AWA: Academic Writing at Auckland

The teachers that left a lasting impact on me throughout my school and university years were the ones who inspired me to push myself and become better, not just through my learning or their teaching, but through living everyday. Those teachers are the ones who listened to students’ dreams, desires, wants and abilities, and not only tried to encourage them but utilized them and incorporated them into their teaching, so that all students could achieve their true potential. I aspire to be a teacher like this, who creates a positive learning environment for students and is enthusiastic, confident and clear with her teaching. However, good teaching and learning occurs when the teachers are not only inspiring, but confident, enthusiastic, expressive, involved, patient, clear, funny, and able to adapt to their students and the situation. Tomlinson (2013) sums up exactly what I believe defines good language teaching and learning, “[The teacher might make mistakes], but the positive atmosphere she creates might inspire and motivate her students to invest the time, energy and attitude required for language acquisition” (p. 51).

I like the notion that a teacher could be seen as someone who can better you as a person and build you up, not just educationally but with everything. If a teacher is able to help students, not only with their learning but help them to become greater at something or help students to realise their true potential, then that teacher in my opinion, has succeeded far beyond what their job description states they should do, and far beyond being just a person paid to teach students. This quote from William James (1958) accurately depicts how important it is for teachers to try and inspire, “An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears, and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste” (p. 39). Inspiring teachers are the ones I remember the most growing up, and I define ‘inspiring’ as such: a teacher who is able to teach in such a way that their personality and self is expressed through their lessons, and that their beliefs, attitudes and ideas are portrayed through their teaching methods. This can involve teachers who share their experiences, give their thoughts on matters, provide examples and those who tell personal stories, whether they are always completely related to lesson topics or not. Those kinds of teachers are the ones who I remember and looked up to growing up; the ones who were not afraid to show all of their characteristics, not just their ‘teacher’ side. It is these sincere moments in the classroom when the students and the teacher become one, through sharing stories, knowledge, ideas, dreams and attitudes, that good teaching and learning occurs.

There are many factors that effect the ability to teach and learn well, including students, location and the school or faculty. These factors can sometimes be out of one’s control, and that is when it is essential that the teacher strive to be an inspiring, friendly, open and honest teacher to the best they can in the situation they find themselves in. Therefore, it is not about planning how to be the best teacher, but about how to deal with a situation you find yourself in, and improve it. There are not always going to be guide ropes and scaffolding for teachers to use when things go wrong or when times get tough, and that is when teachers have to maximize their abilities. It is not about how well a teacher does in his or her prepared lesson, but how they manage to deal with multiple situations; some difficult, grave, unusual or uncomfortable, and turn them into safe, enjoyable, friendly learning environments. For me, that is when good teaching shows; when a teacher is thrown in the deep end but manages to make their way out and even better themselves, the situation and the students.

Those teachers who learn their students’ personal stories and learner levels, understand their situations and put students’ talents and skills to use, are the ones who maintain close ties and connections with their students and leave lasting impacts in my opinion.

Teachers that steer away from their initial lesson plans and ‘go with the flow’ or with what feels right to them, are the teachers who seem to create the liveliest, friendliest classrooms. After teaching a lesson to the class myself, I discovered how difficult it actually is to stick to the lesson plan, and how unforeseen incidents can easily alter the plans and ideas that one originally had. However, it is through these spontaneous moments that true teaching abilities are put to the test, and if teachers are able to play it off or turn the change into an exciting new task, students will either not notice the mistake or embrace it. This happened during our lesson when the video sound was not as loud as we had hoped, and also when our original role play scenario idea had to be changed at the last moment. Students see the lesson quite differently to the way teachers picture the lesson in their head, and sometimes tasks or instructions are too difficult or vague, and so change can be a necessary and good thing.

Teaching the Korean lesson to our class made me realise how important it is to give students time to think and gain confidence before answering questions, and not become frustrated and upset because nobody responds. It is easy for a teacher to stand up and already know all of the answers and expect students to know them immediately too, but that is not always the case. I believe good teaching involves patience; giving students the time to think, consider, brainstorm and review, and not becoming discouraged when students do not respond straightaway. This does not mean students are bored or not engaged, as I initially thought during my lesson, but they might be thinking about how to answer or perhaps be too shy to answer. That is why it is important to be patient, but also think of other ways to check for students’ understanding instead of putting them on the spot.

