Assignment 3: Lessons from the Classroom

Bobby (Vlad Grigoras)

Assignment 3: Lessons from the Classroom

Part one
We have a good time during Boobys lessons. Hes quite a funny guy, friendly
and involved in his lessons. He is chatting with us both during the lessons
and afterwards. He likes sharing his stories with us and I particularly like the
pictures he shows us, it is interesting to find out about different cultures. I
want to practice speaking and we did most of the time in his classes. I like
that he gets involved in his teaching and corrects us when necessary.
Sometimes the topics he chooses appear difficult to grasp and are not the
most interesting such as the human capital topic. That wasnt interesting
and the text was too difficult. I couldnt understand the language in that
lesson and it was boring. It was good that I told him about this class because
his next lesson was more interesting and I was keen to talk about the slow
city movement with my colleagues. I enjoy working in pairs or groups as I
can get a lot of speaking practice. This is my main purpose, to improve my
speaking, pronunciation and vocabulary. Bobbys explanations and
corrections are fun most of the time and he makes them explicit with the use
of realia or miming.

Part two
a) Strength planning. For the last few lessons (TP6,7) the planning
improved a lot to give me a good flow and on spot reaction to different
questions and activities during the lessons. Scripting the phonetics,
definitions of key language items in the language analysis improved
gave me more confidence. The students went home with a useful
record of what they had learned.
b) Strength- concept checking. The interaction pattern with the Ss
through CCQs has improved a lot which makes it much easier to start a
discussion with the students. Understanding the meaning and different
contexts while planning can lead the lesson into an area where
students are challenged and asked about their individual interpretation

Assignment 3: Lessons from the Classroom

Bobby (Vlad Grigoras)

of language, feelings or perspective. It makes a big difference to take

the student through such clarification. During the last reading lesson
the Ss discussed the slow city/food concepts in detail to give them
practice of the target language but also when checking their
understanding of the text through the activities.
c) Strength board work. In the past TPs I focused a lot on the board and
make use of it throughout the class. I mainly started to deliver the
target language, phonetics and leave it on the board so the Ss can take
it home. Board management is helpful when eliciting from student as it
establishes a good rapport. I used Venn diagrams for describing the
concepts of better city/better life.
I conclude with my overall feeling that I became more confident during the
lessons due to good communication, rapport with Ss.
Part three
a) Top of the list is feedback. I realize how important is to go round a few
minutes feedback session and clarify the key points of the lesson. The
Ss want to work on all aspects of the language as pronunciation, rules,
drilling, is an important conclusion after each lesson. In the past two
lessons I went through short feedback sessions, but I want to allocate
more time for this part.
b) Timing. I really need to improve my timing. I tend to deliver all-rounded
lessons focusing on all skills and language points. It is too much for 40
min sessions, so I need to work more on this. In the last lessons I
hadnt had time for the freer practice activity as I exploited other
points of the lesson that appealed to the Ss. For the next TPs I will just
stick to a clear and concise plan for 40 min.
c) Monitoring. Ss find it very important to leave the classroom with solid
understanding and practice of English. I didnt manage to take notes
during the last Reading lesson when I know how important it is for the
feedback session. I couldnt understand the writing of the Ss, but this is
a skill to improve after constant practice. When listening to Ss
speaking it was easier to spot errors, but it still needs development.
Part four

Assignment 3: Lessons from the Classroom

Bobby (Vlad Grigoras)

All lessons I watched had at least one interesting aspect. Starting from
watching original activities or funny discussion for prediction to simply board
work, I had three inspiring weeks until now. I really learned a lot from Jezs
instinctive good amount of energy in his classes. He always comes up with
personal stories which lead through the whole session. On the other hand I
noticed Arthurs humor when introducing new topics or when taking a
discussion to its next stage. I would like to make more use of these natural
aspects that Ive seen in their lessons, so genuine and engaging. Their clear
aims and goals for the activities are so easy to pursue during the lessons.
English classes can be as creative as possible and I couldve seen my
colleagues making good use of video material, power point, recordings.
Chriss lesson with the hamburger video was so creative. I liked the Ss
engagement into the lesson; they paid so much attention to each part of the
lesson. I want to use more video materials in my lessons.
Part five
What I want to
improve/try
I want to improve my
overall understanding of
grammar and language
clarification stages.

How I will go about

achieving this
I want to try several
different techniques to
present language.
Guided discovery is one
of the techniques, but
T/T/T and TBL also
appeal to my manner of
teaching.

Resources/support
will I need