Day 5 of our group teaching was met with a lot of important observations and a much deeper understanding of our students and their overall understanding abilities as well as skills. By now we were able to tweak and make last minute changes if/when we find our pre-planned lessons weren’t receiving the expected response from the students. Katie and I were always mindful of the fact that first and foremost it was of absolute importance that our students felt safe and at ease in our classes. Because of an ongoing pandemic and different learning tools – laptop, microphone, online engagement, we made sure that students didn’t feel too overwhelmed on top of an already overwhelming phase. So we always adjusted our lessons and made changes whenever there was a dip in engagement. Certain times we also let the student be and carried on with our lesson because there were a few students attending class at unconventional times of the day because of time zone differences and they usually would take some time to participate. We followed our usual pattern of conducting some reading as per their curriculum, vocabulary and pronunciation practices, interactive online tools such as group discussions in breakout rooms, activities based on the lesson content and an exit ticket to sum everything up towards the end of the class. Personally, I felt monotonous with the way the lessons were being planned despite the myriad of ESL activities we conducted or innovative ways we incorporated teaching vocabularies and pronunciation to the students but I suppose that reflected a bit on the lesson. Theoretically we were adhering to what our supervisor signed us up for – following a curriculum as per the class’s home room teacher’s suggestion but in doing so I felt this wave of repetition and a sense of monotony filling our class.
My fifth teaching observation