One of my beliefs about good teaching is that all teaching is constructed by the teacher, with the help of the students. It is a teamwork effort, because a teacher can only get so far on their own before they need their students’ cooperation to ensure that the classroom is a thriving learning environment. A teacher who is engaging, enthusiastic and confident will create a classroom as such. The importance of teachers being confident, enthusiastic and clear, is often repeated in my journal entries and evaluation forms, with statements such as, “I found this group really good because they always made sure to explain everything very clearly and thoroughly…” (Journal Entry 6, 9^th May, 2016), and “Their slight lack of confidence teaching the lesson made me feel very unsure about what we were supposed to be learning…”, (Journal Entry 1, 11^th April, 2016). If a teacher is enthusiastic about what they are teaching, it motivates students to become enthusiastic to learn, which results in a respectful, well-balanced classroom environment. This is further supported by Tomlinson (2013), who claims that an enthusiastic, caring, lively teacher who is well respected and supports a “positive rapport between students”, creates the kind of teaching and learning environment that needs to be focused on (p. 51).

Thorough explanation, clear instructions, repetition and asking questions are all important things teachers need to remember to do to help students learn to the best of their abilities. Common feedback our group received included our lesson being too difficult and not enough instruction being given. I did not notice or consider these issues while we were teaching, but clearly to the students some of them were so prominent it hindered their ability to engage in learning. This is a big concern to me, and helps contribute to my idea of what I think good teaching is. It is important to consider the students’ needs and feelings, and this can be done by putting oneself in the students’ shoes, and imagining how it feels to learn something for the first time. As Richards and Rodgers (2014) state, one role of the teacher is to prepare learners for tasks, by “clarifying task instructions…and providing partial demonstration of task procedures” (p. 188).
           Other feedback that our group received was confusion about our role play activity, confusion about why we used Hangul (Korean alphabet) on our menus, confusion about why we needed to pretend it was our ‘second lesson’ and confusion about why we tried to teach so much, with little practice. In conclusion, our group should have explained things better, and we did not realise this when we were teaching. Although I could justify why we did all of these things we did and why we could not do others (time constraints, authenticity etc.), it only matters if we had explained those during the lesson, so that students were sure of what was happening and why. This feedback further supports my belief that there needs to be a strong connection between teachers and students. If teachers give clear instructions and reasons to their students from the beginning, there is little room for confusion. Of course, even if there is, the interaction between students and teachers should be at a comfortable place so that students can feel that they are able to ask questions when they are confused or curious and teachers will be confident and able to answer.

In my journal entries I often wrote that teachers did not seem enthusiastic about what they were teaching and it showed, or some members did not even contribute at all: “I would share the roles out more evenly, [because] some people barely spoke” (Evaluation Form, Group 5). Some groups did not explain instructions very clearly, and this can lead to confusion in the classroom, which in turn can result in put-off students who are no longer willing to invest their energy into learning because there was no proper explanation or guidance provided. For example, “They did not explain whether we read them silently or in groups…nor did they say what we were reading for. I was unsure [what] to look out for…and this resulted in me not reading them at all” (Journal Entry 2, 11^th April, 2016).

Furthermore, very few questions, whether genuine or concept check questions, were asked in these lessons, thus making some lessons feel teacher-orientated with disregard towards the students’ abilities and feelings.

It can be difficult, but I believe if a teacher can achieve a balance of teaching and catering to students’ needs while making a lesson fun and enjoyable, they have achieved the greatest achievement in teaching. When I become a teacher, I want to remember the importance of balancing communicative and grammar tasks evenly to shape the classroom into a great learning environment. In my evaluation sheet for Group 7, I wrote “There wasn’t much talking or interaction happening…I didn’t speak at all in the lesson”, which supports my belief that a combination of tasks is necessary. Too much mechanical drilling and not enough interaction and communication can result in bored, disinterested and unmotivated students, but having only communicative tasks can lead to lack of understanding grammatical meaning in the future. Therefore, it is essential in my opinion to teach a good balance of every type of method and approach.
           Engaging material is important in teaching, but I find it can only get you so far. According to William James (1958) there is “no impression without correlative expression”, which implies that a teacher should be expressive and engaging in order to teach well. (p. 39). The content or topic of a lesson could be boring and tedious, but if the teacher presents and teaches it in a way that is engaging and enthusiastic, using confident gestures, bright expressions and a loud voice, students will not only pay attention but will be willing to learn more. Our group received quite a lot of feedback saying that we were loud and confident with our teaching, and that we made the lesson fun because we were enthusiastic and used hand gestures. This idea is also supported by Eison (1990), who suggests that a teacher should become “an expressive, enthusiastic speaker who captures students’ attention both verbally (e.g., humor) and nonverbally (e.g., facial expressions, movement).” (p. 22).  

