2 Practice Teaching: A Reflective Approach

decency. Hence, after evaluating some similes that students had generated in pairs on their

worksheets, and praisin g the more Creative and adventurous ones, they were instructed to write a passage in their groups offour, describing and insulting the student teachen I must say that when I siibmitted the lesson plan to my cooperating teacher before the lesson, she had serious doubts about the lesson but nevertheless let me go ahead with it. She agreed at the end that it tarned oiit to be a really enjoyable lesson, bothfor the students and myself. On top ofthis, in terms o f instructional value, 1 fe lt that the lesson had also succeeded; some o f the similes generated were the most Creative and sardonic 1 had ever come across. This has strengthened my resolve that once we as teachers are able to engage students in pair Work and groups, learning will be much enhanced.

Carl, Hong Kong

When using a particular grouping arrangement, such as pair work or group work, it is important to make the puq)ose of the grouping arrangement clear to the students. Häving students work in pairs or groups does not serve any useful purpose if the teacher continues to teach to the whole class despite the fact that students are in pairs or groups.

Ma n a g i n g y o u r U s e o f C l a s s T im e

Your lessons may last from 40 to 50 minutes, but not all of that time is available for teaching and learning, since you will often have procedural issues to attend to, such as retuming assignments, discussing an activity you have prepared and how it is to be carried out, and so on. Some lessons have a good sense of pace and movement and maintain their momentum - an important part of retaining students’ interest and motivation in the lesson. Other lessons progress too slowly. Richards and Lockhart eite a number of strategies teachers can use to maintain the pace of a lesson:

• Avoiding needless or over-lengthy explanations and instructions, and letting students get on with the job of learning

• Using a variety of activities within a lesson, rather than spending the whole lesson on one activity

• Avoiding predictable and repetitive activities, where possible • Selecting activities of the right level of difficulty

• Setting a goal and time for activities; activities that have no obvious goal or conclusion or in which no time frame is set tend to have little momentum • Monitoring students’ performance on activities so that they have had sufficient

time to complete them but not too much time

(Richards and Lockhart 1994: 123)

As a novice student teacher, one o f the major problems I had (and to a certain extent stiil have) is with time management. I found it difficult to know how much time to give to a particular activity. I also noticed that Ifin d it difficult to make appropriate transitions from one part to another With practice, I have been getting a little bit better than before. Now in my lesson plan, I give special importance to these two areas. Somehow putting every detail in black and white in theform o f a lesson plan has helped me focus better on these issues. I do agree with the fact that students get restless when they are bored and it is up to the teacher to keep them occupied in a Creative andfruitfid manner.

Creating an Effective Qassroom Learning Environment | 1 3

A helpful way of thinking about the use of time in a lesson is through thinking of classroom time as consisting of four different categories:

1. Allocated time is the time allotted for teaching a class in the timetable, such as the typical 40- or 50-minute class period.

2. Instructional time is the time actually available for teaching after you have completed

noninstructional activities such as taking attendance, retuming homework, and so on. Perhaps in a 40-minute class period, 30 minutes of instructional time might be available.

3. Engaged time is that portion o f time in which the students are actively involved in leaming activities (also known as time on task). Perhaps it took a while for students to

start assigned activities since they spent some time chatting, organizing their desk or

Computer, and so on. Perhaps 25 minutes o f the instructional time was actually engaged

time.

4. Academic leaming time is the amount of time during which students are actively engaged and participating in an activity and leaming successfully from it. If an activity was too difficult or not well set up, students may spend some time on ineffective leaming routines and strategies before they finally find a successful way of completing the activity.

In observing your cooperating teacher’s class and in reviewing your own lesson it will be useful to find out what strategies are effective in providing for the maximum amount of academic learning time during a lesson. Timing is an issue described by a student teacher as follows:

The second part o f the lesson was afollow-up activity on a previous lesson dealing with the present continuous tense. Since the previous lesson sought only to touch on a basic level o f understanding o f the tense, this lesson aimed to biiild upon the previously acquired foundation o f the students, helping them to create text using the present continuous tense in a well-defined context. The activity required students to describe the ongoing activities in a picture. As expected, without realizing it, students made extensive use o f the present continuous tense in describing the activities in progress, as shown in the picture. This activity was also conducted in theform o fa game where different groups competed against one another to see which group could come up with the most sentences to describe the picture. The real intent o f the activity was only made known at the end, where students realized that they had actually made use o f the target structure unconsciously. One regret I had fo r the lesson was perhaps the fa ct that I was overly ambitious and tried to cover too much ground within thirty-five minutes. As a result, the second part o f the lesson, involving the present continuous tense, was at times a little rushed and I think the students also fe lt rushed. Perhaps what I should have done was to begin the lesson with the game o f picture description, andfollowing that, instruct students to individually create a story each, based on what each has observed in the picture. I think it is easier to p ut the plan on paper than carry it out because 1 stiil do not have an appropriate grasp o f the time element with my lessons. My cooperating teacher noted the same and toid me that this will come with experience in the classroom. She also mentioned that I should not be afraid to change my lesson plan during the class i f l see it is too time consuming or ifit is going too fast.