The Big-Teaching Days

 The Big-Teaching Days

The Big-Teaching Days finally took place on Dec. 15^th and Dec. 22^nd! I was glad that my teaching went smoothly on the two days. Preparing the teaching demonstration almost the whole semester, I had learned theory of TESOL and a variety of teaching techniques. However, I had to say I learnt much more when getting on the stage as a real teacher on the Big-Teaching Days. The following paragraphs will discuss what I learned from the teaching demonstration.

By observing several of my classmates’ teaching on the stage, I realized that confidence was a quality that a teacher should have. Teachers with confidence were perceived to be more professional compared to teachers lack of confidence. On the Big-Teaching Days, most of the classmates performed with confidence, but few of them showed their hesitation and shyness while teaching. It was inevitable that one might get nervous standing in front of many people, especially when you must teach those people a totally new language. Therefore, as the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” I believed the best way to boost teachers’ confidence was to practice their lesson plan many times beforehand, so that they would learn to teach very well on the stage.

Apart from the quality of a teacher, feedback from students was one of the elements I observed that would significantly influence classroom atmosphere. The situation that students being late was a bit serious in the beginning of my group’s teaching, but overall students’ engagement in class was quite nice. Trying to make the class more interesting, my group did many teaching activities that two days, including playing poker card, doing word chain, guessing riddles, and so on. Fortunately, our students gladly worked with us throughout the class. Their engagement lightened up the classroom atmosphere and enabled us to finish the class successfully.

Last but not least, I realized teaching aids were very helpful for students’ learning. My group prepared PowerPoint and online worksheet as our teaching aids. The other two groups were basically the same, but one of them printed out the worksheet. We used PowerPoint to introduce every line of the self-introduction in the target language. Students could quickly keep up with teacher with the help of PowerPoint. In addition, we typed the pattern of self-introduction on the worksheet, so students could refer to the worksheet for every line of self-introduction if they forgot. Comparing the effectiveness of paper worksheet with online worksheet, I thought paper worksheet was a better choice. Online worksheet was an eco-friendly choice but not the best choice, because smartphone in hand might easily distract students from the class.

In sum, I realized that not only a teacher’s confidence, but students’ feedback and teaching aids, would influence whether a class could go well. I was glad that I gained experience of teaching from the teaching demonstration. By observing other classmates’ teaching, I also had the chance to reflect on my own teaching. The Big Teaching Days was a meaningful activity to me!