It is through personal experience at university that I myself have realised how important it is for language teachers to try and acquire as many of these traits as they can. By taking Korean language classes at university, I have been able to witness the differences in teaching compared to my non-language classes, and I can honestly say that I prefer my Korean language classes because the teacher treats the students like friends and people who love and want to learn. The teacher has made an effort from the start to be involved with the students’ lives and interests. She exceeds her teaching duties by putting our grades and our success before her own reputation and interests, and makes sure that the students are comfortable, able to succeed, close to the teacher and each other, and that they are always striving to do better. Teachers like this who are funny and friendly in ways that involve student-teacher interaction as well as student-student interaction, such as the teacher asking what students did in the weekend out of curiosity and asking students to share their stories, are what I consider to be great teachers.

Overall, I believe that a teacher should be someone who aspires to inspire; someone who pushes their students to achieve great things in life and in the classroom, while also providing a support net for when they need help. Good teaching requires a combination of patience, adaptation, confidence, and a teacher needs to be able to provide clear instructions, understand students’ needs, show an interest in their students and be an enthusiastic role-model. Once a teacher inspires someone to want to become greater, I believe that is when the teacher becomes great themselves.

Word count: 2,357

References

Eison, J. (1991). Confidence in the classroom: Ten maxims for new teachers. College Teaching, 38(1), 21–25. Oxfordshire, UK: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

James, W. (1958). Talks to teachers on psychology. New York, USA: W. W. Norton.

Richards, J., & Rodgers, S. (2014).  Approaches and methods in language teaching (3^rd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Tomlinson, B. (Ed). (2013). Applied linguistics and materials development. London, UK: Bloomsbury.

APPENDIX 1: JOURNAL ENTRIES

Journal entry 1, Group 1, Date: 11/4/16.

Group 1’s aim was to teach students how to use adjectives and nouns with (~ing) form in a sentence, and how to write about holidays using online messenging.
The lesson began with the group handing out a printed online messenger conversation that they had made themselves to the class and getting students to underline the adjectives/verbs in it.  Secondly, the group placed us in groups and got us to think of as many adjectives and verbs that you might use to write about the three photos they provided on the whiteboard (one was of a shopping mall, one a ski mountain and the other was a busy beach). They provided little pieces of paper for each group to write the adjectives and verbs on and we blu-tacked them to the whiteboard. Lastly, we were asked to try and write our own letter to a friend about a holiday, using the ~ing form.

I liked the first handout they provided because it was a very good attempt at trying to be an authentic online conversation between two friends, as two of the group leaders prepared it. It was therefore very realistic and a common situation which does occur in real life, as we do tend to talk about our holidays, and most things, via the internet. However, the group did not really explain the English level of the learners or their age, or whether the students had any prior knowledge of adjectives, verbs or ~ing form, so it was hard to pretend how much to know. There was also no thorough explanation of how adjectives and nouns are used or where they are generally placed in a sentence. Because the lesson could have been intended for young learners or possibly much older learners (adults), or learners from countries where online messenging is not as common, this type of the online messenger conversation task might not have been as appropriate or relevant as I thought, or could have been a daunting task. The task had potential to be a good introduction to the lesson’s aims, had the group explained the context of the learners a little more.

I really liked the group’s second activity where we had to race in groups to place the most adjectives/nouns on the board. This activity was fun and got us off our seats, and the fact that we were competing for the most words (to win a prize) made it more motivating. This activity was not too hard as the photos combined could had a lot of possible nouns and adjectives associated with them, but at the same time, I found myself occasionally struggling to think of some that could match with the photo’s situation! But because it was more of a fun activity, I do not think that the intended students would find it too hard.

I found that the activity where we had to write our own letter was actually quite difficult and even unnatural. The tenses were hard to use because the ~ing form felt unnatural in the letter; instead past tense feels more natural to describe past events (our holiday). E.g. “We fed the sharks” sounds natural but “we were feeding the sharks” does not sound natural, and it sounds like every time you use this grammar point something else has to follow the statement. The group wanted us to use the ~ing form only though which I found a little restricting. An activity to match that grammar point would have been more beneficial, such as showing photos or pictures of people doing an action and then getting students to match up the action with the written ~ing form (swimming, walking, laughing etc.). It was difficult to force the ~ing forms into a letter about an event that occurred in the past and I found myself stuck and ended up writing barely anything at all. Furthermore, teachers were not really monitoring or checking up on students’ writing, so it felt almost embarrassing to want to ask for help.

 To me, it was a little hard to hear the teachers sometimes as they spoke very softly and faced the board a lot. Their slight lack of confidence teaching the lesson made me feel very unsure about what we were supposed to be learning too. Also, the explanations were not properly given when they handed out the paper for the second activity, and I was unsure whether it was one adjective per paper or more, or whether the teams were organised by colours. We were never told and had to just assume by ourselves.

