Lessons from the classroom

Part 1.
Agi has a nice and friendly personality and shes able to set the tone with us. It looks
like that she plans her lessons well, however she always has all of her notes in her
hands. Sometimes she is humorous with her personal stories and entertains us with
her lesson ending activities as well. She tries to involve all of us but sometimes she
includes students who dont seem to be too happy about that and feel
uncomfortable when they dont have an answer for something. Weve had some
difficult topics through these lessons, which made us confused, but Agi seemed to
be helpful during the course. She is not a native speaker, which can be positive or
negative too. Its negative, because not that challenging and we cannot get the
practice how it would be to go abroad, but it is helpful for us, as we understand her
better she speaks slower and uses easier language.

Part 2.
Strengths
As my tutors commented on my lessons Ive established good classroom
management with the students, I really feel that I felt more comfortable from the
second lesson though. So overall I can say I am happy with my interaction with the
students although I was nervous about this from the beginning since Ive never
taught adults before.
I think Im helpful with the students, I respond well to their questions, and try to
explain the things they dont understand quite well.
Planning how my whiteboard will look like by the end of the lesson seems to be easy
for me. One of my tutors and my classmates also pointed out that its very visual
and conductive to learning.
Weaknesses
I often feel embarrassed when I have to model the pronunciation. This may originate
from the fact that Im not a native speaker and I am not always 100% sure about my

intonation accuracy. Also I feel sometimes its because Ive always taught children
before CELTA, and I have always done it differently.
Another weak point is that I keep commenting on my instructions throughout the
lesson. Before CELTA I thought it was fine, but now that my tutors and classmates
have pointed this out I know that its better to give clear instructions once and for
all.
Another big challenge I had to face is using more effective CCQs, and ICQs with the
upper-intermediate class. I tend to use only display questions which were good with
the lower level, but not great with more advanced students.

Part 3.
During the course Ive learnt a lot of new methods and approaches from my
teachers as well as from my peers and the DVD observations. My tutors, Amal and
Eszter have a very nice, humorous and friendly manner as well as an excellent
rapport with the students. They are not just nice people, but also professional and
very well trained tutors who are presenting even the not so interesting parts in a
way where we as students can enjoy it, a lot! Throughout their teaching I could
gain a lot of methods how I should do eliciting, conveying and transitioning as well.
Eszter taught me how to correct a student with their error in a way where the
student would feel less uncomfortable. I found this very helpful for my future
teaching. Ive learnt very useful ideas regarding to reuse vocabulary at the
beginning of the lessons from Amal. Ive seen Giovanni teaching his lessons not
even looking at his notes, which is very professional, I hope one day I will be able to
do that too. He also does excellent CCQs and conveying meaning, which comes
naturally. Ive also gained useful experience about effective ways of conveying the
meaning through a DVD observation. Teaching elementary students is a great
challenge we have to face. It was useful to see how the teacher of that class could
do a lot of STT even with the beginner students.

Part 4. Action Plan

My goals for the future are to learn to drill more naturally, to use more effective
CCQs and stop commenting on my instructions. These have been my most
significant weaknesses throughout the course and Im planning to work on these.
After some more practicing I hope Ill have the opportunity to go abroad as an ESL
teacher.
In order to improve my weaknesses Ive made this action plan:

In order to improve:
My drilling

I intend to do the following:

I am going to listen to authentic
materials and parallel to this I would
record myself in class and listen to it
and ask a native colleague to correct

My CCQS

me and give me feedback.

I would observe senior teachers, and
also do a lot of reading about this topic.
While preparing myself for future
lessons I would ask colleagues opinions
by recording myself and showing them,

My comments

so they can give me their opinion.

I am planning to script my instructions,
ask senior teachers to observe my
lessons and give me feedback. When
its not possible, I would record myself
so I can check it and keep doing it until
someone professional would tell me
that Im not doing that anymore.

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