On 10th March, 2021, Wednesday evening, I joined the LLC Conversation Club’s Social Room for delivering my 8th practicum. The topic covered was ‘Hobbies’. I selected this topic believing that everyone could relate to it.

Reflections

My desk was set and I waited for students to enter. I had arranged their name tags on my table. As and when a student entered, I picked up the name tag corresponding to their name. Also, simultaneously I make a list of their names on a paper. This helps me keep a record of student interaction. Today, as we did the discussion circle activity, students were supposed to write their names under 1 hobby and speak about it. These hobbies were spread over 2 slides, students were given an option to choose a hobby from any 1 slide. As the students spoke, I ticked their names on the list which I made in the beginning of the session. Towards the end of this activity, I realized that 1 student (Elizabeth) had not written her name anywhere. This helped me call out to her and make her participate in this activity. Normally, I used the list to ensure that all students speak during the session, but today it helped me to ensure that all students participate also in an activity. Furthermore, I really worked very hard on the slides to make them intriguing and engaging for the students.

Breakout room activity was held with 3 students in each room. I was able to move around in different rooms this time, I couldn’t do this in my earlier sessions. As I went in room A, I heard 2 students (Elizabeth & Valadyslav) talking in their L1. I had to politely tell them to talk in English as the 3rd student (Tommy) could not understand them. I learnt from this experience that in a multilingual classroom, students speaking the same L1 should be separately placed in different rooms/groups to ensure that they talk in English. This will benefit them greatly in learning the L2. Also, students were supposed to copy the notes from shared chat in the breakout room and paste in the public chat in the main room. They did it successfully, highlighting that they remained cognizant of the time while multi-tasking.

The new thing that I did today was, I made the students Google, ‘the most popular hobby during coronavirus outbreak’. There was excitement seen in the class, multiple answers were coming, it was intriguing, engaging, fun, and exciting. I was initially reluctant to add this activity and kept it before the Exit ticket. However, to my surprise, students loved it.

Many Moddle tools were used like the breakout rooms, shared notes, public chat, polling and the interactive whiteboard. This added variation element and kept the students entertained throughout the class. 100% class involvement was achieved in the session.

I have successfully managed to keep my speed of speaking under control throughout the session.

Nevertheless, there are a few things that I have to work on. I exceeded the time again by 4-5 minutes. I would try to keep it short next time

My key take-aways are as follows. I have observed that 1 student is consecutively not participating in the group activities, so to ensure that all students participate I would continue using my self-devised strategy of maintaining and checking lists & name tags. This not only helps in ensuring the full involvement of the class but also alerts the students about their non-involvement. Also, in my opinion, ensuring student engagement from the very 1st slide is imperative. Lastly, as students love variety, I hope to continue giving them that using all the tools of Moodle, colorful slides, activities, name tags, etc.