Perhaps this group could have actually explained adjectives, verbs and the ~ing form more beforehand, perhaps at the start of their lesson when they explained their lesson purpose. If they intended us to already know how they work, then perhaps a short ‘recap’ lesson or reminder first could have been helpful, because I found the whole lesson was mostly activities, which are fun, but I was unsure what the lesson focus was-writing, reading, pronunciation-it was hard to tell. Second language learners may struggle with the tasks (as we already know English we got it) and we were unsure how much prior knowledge the students were assumed to already know. Perhaps they already knew well what adjectives and ~ing verbs are, and in that case, the activities where very simple and easy to understand. This group however lacked the enthusiasm, confidence and clear instruction to make it a very memorable lesson for me.

Journal entry 2, Group 2. Date: 11/4/16

 Group 2’s lesson was on how to describe houses and rooms in houses using new vocabulary. They began the lesson with photos of different rooms and named them and explained the functions of each room. After this, the group handed out a worksheet where we had to match the rooms and words related to houses with each picture. They provided answers to the worksheet and then made a speaking activity where our partner had to choose one of these words, and we had to guess that word by asking only yes/no questions. Then they had an activity which involved reading a paragraph describing a group member’s house in detail, and we had to then guess which house it was out of an option of 3 houses. Each option had four photos on the slide and we got to look at each option a few times and decide which matched the description. Next we had to write a short paragraph describing our dream house using new vocabulary we learnt. They provided the vocabulary on the board to help and then asked us to share our writing with the class. Finally, the group showed a couple of houses for sale from a real estate website, then asked us to read the two house descriptions.

I found that this group was very confident in their teaching, and it was clear that they had put a lot of effort into their presentation and their organisation because their slides were very well made and everything flowed well. The topic was also easy to understand and a good topic for young adult aged learners who are perhaps looking to buy a house. However, I found that this group spent a lot of their time showing photos of and describing the different sections in a house, and while this was fun and easy to just sit there and listen, there was little interaction or communication happening during this. That is understandable as it was a presentation section, but there were no elicitation questions asked to us, and the names of rooms were just provided for us with no time for questions or chances for students to guess. Also, I found that this section went on for quite a while; all I really remember during their lesson was learning rooms and areas in houses without really sure what the purpose of it was. In my experience, I found that a few of the rooms and areas they taught us were not actually that common to find in a house, especially in New Zealand. Rooms like ‘ensuite’ and ‘family room’ are quite unfamiliar and uncommon in New Zealand, from my experience, and perhaps to make it easier to remember all of the rooms and areas the group could have left out some of these rarer rooms and focused on the common places in more detail.  

This group made very great PowerPoint slides with beautiful photos and sleek designs. This small touch did indeed make me feel more engaged and interested because I could see the effort they made into making their lesson and it was also really fun to look at lots of photos of really expensive, flash houses. It was just as much fun when we had to write about our ‘dream house’, I actually found that the highlight of their lesson. It was an easy to achieve task, it was relevant to the lesson’s topic and focus and it was creative because we had to imagine and therefore it could be almost over-the-top and funny to write. I ended up sharing my dream house description with the class and someone else did too which made the class a fun and friendly environment. This activity was not only good for putting the learnt vocabulary to use but fun to get students to be creative and imaginative and since there are no right or wrong answers they would feel very comfortable doing it.

The speaking activity was a great idea, but at first the instruction was a little bit confusing, so it was good that the group then gave an example of how it should be. It was actually a lot more difficult than I thought it would be at first, and my partner and I struggled to come up with yes/no questions, which I thought was a good challenge to give the students. However, after two rounds of this we became bored quite easily as we found we could only ask the same few questions in the time space we had (e.g. ‘do you usually eat/sleep/watch TV in this room?’). Perhaps if the activity was more forward-moving it would have been better, as we found we were not really getting anywhere by asking the same yes/no questions through the process of elimination room by room, in the end we were just repeating the same questions until we guessed the right one (e.g. I chose ‘deck’ for one, and my partner just could not guess it because the majority of rooms to guess from were inside, thus she kept asking things like ‘do you sleep/eat in the room? Is there furniture there?’-which there can be). I was answering no repeatedly and it felt like the activity was hitting a wall in terms of what learning we were actually achieving. Perhaps they could have acted out a role play or charades of a scenario which would usually or clearly occur in a certain room (or more) of the house (such as brushing teeth, buttering toast, pretending to sleep etc.) and have students guess which room it would occur in. To make it even more interactive, they could get students in pairs or small groups to act these scenarios out themselves and have the group guess which rooms that would occur in. This would likely result in lots of fun and laughs, but also is a more productive and less repetitive way to check students’ understanding of the functions of the rooms.

