Teach English in Baishu Zhen - Wuwei Shi

SUMMARY- VIDEO LESSONS LESSON ONE: Students were quite discouraged and not very motivated to learn. The teacher constantly said it was ?very easy? and this seemed to have make students reluctant to speak because maybe they felt if they had made a mistake they would have looked unintelligent. The teacher did not engage enough which could have made the students feel uninterested. The teacher did not conduct incorrect answers very well and this could have made the students disheartened to volunteer answers. By the end of this lesson they felt exasperated/ discouraged and confused. He did not give clear instructions. The teacher looked frustrated that students could not answer the simple questions. The teacher?s attitude seemed full of frustration and he did not seem to be enjoying the class. He even seemed unfriendly as he rarely smiled and reacted negatively when students gave incorrect answers. He assumed students understood what he was saying and it looked like he didn?t really care about the learning of the students. The students looked uncomfortable and afraid to speak up. They did not participate because the teacher was not very encouraging. They were unmotivated. Student?s participation was minimal. It was a teacher centred lesson. Teacher asked questions but did not really worry about student?s answers. Students looked confused but were afraid to ask questions for clarification and when they did he answered with ?I don?t understand? or ?I?ll tell you later?. Most of the language input was on the board instead of asking students. It looked as if the students were just listeners. The teacher did vary his voice throughout the lesson and at times it sounded as if he was just muttering or mumbling to himself. The teacher?s instructions were limited/lacking. For the first activity he just handed out worksheets without telling them what to do and without offering explanation even though students looked confused. When student did ask questions he did not answer adequately or he just said he didn?t understand. When students did not understand he did not re phrase questions/sentences. There was no monitoring of students. He sat down in the corner and started to read a book whilst waiting for students to finish the activity. He did not move around the class to check on progress even though students were just looking at their papers helpelessly, an indication that they did not know what to do. There was no engage stage. He just mentioned what they were learning that day and started by eliciting examples of modal auxiliary verbs The activate stage did not work well because teacher instructions where unclear. He kept talking when students were supposed to be doing the activity. There was not enough time allotted for the activate phase so he just dismissed the class without proper feedback on the activity. The input came solely from the teacher. He did not give students enough time to figure things out on their own rather he supplied most of the information on the board. Worksheets were given but since there was no explanation provided no actual learning was done. LESSON TWO: The teacher made an effort to learn student?s names and even wrote his own name on the board. The teacher started the class by asking them to name as many animals as they could in two minutes. The activity was worked in pairs so it helped relieve the pressure. He looked quite happy and smiled almost continuously. He encouraged students to participate and used positive reinforcement. The class was enjoyable and students where comfortable offering answers because the teacher was encouraging. The teacher clearly made students feel at ease when correcting answers. Students were not afraid to ask questions but where rather motivated. The students were happy and eager to learn as the teacher was quite enthusiastic about teaching. Students were more open and confident to say something/participate in class activities. The lesson was more effective as it was a more structured and well prepared lesson. The teacher was more engaging and encouraging; he gave clear instructions before every activity. He used simple language which was easy to understand. Flash cards/pictures/mimes were also used. Lesson Two had an engage phase putting students at ease and was more student centred and this was more effective. He praised students for correct answers but also did not shun the students who gave incorrect answers. Student talk time was high and they had a lot of feedback in the class from engage to activate and all students had a chance to speak as the teacher made a point to include them all. The teacher spoke very distinctly and slowly and used words to suit the level of the students. The speed was also suitable for a beginner class as was the difference in his voice which kept the class involved throughout the whole lesson. His instructions and explanations were clear and concise. Time limits were set and he used language that was suitable to level of students. He told them what to do before letting them work on worksheets. He made sure students understood by presenting examples and answering the first question for the class. He used body language/mime to re in force instructions and understanding. He monitored the start of an activity to see that they understood. He only moved onto the next activity once the students understood. He elicited answers from students first by writing sentence prompts on the board. He used body language to elicit action words. He drilled pronunciation. He dealt with mistakes by asking students to self-correct and also asked other students to correct their classmate?s mistakes. He showed his drawing first to re enforce instruction/understanding. Once the activity started he just monitored from a far so as not to disturb the students. Reporting was done prior to dismissal of the class.