TESL 0170: Lesson 4 - Tone & Voice in Written Communication Part 3

This was the final week of my teaching practicum, and I actually got the whole lesson completed last night!  I am very pleased with the outcome of the three-hour evening class and felt that there were several strong points of this three-hour lesson.  As anticipated last week I was able to wrap up the activities that worked to support the previous three weeks of learning to the activities that I planned for this class.  Essentially, this unit was completed on time and in a manner that scaffolded concepts within each lesson, as well as lesson to lesson.  I am not sure that I anticipated this at the beginning of the teaching portion of the practicum, so it has been very positive for me to see how the four weeks of teaching has worked out. The strong points of yesterday's lesson include:

• The cadence of one activity to the next scaffolded well
• We did not stagnate on any one activity
• There was skill building in all four skill areas
• There were skill practicing activities
• The students were receptive and worked hard; partnered well maintaining distance as required by Covid-19 protocols
• The grammar component was in response to student inquiry the week before and embedded into the lesson after a short period of explicit focus
• There was a wider variety of materials used - visuals via the projector, a PowerPoint presentation, paper handouts, different mediums for writing/identification

To look a bit more deeply at how the outcomes were achieved it is important to recognize that the grammar component was identified as a student need from last week and incorporated into the activities that were already part of the lesson for this week.  In order that the concepts be addressed in context, the scope of the grammar components were narrowed down to create simplicity and reduce confusion.  An advantage of working with a seasoned mentor teacher is that she had a chart that I could use to address only "prepositions of time" rather than all prepositions.  While I have a grammar text book to reference for activities and ideas and have referred to the CLB documents to support level appropriate learning ideas, the disclosure of the students' need in the previous class provided great direction for incorporation of grammar into the lesson.  In this way the lesson is relevant to students, engages them at a level that they value, and places value on their contributions and questions in class.  Additionally a weakness of mine was identified during the lesson in reference to the grammar portion of the lesson and I would wish to be better prepared in a future lesson.

I received positive feedback from my mentor teacher on the lesson plan prior to delivery of the lesson but made some adjustments based on her feedback to add specifics around what I want to discuss as part of the introduction/welcome to develop socio-linguistic competence.  Since our focus on was communication I added a short discussion around "polls" as a means of communication and we did a poll around "Are you a dog or cat person?" and then conducted some sharing around "What is a special tradition or food/meal that you can share about how you celebrate Christmas in your culture or your home?" (I already knew that all students observe or celebrate Christmas or I would have asked the question to include other year end celebrations.)  Other adjustments involved a bit of re-structuring around where some activities should be incorporated and the lesson was improved as a result.

A final component of the lesson for this week was allocating time for the completion of a feedback form.  I was unfamiliar with the terminology the assignment required for the development of the feedback/evaluation and it was necessary to do some research.  Having not developed this type of document before, it was very useful to have feedback from my mentor teacher who made several suggestions to improve the form prior to use in the class.  The primary changes were focused on removing personal references so the form was more impersonal, and reducing the Likert scale to include only three options instead of four or five so it would be easier for the learners to engage at their skill level in order to understand how to respond to the questions.

As a final class, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The students all have significant concerns that they face, and yet they continue to put in strong effort.  The class ended with the students applauding my efforts as a teacher which was both humbling and touching.

I have included the lesson plan, activity worksheets, and PowerPoint Presentation for reference in future planning, along with the Teacher Evaluation/Feedback form developed for this final class.

Lesson 4 - Tone & Voice in Communication - Part 3

Absence Request Form PowerPoint

Teacher Evaluation/Feedback Form (by Students)

I am very thankful for the opportunity that I was given to participate as a student teacher in this class, and for the genuine acceptance that I received from the students.  I sincerely value the opportunity to positively impact learning for someone that has real world impact and this has been a very good experience.

I look forward to whatever is next.

Dana