There was one section near the end where the group showed two examples of house descriptions from a real estate website, and they asked us to read the passages and that was it. They did not explain whether we read them silently by ourselves, or in groups or pairs, or read together out loud, nor did they say what we were reading for. I was unsure whether to look out for certain points in the examples such as vocabulary, or prices, and this resulted in me not reading them at all. They were quite large paragraphs of text, which looked daunting and boring at a glance, so I think it would have been more effective if they had said we will read these out loud together as a class, or read them together in pairs and then together make note of all of the new vocabulary we learnt or which rooms they mention in the paragraphs. It would have been more motivating for me to want to read them, and the purpose of reading them would have been made clear. Another thing that could have perhaps made the lesson more beneficial, would be if at the end of the lesson, the teachers went on to a real estate website or magazine and showed students how to search for houses using the new rooms and vocabulary either in the search bar or index, as this is a great skill to know especially as young adults, and would help students to use this lesson in a meaningful context. Then they could even get students to try it themselves at home for homework and then report back with the house they found through searching in the next class. Perhaps if that would take too long, they could just show students how to recognise or find the room names and vocabulary listed in house listings and get students to find some words themselves in class or as homework.

Journal entry 3, Group 4, Date: 2/5/16.

Group 4 set out to teach not English, but Farsi, which made them stand out from the others. Their aim was to teach teenage girls shopping phrases for when they go to a Farsi-speaking country, which they clearly explained at the start. They began their lesson by having a shopping role play done by two of the group members themselves. They then explained the Farsi word for shopping, which was their lesson’s focus. The group went over phrases we were to learn, all of which were related to shopping (e.g. What size? Can I try it on?). Then the group redid their shopping role play dialogue and the class answered two questions about the content of the dialogue. After going over the answers, we had to match some shopping phrases in English with the correct one in Farsi on a worksheet. Then the group presented some shopping vocabulary (shoes, shirt etc.) in Farsi and left it on the board while we were asked to create our own shopping dialogues in pairs.

This group explained that it would be more authentic to teach us a second language instead of getting us to pretend we were learning English, which I thought was a clever idea and made me pay attention. I liked the fact that they got us to listen to the language first when they did the role play, and then they did it again so that we could try and pick out the phrases we learnt and answer questions. This activity I find effective as we commonly use it in my Korean class and so I know how useful it is. The instructions for the dialogues and listening was thoroughly explained well, too. However, they did not explain at the start of the lesson that the learners are assumed to already know basic Farsi, (and are just starting the topic of shopping now) and so I was left wondering what half of the words meant, but then at the end they explained this to us. Perhaps if they had mentioned this at the start of their lesson, it would have been much easier and a little less frustrating while trying to work out what some of the words meant, as some of the phrases required answers (can I try it on?) and we did not learn how to say yes or no in Farsi. Also because of this same reason, I at first thought it seemed a bit rushed to make us start speaking Farsi after only two listens, but as I said, they later explained that the real students would already know basic Farsi. They also said that they had more drills and Farsi practice planned originally, but because we picked the Farsi up quicker than they expected they left these out. I wish they hadn’t, because I actually found it quite difficult and if they had gone through the pronunciation more and repeated the words more it would have been far more effective in getting us to pronounce and make a dialogue in Farsi.

I did find this group’s lesson a little bit short. I would have added more presentation introduction steps to introduce the topic of shopping first, by asking questions about shopping experiences and if the class likes shopping etc. I would have also given the class more practice first, by maybe getting the class to listen to a few dialogues and then write down and repeat how it should sound (but depending on what their aims were, the writing part might not be necessary as their focus could have been on speaking, but they did not specify). They could even have acted out the dialogue role play, but got us to repeat the phrases after each sentence or each new word as they go and then do the role play once more. It seemed a bit rushed still to start speaking that quickly even if the real learners would know basic Farsi, and there was not enough focus on pronunciation of our words and nobody was really monitoring us when we were speaking our own dialogues so I was always a bit unsure if I was pronouncing things correctly and felt rather unconfident. Perhaps the option of letting students use English if Farsi becomes too confusing could have been given.

Journal entry 4, Group 5. Date: 9/5/16.

Group 5 set out to teach students how to read for gist, how to guess meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary and also provide students chances to speak in English. Their target age group were 16-19-year-old students with an intermediate level of English who were studying as international students in New Zealand. The group started by playing a part of a video from online, about a girl who was cyber bullied, and then they asked us to close our eyes and think about someone who was bullied at school or online, and then share our stories in groups. The group then handed out some unfamiliar vocabulary which appeared in the video earlier and we had to try and guess the meanings. The group then provided definitions on the PowerPoint slide. After asking us how we think the bullied girl would respond to her bullies, they gave us a handout which had the answer to this question and with this they played the rest of the video from earlier. The lesson ended with some follow-up questions asking what we thought about her response.

