On 22nd February, 2021, Monday evening, I joined the LLC Conversation Club’s Social Room for delivering my 3rd practicum. The topic covered was a mix of ‘Welcome Back & Holidays’. Since there were was a reading break the previous week, hence I believed it to be an apt topic to cover on this day.

Reflections

There are a lot of things that appealed to me as I reflect upon my teaching. I engaged the students from the very first slide. The interactive whiteboard was turned on and students wrote as they entered the class. Today, a new teaching technique was used, Nametags. This was totally new for the students. I used this technique to ensure uniformity and equal participation. Students were very happy about it and responded promptly. A number of Moddle tools were used like the public chat, polling and the interactive whiteboard. This added an element of variety and kept the students entertained throughout the class. I had mentioned about 2 students Elizabeth and Valadyslav who never responded in any way, in the previous session, the latter spoke for the 1st time. This session he was eager to speak and requested to speak out of turn. Not only this, his camera was also on for most part of the class. Interestingly, Elizabeth also spoke today for the first time, it is great to have 100% interaction from all the students in the class. As I believe in over planning, I had planned a part of the topic to be covered in the breakout rooms. However, I did not get a chance to conduct this activity. This is due to the fact that this time I decided to continue the activities wherein good communication happened between students. I tried to improvise from my previous session by following adaptation technique. Debrief technique was used in the exit ticket, it was good to see students remember some facts covered in the session.

Nevertheless, there are a few things I would like to do differently. I spent around 20-25 minutes on one slide as it was going good. Nevertheless, in future I want to limit myself to maximum 10 – 15 minutes on a slide.  I would still need to work on my speed of speaking which was sometimes fast in this session, though it did not seem any problem with the students.

My key take-aways are as follows. To try and introduce something new every time as students enjoy it. This is in addition to the colorful slides and variety, so I will continue working towards that. Adaptation is the key to a good lesson, when needed must be applied. Just like I did today, prepare more slides as it is always better rather than being under preparation. At the same time just like I did today, I had to skip an activity i.e. if there is an interactive session happening in the earlier slides. Keep encouraging students to speak and continue to have 100% class involvement every time.