REFLECTIVE SUMMARY

 

Throughout my internship journey, the identification of myself as a unique ESL practitioner was visible with effective and ineffective aspects of teaching.  In this section, a reflective summary will be explained by highlighting the effective and ineffective aspects of the lessons, the use and importance of materials, reflection of the reaction of students and the professional growth I was able to get at the end of the teaching practicum.

Effective aspects

I always did interactive pre tasks as small games (sorting nouns, complete the lyrics of the songs, verb charades). These activities were advantageous to keep them interested in learning. When I feel students are not focusing, I immediately asked questions about the lesson I was doing from those students asking them to stand up. This helped me immensely to keep students engaged and focused when doing the lessons. Especially in post task stage also I designed activities where students can freely practice what they have learned during the lesson. It allowed me to know the extent they have understood the lesson and motivated me to help them understand more. Whenever I feel that I am going to give a task which can be difficult for the students, I explained the task by modelling it which was an effective way to help students to do the task. Timing in activities was also noteworthy as it helped me as well as the students to do the activities within the given time and finish the lessons on time as well. After giving the activities, I always checked whether they are doing the work properly or not by going near to them. Apart from that, silent method was advantageous to control the students which I always used in my classrooms.

Ineffective aspects

During the first week, it was problematic to control the class while they are doing group works because of the number of students and I did not consider about how to keep students quiet and engaged in the given task because some students were not doing the task.

In some cases, I gave overall feedback for the group works that student did without giving each group separate constructive feedback. That happened because of ineffective time management. Further, I believe that giving clear instructions before activities should improve more. There were instances where students repeatedly asked about the things they should do in the given activities.

For instance, when I was teaching analyzing the writer’s effect, an activity was given to analyze some sentences to get the implied meaning. Since most of the students are hyperactive, it resulted in creating an atmosphere where students are not focused, and they did not understand the task. Then, I had to minimize their hyperactivity by doing a cooler activity and explain the instructions again. Whenever I am giving an activity for them after this incident, I made sure to check whether all the students are focused to learn and do the activities.

Appropriateness of the materials

when focusing on the materials, the use of effective materials contributed me to easily explain the lessons and do the activities. As Aarthi (2022) points out teaching aids makes students to be motivated and interested in learning. During my teaching internship, I always incorporated contemporary teaching and learning materials such as visual aids and audio aids to help the leaners engage in what they learn. For instance, when explaining the lesson, “nouns”, I used a chart drawn on a paper to explain the types of nouns. Apart from that, I used the smartboard facilities and PowerPoint presentations to make my teaching process more comfortable which also helped students to learn the language in an interesting way.

Student reaction to the lesson

The reaction of the students was another aspect which I should reflect on in my teaching internship. It is noteworthy to mention that students had an energized and engaging reaction especially when they were doing group work. For example, when I was teaching formal letters, I did a group work called “letter scramble” where students had to work in groups to complete the given letters using the word clues. They were engaging in the activity with other members in the group in a very enthusiastic way which motivated me to create more group activities for them. In contrast, their interest was comparably low when they were doing individual writing activities where I had to monitor and observe them attentively to make them do the activity.

In conclusion, the teaching internship contributed me to grow as a professional in the field of English teaching by identifying both the strengths and weaknesses that I possess. Moreover, I was able to gain a satisfactory knowledge regarding perfect time management, behavior management of the students and creating interactive activities to help students to remember what they learned in an effective way.

References

Aarthi, (2022, May 28). Types of teaching aids and their importance. Classplus Growth Blog. https://classplusapp.com/growth/types-of-teaching-aids-and-their-importance/?session=ondemand