esl ::: emily's so luscious

Practicum, Day Fourteen ::: ProfObs4

Every time I turn around, I'm being observed! Tonight I videotaped myself (well, Pedro worked the camera, on account of I don't know how). I haven't watched it yet, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm curious to see what I've missed by not being able to watch myself. Thank goodness we have video cameras - I think an out of body experience would not lend itself to effective CLT!
I had another computer disaster (a relatively minor one). I keep losing my phone connection at home, where I only have dialup. This time, my connection borked while I was sending myself tonight's lesson plan, so I never got it. And b/c I was using the same account, it didn't even save a draft. That's what I get for waiting till the last minute and depending on unreliable technology. When I got the my office and realized what had happened, I typed up a worksheet from memory, but I didn't have time to rework the entire lesson plan. That whole story was to explain why I was unprepared for class. In other words, the computer ate my lesson plan. That's okay - I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do, and tried it.
I had a huge list of vocabulary words. I guess in my effort to recreate the lesson, I overcompensated on the side of quantity instead of quality. I didn't realize until later that I had actually given them 36 words. In retrospect, I should not have included words like "avocado", which are sold individually - that should be a separate lesson. A box of cereal is fine, and a carton or jug of milk. But they still had trouble with "each" and "for one", combining the two to say "for each", which sounds awkward. We'll work on that another night. I'm going to recycle the list in more manageable parts. I felt like I was out of control, tossing words and phrases left and right, and then I wasn't able to juggle the questions that arose from them. Because the list was so large, each step took longer than it should have, and we didn't have time to combine as a class again after their group work. I wanted to go around the room and give them an opportunity to report, but hopefully we can do a variation on that next class. Ideally, I would have followed that with how to ask for items, and how to ask for the price. I'm not too worried about messing up tonight, b/c I know they're not damaged, they haven't learned anything incorrectly, it's just been a time set-back. I'm sure part of my out-of-control-ness was due to the camera, which switches the actress on. I need to video myself more often, to see how I look, but I wish I could be unaware of the camera. Does anyone want to come rig my classroom with hidden cameras? I'm sure the government has done that already - I just need to find a secret agent and convince him to let me see the footage ...
Back to reality!
Problems with tonight's class:
- Disorganized
- Huge vocabulary list
- Confusing activity
- Ran out of time so loose ends did not get tied up
- Teacher was out of control (actress button got pushed, maybe?)
- Transitions were still wonky
These are all things that can be prevented by thoughtful planning, time management, and careful self-monitoring.
Next class, I will pare down the vocab list, and see how they do with a bit of simple roleplaying. I'll keep it simple - simple seems to work consistently well for me, but it has to be deliberate. I need to let Malinda do some teaching, too, since she hasn't gotten a chance with all these observations.
That's not to say I don't appreciate the observations, b/c the feedback I get is quite valuable, and it doesn't disrupt my class at all. Not that I think the class would notice being disrupted ... we're a bit rambunctious at times. At any rate, I look forward to hearing what Jamey has to say about it.

posted by E.M @ 11:33 PM