From the start, this group’s topic seemed very sensitive to me and some of the vocabulary they used did too. Also, their lesson’s aims seemed like nearly too many aims to try to achieve in 30 minutes, and I found them quite unrelated. I was very glad that they explained their aims though, but they did not state whether the focus was on reading, vocab, or speaking, which they said were all part of their aims. They did indeed try to teach all of these aims, however I found they fell a little short.
              Although one of their aims was to teach us to read for gist, I found that this was not achieved or taught at all. We were given the handout with the bullied girl’s response to her bullies and simply asked to read it, with no instruction as to what specifically we were looking out for. Therefore, I found it did not really teach us how to read for gist, as we ended up reading the whole handout without being told why and had little guidance from the teacher. This aim could have been left for another ‘lesson’ perhaps, as it did not seem relevant, and that one handout was the only opportunity we had to read for gist.

The unfamiliar vocabulary was very challenging. Firstly, the vocabulary they chose were not common at all, they were more topic-specific jargon words that would have very little value or meaning to an English learner, nor would they commonly come across these words. Therefore, I found the activity to be a little wasted, as they had no real purpose to serve in a meaningful context. The vocabulary consisted of words such as ‘abort’, ‘undiagnosed’, ‘phenomenon’ and ‘gain weight’ which I found not only to be very sensitive (especially to their intended learners’ age group), but very difficult, uncommon words. An English learner would be unlikely to come across these words or ever use them, but I understand this was an activity to teach learners to try and guess the meanings of vocabulary they do not know. I found myself not even pretending to not know because most of the words were quite difficult and I think a real 16-year-old English learner would struggle a lot more. Moreover, the definitions were then simply given to us on the board, the group did not elicit the answers from us, and the definitions they provided were even more difficult than the words themselves, using even harder words to explain the meanings. If they had made the definitions a lot simpler, explained them in a way that could make them useful for every day life and then provided the class with ways to easily guess the meanings of words, the activity would have achieved its purpose.

The only opportunity given to speak in English was when they asked the class to share our bullying experiences and also to discuss the bullied girl’s response at the very end. This first chance was very sensitive and I think not well thought out beforehand. I thought, ‘what if the students themselves were the ones who were bullied in school?’, it was a very sensitive topic and then to ask students to discuss these real life issues and even share with the class I found a little unfair and unnecessary. Because of this, not many people were willing to share their stories and this resulted in not much of an actual opportunity to speak English.

Despite all of this, I definitely enjoyed one member of this group who was very enthusiastic, easy to hear and she gave very clear instructions. My favourite part about this lesson was the fact that this teacher actually provided her own opinions and answers first for each of the questions we were told to do. For example, when asked how we would deal with bullies like this, she joked and said she would sue the bully, which not only brought a little humour to the otherwise uncomfortable topic but provided the class with ideas as to how we could answer. This teacher also listened to students’ answers very carefully and nodded a lot, providing her input and showing her enthusiasm for teaching by engaging with the learners a lot. Even the simple things she did, such as using a lot of hand gestures and speaking loudly and confidently, made me feel more engaged with her and made me want to listen and learn.

Perhaps this group could have spent a little more time in planning their lesson as I found the activities and the aims did not flow well together and had poor structuring. If there had been clearer instructions for each task and a more precise, specific aim, even if it was just one, I would have had a much better idea of what I was actually going to achieve in that lesson and they could have devoted more time to that one thing, achieving it well and making the lesson worthwhile. They almost set out to teach too many things in one small lesson, which resulted in very quick tasks brushing over them all, but without actually teaching how to do any of them. Their video choice was powerful and their handouts were colourful and very good quality, but the topic, along with their choice and presentation of their aims, let this group down for me.

Journal entry 5, Group 6, Date: 9/5/16

Group 6 aimed to teach us about modal verbs. The group explained first that the students have already learnt modal verbs, and that their target age group is around 20 years old with a pre-intermediate level of English. They began the lesson with a slide which showed some photos of a calendar, and lists of wishes and asked the class to guess the topic. Then they explained what modal verbs are briefly, and gave examples by showing rankings of different modal verbs’ ‘power’. The class was given modal verbs on pieces of paper and asked to rank them in how we ‘powerful’ we thought they were (e.g. ‘must’ is very powerful whereas ‘could’ is weaker). After this they asked the class to listen to and watch the song (Nothing on You by Bruno Mars) and try to write down all the modal verbs that we can hear. Then they asked the class to think back to all of the other groups’ previous lessons and try to come up with nouns from these lessons to then create a sentence using any modal verb. After showing some examples of modal verbs and their meanings, they then did an activity where the class had to create a mid semester resolution-the same as a new year’s resolution but for students-and write three sentences on how to achieve it using the modal verbs learnt, then get classmates to guess the resolution. The group ended the lesson with their recommendations as to how to keep the resolutions.  

