect was taken into account, for example, with games. Moreover, I noticed that students need a lot of repeating, for example, with the grammar. As I described in the chapter three, I noticed that students need to have opportunities to repeat new things. Second, it is important that students are engaged in classroom activities, for example, by asking questions and giving them problem-based tasks.

Third, a teacher is not just a deliverer of information, but the teacher should also build relationships with students through casual conversation. It is a useful skill if a teacher can tell lively examples or engaging stories that are related to the subject matter.

At the end of the observation period I also followed one more Finnish as a second language lesson. This lesson gave me useful information, as I learnt more about the students' skills in Finnish and knowledge on grammar terms. They are much further in Finnish than in their English studies. In English they are beginners, but in Finnish they already study more advanced grammar issues, such as conditional verb forms or detailed nuances, such as the conversational phrases of ‘huolehtiminen’ and ‘kannustaminen’.

The first of my main findings was that students need a lot of repeating to learn new things. A teacher should use a variety of methods to repeat things to keep lessons more interesting. Second, a teacher should encourage students to participate all the time. For example, when teaching new words it is always good to ask students first what words they know related to the topic. Another example on this is that when teaching the grammar, a teacher could ask students to read aloud or translate example sentences. Third, I noticed that teaching contains a lot of informal communication. It is good if a teacher manages to create a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.

The effect of the findings on my own teaching

The teacher’s handbook that I am using for the teaching practice, contains similar exercises such as the dice game that was played in the Finnish as a second language lessons, and I will use that kind of game at the lessons. The game contains only pictures, not any words, and students have to figure out themselves how to fill the gaps.

During my lessons, I will use the similar structure that I learnt in different English lessons: first listening to the chapter, translation, discussion on the matters that appeared, and then exercises that are good to do as a pair work. I will include different games in the lessons. In the lessons where I visited, the students also gave short presentations, and I will also use this method in my lessons. Presentations offer students a chance to speak English publicly, which enhance their courage to use the language. Moreover, I will try to offer opportunities to repeat, for example, grammar issues. The repeating is better to divide to different lessons so that first a new issue is introduced and practised and later it will be practised more.