I thoroughly enjoyed the two day teaching course at the Hotel. While I believe that the success of

my teaching activities over the two days should be taken with a grain of salt, I felt encouraged by

the practice, feedback and believe that this has greatly assisted me in adapting to the Thai School

environment.

1. Reflecting on your teaching practice during the course, describe how you

successfully:

Managed the classroom

Drawing upon my previous experience as a teacher I strived to manage the classroom by putting my

hand up and allowing students to focus their attention on me when they appeared distracted. It usually

took a few seconds as students were distracted either by the task at hand or by receiving instructions

from one of the other student teachers in the room. I suspect that this technique worked effectively at

my current school as well, as students generally focus after seeing this signal.

Perhaps it could have been even more successful if I had employed the ‘One two three, eyes on me

technique’ as an auditory reminder of the need for students’ concentration. I felt as though ICQ’s

should be directed towards both individual students and the whole class in order to ensure that

students have been receptive to instructions.

Engaged students’ interest

We attempted a number of strategies were employed in conjunction with other trainee teachers in

order to engage students’ passion for both grammar and vocabulary. A game; the warmer ‘Two Truths

and One lie’ was employed as an introductory task and worked relatively well as the experience

seemed to directly relate to the students’ lives (how old they were, where were they from, what they

like/dislike). Using tasks appropriate to students appears backed up by English academic journals

Gardner and Miller (1996)

Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ (despite my ‘developing’ singing ability) also proved an effective means of

engaging students as well as testing both their vocabulary as well as understanding of the celebratory

and cultural aspect of birthdays in Anglophone countries. Using a combination of facial tics and hand

gestures demonstrated the teaching groups’ enthusiasm for this as well as other forms of drilling.

Kinesthetic learning was also employed as the group drilled the words ‘chair’ and ‘door’ with realia in a

listening for gist exercise. I feel as though more listening exercises as well as actually sitting in the chair

of opening the door may have proved even more effective as it appears that most students preferred

visual and kinesthetic styles compared to auditory (Goodson, 1994).

Taught new language

New language was taught using a combination of visual, auditory and kinesthetic techniques. Visually,

words were written on the board. In terms of speaking practice, I managed to highlight the emphasis

on words such as ‘Birthday’ by using concept checking questions in order to elicit how many syllables

there were (two) and which syllable contained the stress (the first one).

I believe that in an actual school, this may have been more effective if I had asked students to copy

this information down and employed the use of phonemes in order to clarify any variations in

pronunciation.

Auditory practice referred to the time when drilling was used as well as dialogues such as ‘birthdays’

and ‘shopping stores’ were modelled by myself and another teacher trainee.

Kinesthetic learning was facilitated by students standing up during activities such as ‘Find Someone

Who’ as well as drawing for birthdays. This reinforced the students’ need for practice and allowed

them to individually portray their understanding of both the gist of the cultural concept of birthdays as

well as the verbal idea of expressing it. As (Davis, 1997) has noted, "our actions speak louder than

words”

Facilitated student practice

I facilitated student practice through two main means: group work as well as individual work. Attempts

to answer student questions were elicited individually at first in order to gauge an understanding of

their level of ability. Afterwards, as the class structure gradually shifted from controlled practice to

freer practice; group work was set up and students were able practice the concepts that they had

learned through to mitigate the risk of the teacher ‘preaching’. I feel as though a variety of skills will

need to be practiced during my teaching time in Thailand such as (listening, reading, speaking writing)

as well as physical activities such as standing, mingling and walking around (in a Find Someone Who

game for example.) (Jenkin, Foers, 2011)

2. What two aspects of your teaching do you plan to develop, and how will you do this?

While I feel as though I have made a lot of progress throughout my years of teaching, I have identified two

aspects in particular that I feel need to be worked on. Firstly; building rapport with students. I feel as

though this aspect requires a large amount of adaptation. While teaching in Australia (in high school, to

adults as well as for NGO organisations) consisted of teaching English speakers in an environment that I

was familiar with; teaching overseas in Thailand will require not only an appreciation of a different culture

(such as the wai) but also a different mentality e.g ‘mai pen rai’.

It is for this reason in particular that I have strived to develop a flexible and open mentality to both the

students’ attitude towards English and learning as well as their vast range of interests. I have particularly

tried to gain an appreciation of Thai food, culture as well as the islands and the local community in

Phraeseng, Thailand. Furthermore, by using common interests to commence a discussion; football, I have

strived to bring an Anglophone mentality and adapt it as much as possible to the Thai culture as many

scholars (Franklin, James, & Watson, 1996) have called for educators to adopt a culturally sensitive

inclusive approach to their pedagogy to foster positive learning outcomes among students

Secondly; I feel as though my ability to reflect on and adapt lesson plan will be a crucial determinant of my

success as a language teacher. Rather than falling into the dangerous habit of simply ‘recycling’ lessons I

will strive to both rate and reflect on how lessons eventuate. For example; three aspects that I will look at

in particular are ‘adherence to plan’, reception to material and classroom management for example the

level of teacher talk vs student talk. It is this I feel that will allow me to engage with the whole classroom

rather than simply a few students who have a strong ability and willingness to learn.