This group was my favourite group because they achieved all of their aims and they were very motivating and captivating. I found them really good because they always made sure to explain everything very clearly and thoroughly, from instructions to definitions, and provided many examples. I was pleased that they chose a topic which they were confident that they were able to set out and achieve, and they presented and introduced it well, they provided chances to practice listening out for, ranking and then using modal verbs, and succeeded in a production section by getting the class to write our own ‘resolutions’ using the modal verbs, which is a very common activity to do in real life. This activity provided a real meaningful context to the lesson’s topic, and it was a learner age and level-appropriate task.
The presentation/introduction of the lesson was simple but engaging; by showing photos and asking the class to guess what the topic is, I became very curious and immediately interested in what the group had to teach us.  The group provided two functions of modal verbs too and always gave good demonstrations and examples on how they are used which made it easier to follow, and they always made sure to explain their aims and reasons as to why each thing was being taught, which I thought was good because it helps keep students motivated and helps them understand why what they are learning is important. The group also explained what to do so there was never a confusing moment even in between talking and activities, and they explained the activities and tasks that were coming next.

The song, the ranking activity and the resolution activity were all presented confidently, clearly, explained thoroughly beforehand, and were all very relevant to the lesson’s aims. We were taught how modal verbs sound and how common they are (by listening out for them in a popular song), how to distinguish them in terms of power and how to use them in a meaningful context through these activities. There was not one minute wasted during this group’s lesson and it showed through their organisation, relevant materials and tasks and their confidence in presenting.
I really liked the fact that this group even said that they would hand out a sheet at the end of the lesson with more songs that students could use to practice their English. I thought that was a neat idea and made me even more appreciative of the group as teachers, and thought it could be a good idea to use in teaching in real life! I also liked that they gave tips on how to achieve new year’s resolutions. These things were not necessarily teaching specifically how to use modal verbs but they provided a sense of closeness between the students and the group as teachers, and showed that the teachers really valued and cared about their students’ lives and learning. This group also made sure to ask lots of clarification questions in case we were confused, they did not rush students to answer or share their thoughts, they were loud and confident, and it was the small things like these that really made this group stand out for me. This group somehow was able to make modal verbs seem so versatile and simple to me by asking us to create sentences using any noun, which I think is a great thing to achieve. The fact that they asked us to refer to previous lessons from the course to find a noun made the lesson seem so creative and very well-planned.

Journal entry 6, Group 8 (my group). Date: 16/5/16.

Our group set out to teach not English, but Korean. We aimed to present a lesson that was more ‘authentic’ by actually teaching the class a second language, so we decided to teach basic beginner Korean. Our focus was on communication, and in particular, how to get by in Korea by speaking and being able to understand basic Korean phrases. Our topic for the day was on how to order in a restaurant in Korean.
Firstly, our group started off by introducing all of the group members, which we did in both English and then in Korean, simply to try to get the students used to hearing the Korean language. Then we explained the context, which was beginner Korean language classes in New Zealand for people travelling to Korea, and explained that we were ‘pretending’ that this lesson was the second lesson.  We then described our target students, who were young university-age adults with little to no knowledge of Korean, who will be travelling to Korea in the future. We explained that the students have assumed to have previously had a lesson which introduced basic Korean greetings, but we explained we will recap those in this lesson too. From there we explained our aims clearly, which was to focus on speaking and listening, and to teach four new food vocabulary and understand basic restaurant dialogue. We decided to dedicate a slide to explaining our lesson agenda, as we found most groups did not really focus on explaining what the lesson would consist of or what we could expect, so we quickly went over what the lesson would consist of so that students got a solid understanding of what was expected of them and what they were going to learn. We began the lesson with revision from the “previous lesson”, which consisted of how to say yes, no and hello. From there, I was in charge of introducing and presenting the topic for the lesson, so I asked the class some genuine questions such as, “who here likes food? How about eating out at restaurants? Have any of you been to a Korean restaurant before? Raise your hand if you have”, and then I showed a photo of a rather well-known, easily-recognisable Korean restaurant in Auckland, and asked if they had seen it before. From there, I continued to say our lesson’s topic was how to order food at a Korean restaurant. Then we taught them four Korean dishes, each accompanied with a photo, and we had one food item per group member so we each went over the pronunciation of the words in detail. After recapping the pronunciation, we played our video which we made. The video showed our group pretending to order at a restaurant using phrases which we were going to teach in our lesson. We included English subtitles on the video to help. We emphasised that when they watch the video we only wanted them to listen, to familiarize themselves with the sound of Korean. After that we began to teach the phrases for the lesson, which consisted of how to say ‘excuse me’, ‘can I please have…’, ‘order’, ‘welcome’ and ‘~has arrived’. Although this sounds like a lot of phrases to learn in one lesson, we made sure to tell the students that they only really need to know how to say the first two phrases, and the rest they need to be able to recognize and understand. After this we went through the pronunciation of each words slowly and repeatedly, to enforce the correct pronunciation. I accompanied my phrase with an action of raising the hand, so that students could remember ‘excuse me’ easier with an action. After we were sure they had managed to say the words correctly, we played our video a second time but this time we intended to play the video without English subtitles and have the class listen out for some of the phrases we just taught them. However, this did not go to plan as the video was very hard to hear because it had a lot of background noise, so we had to play the video with English subtitles again. We followed the video up with a small comprehension quiz which asked which Korean dishes we ordered, and explained the unfamiliar phrases we had used in the video.

