On 8th March 2021, Monday evening, I joined the LLC Conversation Club’s Social Room for delivering my 7th practicum. The topic covered was ‘Let’s travel today’. Since we are living in a global pandemic and travel has been restricted, to cover this topic seemed right as students would feel happy and enjoy.

Reflections

Today being International Women’s Day, I started the session by welcoming students with a song. I played the Women’s Day anthem, “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy. We wished each other and started our session.

During the session breakout room activity was planned, students were divided into groups and they were given clear verbal instructions along with instructions written on the slide. This was done to ensure proper comprehension & avoid any confusion. Further, I asked them if anyone had a doubt and that they are welcome to ask me. 1 student (Malka) did have confusion which was cleared and then again I double-checked by making students type 1 in the chat if everything was clear. Only after all the students had understood, was the activity started. The purpose was to create a relaxed environment for students to draw maximum benefit out of the session and also to develop a mutual relationship of respect complemented with confidence. The benefit of extending extra help was seen later during the session when a student (Shuyi) asked the correct pronunciation of a word. A point worth mentioning is that this helps in reducing fossilization, i.e. fixation of wrong concepts/errors. I felt a great sense of pride in the trust students had placed in me. It also highlights the level of comfortability and a fear-free environment of the class.      Multiple Moodle tools and activities, colorful slides, name tags were planned to create variety & have fun in the session while aiming at L2 learning. I also try to add humor in the sessions in addition to the various techniques as this benefits the students.                                                                                 

During the session, a game was planned, the landmark game we played demonstrated the use of controlled to free practice of L2 learning. Few answers were provided and the rest of the information, students had to find themselves.

Towards the end of the session, I had planned a surprise for the students, a new game, matching exercise on hot potatoes. However, students were not able to play at their end because as a student told me that it was saved on C: drive which played only on my laptop. I was not aware of this earlier. Plus I confirmed from Jason, our Tesl 3040 instructor, who had taught us the use of hot potatoes; that TRU may not support Hot Potatoes exercises within Moodle anymore, he had checked with IT services who confirmed this. However, I promised the students that I will try to use this game/exercise software in any of my next sessions.

I would continue to create a stress-free & fear-free environment where students can confidently ask me anything they feel needs clarification. This empowers the student and gives them the courage to make mistakes which eventually leads to developing L2 while preventing fossilization.