TESL 170 - Skill-Based Lesson Plan

Writing

2 hours
Level: Intermediate 2 (B1)  
Students: 10

Well, things didn't go the way I had planned.

I'm going to tell you how something so small can actually affect the rest of your day. In my case, it was the photocopy machine. Yep, that's it. Since I started my practicum, I have been trying to get to school earlier, so I can connect with the classroom teacher and do the photocopying for my lessons. But today, things went from bad to worse! 

I waited for about 20 to finally do my copies for the lesson that I was about to give. My lesson starts at 1:00 pm and It was 1:00 o'clock already and I was still waiting for the machine to stop photocopying jobs that were coming in from other teachers. I was so frustrated and so worried that I was not ready for my lesson and I kept saying to myself, "I should've done the photocopying yesterday"! I was so mad at myself for that.

I guess the classroom teacher somehow saw me in the photocopy room and offered some help - thank God she did. So, as she could clearly see that I was so behind on my task, she told me that she was going to go upstairs and entertain the students until I got there. Finally, I arrived in the classroom 12 minutes past 1:00. From here, everything went downhill. My timing for all my activities was terrible. I rushed the students at some of them, and I found myself really behind when I had to correct the students' writing. My mind was really thinking about what caused my reason for falling behind. I should've stopped and adjusted my lesson to the time that I had left; by the time the class was over, I put my head down into disappointment and told the classroom teacher that I felt like if I didn't accomplish anything. I felt so awful for the rest of the day. I couldn't stop thinking about it, especially when I knew that I could've done something about it, but I let the frustration take over me, and that's what didn't let me reassess the situation.

Oh well, I guess this happens to everyone who's in the teaching field or any field for that matter. We are not 100 % perfect, and it is okay to experience this kind of situations. It's part of our learning.

Click here for the full Writing Lesson Plan

Sponsor Teacher's comments:

Hi Jenny,

This class didn't run quite as smoothly as the previous ones regarding timing. However, there were many good activities and opportunities for practice for the students.

Attached is the observation form and below are some additional comments.

Observation: July 17 (2 hrs)

Level: Intermediate 2 (B1) - Writing

Done well:

• You got students involved at the start by having them try to guess the writing topic
• You used a video to get students interested in the topic
• You gave them a clear time within which to complete their writing task
• Good job pushing them to use words to describe "disaster" 
• Well done going back to the lower-level student to see that she was on task
• You had them do different types of writing tasks
• You went over the pronunciation of the target vocabulary
• You gave them speaking time to practice their fluency. This is always a good idea. It also gave them a second way to interact with the vocabulary.
• Though there wasn't time, the video writing at the end would have been fun! 

 Areas to grow:

• Give them 2-3 small things to listen for in a warm-up video
• Let them use their full time for their free writing (without correction) so that they can have a continuous flow of ideas
• Help individual students with writing correction afterwards, while the class is working on the vocabulary tasks 
• Remember to tie the free-writing topic into the vocabulary lesson via the reading
• Make sure students have the answers available to the practice tasks they do
• Remember to watch the time you set on the timer
• Work on timing in general. Some activities took too long. The timed writing went longer than 10, so then the writing correction took more time because they wrote a lot. 
• For the one student who has trouble with production, try giving her time to write her answers first, and then she can read them to her partners.

This group of students had lower energy than other classes, but you did a good job motivating them with your enthusiasm.