Whether it would require different types of tasks (kinaesthetic tasks, ICT or multimedia tasks art and craft,

listening tasks, singing or a different approach to motivating students as to the benefits of learning English:

(such as extrinsic jobs, cultural exchange, knowledge of some sports such as football, or the ability to sing

songs in English) I would strive to adapt them as it appears that ‘auditory and visual modes were preferred

among…students learning English in Australia.’ (Willing, 1988)

I have included a lesson plan from my current teaching experience as well as a reflection as an example of

how I would like to progress as a teacher. While I accept that I will have strengths and weaknesses as a

teacher I feel as though the most important thing is to be enthusiastic and interested in the school, the

culture, displaying my passion for all the intricacies of the English language as well as being innovative and

enjoying the classes and the preparation! I look forward to a great journey with hopefully lots of

professional and personal development.

References

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (Eds.). (1996). Tasks for Independent Language Learning. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Davis, R. (1997). Modeling the strategies we advocate. TESOL Journal, 6(4), 5-6.

Franklin, M.E., James, J.R., & Watson, A.L. (1996). Using a cultural identity development model to plan

culturally responsive reading and writing instruction. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 12(1), 41-58.

Goodson, T. J. (1994). Learning style preferences of East Asian ESL students. CSA Linguistics and Language

Behavior Abstracts. (9500403).

Willing, K. (1988). Learning styles in adult migrant education. Adelaide, Australia: National Curriculum

Resource Centre.

Jenkin, J. & Foers, E (2011). Essential TEFL, Leeds, United Kingdom: Woodside House.

Here is a photo during my time as a French Teacher in Australia. I tried to display a professional and

enthusiastic attitude which I hope will serve me well as my skills continue to evolve.

Red Bend Catholic CollegeObservation/Lesson Plan

Teacher: __Samuel Morse_______________________________________________

Class: 8.1 Period: 2 Date: 21/5/2013Unit of Work: 2Topic of Lesson: Local businesses: Shopping.OUTCOMES:4.MLC.2 explores the diverse ways in which meaning is conveyed by comparing and describing structures and features of French

Students learn about: Ways to analyse text structure and locate relevant information in texts.

Learn to: Identify the purpose of texts and distinguish between the main ideas and the supporting detail.

By the end of the lesson, every student should know/understand:

1: Shopping at the department store (l’hypermarche)2: Use of tu and questioning.

Teacher Activities: Learner Activities:Introduction:(Time: 5 minutes )

PrayerTeacher to set up PowerPoint issuing instructions for the class: to set up a margin and a date for the student’s work.

Teacher clearly outlines the goals of the lesson

Open exercise booksStudents are to draw a margin and the date for their work.

Body(Time: )

5 minutes

1: Teacher issues card game by groups. Students are to remain in their seats until asked. Get students to match the cards up first and then play memory.

1: Students are to form groups of four or five and are to be handed a group of cards.Students then sit back down slowly and quietly at a desk whilst matching the cards.Students are to play memory with one of the categories of cards.

10 minutes

20 minutes

10Minutes

10 minutes

2: Teacher is to model vocabulary for the supermarket from the PowerpointChercherTrouverMonterJe voudraisTropcher

Teacher is to set up the following activity on the Tapis Volant website.

http://www.tapis.com.au/studentbook1/unit13/u13_situation_a02.asp

3: Teacher is to issue instructions for the students to complete the sentences in silence, choose the words and fill in the gaps in silence.

4: Teacher is to model various shops and items to the students:T shirtLe débardeurLa robeL’étageLes ventesLes vêtementsLes cdsLes jeux vidéoL’Equipment camping/sportifLa musique

2: Students are to repeat the pronunciation of the vocabulary properly. Students will pronounce the words in rows and some students will pronounce them individually.

3: Students are to complete the sentences on the worksheet in silence written comprehension in English in silence.

3: Students are to match up the responses to the sentences and then translate them into English on the worksheet

4: Students are to repeat the phrases row by row until they are familiar with them.

5:Teacher is to issue blank paper to the students in order for them to design their own: hypermarche, using at least seven labels from the above.

5: Students are to design their own hyper Marché on a blank piece of paper and are to complete for homework .

Conclusion(Time: )

Students are to complete the PowerPoint survey.

Assessment for Learning:Correct matching up of the words in the worksheet as well as the find a word.Successful completion of the sentences activity and the listening activity.

Reflection:

8.1:

Strengths

Good enthusiasm

Noise levels were reasonable

Students more attentive than usual

Weaknesses:

Some students were still quite noisy and disruptive.

Some students had trouble with the acheter and fill in the gaps activity.

Modifications:

Have altered the ‘acheter’ activity and included a sentence matching activity for the 8.5 and 8.6 lessons.

Keep disruptive students in at recess.

Discipline:

Demerits:

Detention:

Red cards:

Moving seats:

Homework:

Material: