“Ms. Amy, what do we do?”

Our microteaching in Week 6 left me with a lot of questions about the way I teach, and even the way I understand my learners, their needs, and their performance.

There were aspects of my feedback from Tom that shocked me…or maybe bothered me, not because I thought he was wrong (although the thought crossed my mind, briefly) but because they challenged me to examine whether I truly know my students.  And whether or not I actively work to creating opportunities for them to discover language on their own.

Before I give some examples of what I have noticed in the past two weeks – I’d like to mention some things that may have influenced my Microteaching performance.  Apart from the obvious challenge of trying to ‘pretend’ my classmates were my real students, there were other things that I think affected how it went.

Firstly, I had taught the exact lesson the day before (you can see the video in my 5^th blog post) and actually, I thought it went really well.  The students spoke a lot, and seemed enthusiastic to participate in the activities.  One thing I did notice was that my timing was so off, that I purposefully tried to “cut out” sections which I thought would take too long.  Perhaps my choice of such omissions (rephrasing, repetition, modelling etc.) was a large part of the problem.  I tried to ‘move the lesson along’ but by doing so, took away some of the most valuable element of the lesson.

Secondly, and this is no fault of theirs, I found it difficult to respond to my colleagues, especially when their attempts at using “Intermediate Low” language was different to what I usually hear in my class.  I am tempted to say that my students speaking proficiency was higher than that used in the MT.  What I realise is that I may not have responded in the appropriate way (I may not have attempted MICs, because I was “too stuck” in thinking of my class – and not what the learners presented – which is ultimately what I should be doing!)

One of the main things that ‘bothered me’ about my feedback was that the task I set in the preview (looking at pictures of amusement parks) may have been too difficult for speakers of this proficiency.  When I watched my video from my class at my hagwon, I feel I saw my own students interacting with the material in a positive way.  While I do think that my own students responded with more enthusiasm than my colleagues, perhaps my students’ complexity and depth of response showed their inability to fulfil the task as I had set up “tell me what is happening in this picture.” 

Another comment on my feedback related to my use of MICs (or lack thereof) as well as my Teach-talk (speed, level of complexity, direction clarity etc.)  It was funny to think that I had shortened my Teacher-Talk for the MT  - because when I watched it…I saw clearly that I had not… (Oh how will I ever stop talking…I mean, look at this blog post…it’s probably already too long…)  This point was reinforced as I was typing up my Module 1 paper in hospital – looking at the transcript was almost a joke.

I’d also like to reflect on some examples of using/or not using MICs, as well as my directions that came up this week in my class.

This week I went into the same class and we were about to start a new activity, which I asked them to do independently.  I felt myself  making sure I rephrased my directions clearly, and felt happy about the ‘confirming’ looks of the girls – and so turned around and began writing something on the board…About 3 words of writing later, I had a question from Andy, “Ms. Amy, what do we do?”  which saw my MT feedback form rushing in front of my eyes… I wish I had videoed this class to review my directions…but perhaps I don’t need to.  What is clear was that whatever my directions were, they were not clear to all the students.  Even my attempts at rephrasing didn’t help – not to sound overly dramatic – but if anything, it has highlighted to me that even though I am trying to ‘change my ways’ (and proud of myself for what I am changing, slowly) the ways I am changing still may not be enough for what the students need.

Andy’s comment really felt like a wake up call… “Wow – he may be that student who I lose every class…maybe he’s not shy?  Maybe he’s just lost…”

Incidentally…a similar thing happened on Wednesday in class.  I had written some words on the board and asked students to identify the nouns and make sentences with 3 of them… Everybody got writing – everybody was done.  I had students work in pairs to share their answers (I do pair work now…it’s great!) and when we did a quick share as a group…I noticed my ‘star student’ hadn’t followed the directions…. When that happened I – all I thought was, “right…this has got to stop…”