TESL 0170 - Lesson 2 - Tone and Voice
I spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for my second week of teaching, which was not unexpected to me. The first class I taught was a half class, so working through a full three-hour lesson plan was a little daunting. It was difficult to formulate the ideas I had in my head into a coherent and properly scaffolded lesson and I found that the template to be used for this task as supplied by the assignment criteria was not detailed enough for me. As this template is so different than the templates and expectations around lesson planning that I am used to from previous TESL courses, I decided to revert to what I am most familiar with and create my lesson plan based on previous class expectations. What you see in the link shared in this post is the correct template for the assignment, with the relevant data transferred into it after I drafted it using the "long version". While I realize this was extra work, and does not gain me additional credit or value for the effort, it was what I needed in order to feel comfortable with my preparations.
Prior to preparing for the lesson this week my mentor teacher sent me some observations of the first week that I taught and included some information that was valuable for prepping. The feedback included a few points of validation and consideration for me:
- Choosing to engage with the students around any discomfort and discuss it openly was a good way to start my teaching. The class became animated and engaged with me positively.
- The activity that I facilitated using the local newspaper was a good use of realia and applicable to the real life of each student.
- Since one of my goals in the first class was to allow room for the students to converse with me, the teacher did provide some soft warnings around specific student behaviours of dominating conversation in the class or becoming inappropriate around topics of conversation. While there was no specific outcome to address in this class, it was useful to have a better understanding of class dynamic for the coming weeks.
Early this week I submitted the lesson to my mentor teacher for her review/input and received positive feedback with a few suggestions for consideration. Since the lesson is included in a focus on communication, I had identified a focus on "tone of voice" and my mentor teacher amended that to "tone and voice" and explained the difference to me. We use both tone and voice to communicate. They may be oral or written and it was a good distinction to consider. Since this lesson was largely about how tone and voice are conveyed using punctuation, it was helpful for me to have more information about how this is discussed in the classroom. Tone and voice convey the intended meaning; I learned how to better convey my intended meaning through the mentor teacher feedback. The real world task at the end of this focus is on appropriate communication when you need to write an email and how you convey the intended meaning. It is incorporated into a unit that has focused on communication discussions about body language, cultural gestures, aggressive/assertive/passive communication and touched on tone/voice. The lesson I planned was a focus on CLB 4/5 outcomes around written communication and writing conventions for this level.
Specific feedback around the lesson plan itself included feedback on clarifying my objectives, and asking about the use of the worksheets that I selected to address specific aspects of the lesson plan. Before the class, I made some adjustments for my own clarity and then prepared to teach.
The day of the class I was nervous all day, but it settled down as I progressed through the class. Some key concepts that I take away from this full class experience are:
Opportunities for improvement:
- I spent too much time on the review of the homework I assigned last class. In truth, I wondered if anyone would remember or do what I asked and they all did. I was thrilled with the outcome but we spent too much time on this task. On the positive side, I got a good sense of their reading comprehension abilities and their ability to report on what they read/learned. It was fascinating for me.
- At the break in the class the mentor teacher asked me to identify what was most important in the first half of the class in order to prepare myself to curb some activities accordingly. It was a good interjection and in the second half of the class, I set the pace and it less driven by the students.
- I changed the class seating a bit and that impacted engagement positively. I anticipate making one additional change next week. The mentor teacher approved both the change I made and the suggestion I made for the next class.
- The tasks we did were useful and challenging, but not overly so to cause discouragement. The class is not all the same level and so some struggled more than others, but all were able to participate.
- As we went through the class there were opportunities to discuss grammar and pronunciation items. One such example is the use of negative prefixes - the word "infrequent" was used in the company statement regarding new COVID measures to take place. We separated "in" from the word to identify the root word and then talked about the meaning when we add the prefix. I was pleased that I was able to identify and address these items as the class went on as I consider this a particular area of weakness and was worried about error correction - particularly around grammar and pronunciation.
- We ended the class with as short YouTube video that a student wanted to share. It was a company video created by IRCC in response to an award the company received around the international recruitment strategies that have been in place. Some of the students in the class were in the video and it was great to see their pride in participation and being included. This was unplanned, but a useful segue to complete the class and acknowledge the students as being "famous"! A positive way to end.
Dana
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