TESL 170 - Skill-Based Lesson Plan

Reading  

2 hours
Level: Advanced 2A (B2-C1)  
Students: 14

My second day of teaching went pretty well. I felt a bit more confident than last time. For this class, I had to create a skill-based lesson on reading. The positive side of this lesson was that the classroom teacher provided me with the materials I needed to cover in this class.
The lessons consisted of creating a worksheet (template provided by the classroom teacher), and the reading of an article which was part of the students' workbook already.
When I began to create the worksheet, I knew that I had to follow the same format as the classroom teacher. A list of new vocabulary words, idioms, and phrasal verbs had to be listed on this activity sheet along with their classifications (noun, adj, adv, verb, etc), and their meanings. In addition to this, there were two other sections, the fill in the blank and a set of sentences that were used for their conversation activity. I spent hours creating this activity sheet. I didn't think it was going to be that hard, but I guess my problem was in trying to find a simple way for the definitions. Although I got the definitions from the dictionary, sometimes you get more than one meaning, and that's when you get confused.
That was one of the observations of the classroom teacher for me. I was getting out of context when explaining an idiom. She suggested that it was better to stick to the context because you can easily confuse the students if you don't.
Another point that I have to keep in mind is that I have to allow the students to figure out things on their own. I cannot give everything to them because otherwise, they'll have no questions for me.

In overall, I think my lesson went well. I know that time will give the experience that I need so I can improve in those areas where I'm weak. I know I'll get there eventually.

Click here for this Lesson Plan, worksheet, and article used for this lesson.

TESL 170 - Reading Lesson 2

Reading   

1 hour
Level: Advanced 2A (B2-C1)  
Students: 18

It feels so good to finish with my practicum hours! ... and I think things went pretty good, except for a listening activity that I had planned as part of this lesson which I'll tell you about it as I go along with my reflection.

This was the second time I taught this class, and because of that, I already had a pretty good idea of the routine and expectations of the students. Last week my supervisor teacher came to observe the first hour of this class. I didn't want to start the class the same way I did then, so I decided to make a change in the routine. I had the students start the lesson backwards. Read first and then learn the vocabulary. I have to admit, making this change made me a bit nervous because I was afraid to confuse the students by having them read first without prior knowledge of the new vocabulary. I'm glad this part went well, though. I was able to quickly explain the new vocabulary as we read along with the article.

For the listening activity, the students were to fill in the blanks from a report given about the environment. As I was not able to access the link for this recording, I decided to use the CD that came with the students' workbook instead. Note, I had not heard the recording on the CD either, and still, I decided to play it for the students. So, when I played the recording, the students were not able to follow what they were listening to what they were reading. The recording was quite different. It had a lot of paraphrasing in it. I played the recording multiple times for the students and for me too. It was hard to understand. I knew right there that I had chosen wrong. I should've gone with my filler activity instead. I think that would've gone better.

At the end of the activity, we as a class ended up resolving the answers for this activity. I thank the students for being great about the whole thing. I don't think I'll ever present a material that I do not know to my students. Either you are 100 % sure about your lesson or not.


Please click here to see the full lesson plan.

Click on the Article used for this lesson.