Finally, we ended our lesson with a productive activity, where we pretended the classroom was a Korean restaurant, and people took turns playing the waiter and the customer. We demonstrated how the game works first at the front of the room, and made sure to ask if they had any questions or if they were confused. We left the words (in Romanized English) up on the slide to guide them. One person played the waiter and took the order of the person next to them, and that person had to ask for a certain dish from the menus we had handed out. We purposely rearranged the class beforehand randomly, so that the ethnic Koreans were not all sitting together in one row. The game worked in rows and each of us had one row to monitor. We handed out lollies as the ‘dishes’ in the restaurant, and helped with pronunciation where necessary.

Firstly, I think our group did a good job at being very clear, confident speakers, and being very encouraging. However, I think that the way we taught the phrases made it difficult for the students to pick up as quickly as we thought they would. Perhaps if we had not included the four Korean dishes and instead spent more time teaching the phrases it would have been less overwhelming for some students.

For me, the hardest part about teaching the lesson was trying to get students to interact with us. At the time it felt like it was because they were bored that they didn’t answer our questions or respond to our drills well or ask questions themselves. But later on I realized they were probably just thinking about how to answer, how to pronounce, and thinking what questions they could ask. It was easy to stand up there and expect students to answer quickly and be eager to respond, but they actually likely needed more time to think and answer, and it wasn’t until after the lesson that I thought maybe we should have given them more time, maybe I shouldn’t have blamed the students for being so unenthusiastic.

After talking with the teacher, ideas were suggested that instead of asking them to pronounce words they heard from the video, something like a matching activity would have been less intimidating. We could have had a list of the phrases on the board, and afterwards asked students to say which ones they heard from the video and which they didn’t. This would still test their understanding and recognition of the phrases but without actually making the students try and pronounce the new words on the spot. Things like this are

The majority of the class’ evaluation forms said that they thought our lesson was really good, but a lot also said they thought it was too difficult. I agree that I think we tried to throw too much at the students at once, and because it is a new language to a lot of them I think it was too much in a small amount of time. As I said before, we should have left the vocabulary out and only taught phrases, perhaps in pairs first before trying the restaurant role play. Some students said the role play restaurant activity was a good idea but was confusing and hard because they did not know how to say the phrases that a waiter says very well, and that they wished they had been left to sit with their friends to be more comfortable. The only reason we shuffled people was because as I said earlier, there were a lot of ethnic Koreans and learners of Korean sitting all together and that wouldn’t be fair to other students. Some other students also wondered what the point of pretending there was a previous lesson as it just confused them more. We included the previous lesson idea because we knew a lot of students in our class were ethnic Koreans or were already studying Korean, so to get them feeling confident we included the very basic phrases so that they felt confident and included. We kept the “previous lesson” basic, because it is common sense to need to know how to say yes/no/hello in another language when you’re in that country, and of course those words should be taught before restaurant dialogues. Therefore, we assumed the students already went over these terms in a previous lesson, and even though our class hadn’t, in reality, we knew that most students would already know these, and the ones who genuinely didn’t were going to learn while we ‘revised’ the lesson at the start. However, it ended up being more than just a quick revision because I think those who didn’t know were quite overwhelmed, so it went longer than planned but it turned out ok.  

It was very hard to cater to a mixed level learner class, as we found out. Some students were fluent in Korean, some learning, and some had had no exposure before, so it was hard to find a balance in keeping those who already knew Korean entertained and challenged, and those who didn’t motivated and not overwhelmed.