Dear employer,
Thank
you for taking the time to read my letter and browse my online portfolio. Over
the course of the quarter, I have learned many valuable lessons from the course
and the through gaining real teaching experience while teaching the English for
All class. First, I want to draw attention to my thanks to my teaching
teammates and course T.A.’s and instructor for all their useful feedback and
advice. Without their help to improve in teaching, it would be impossible to
gain an understanding about how my teaching style appeals to an audience, or
more importantly a class. Finally, I am grateful to my students for being such
great and hard workers throughout the quarter and for making it easy to conduct
the class, as they were consistently active in participation and attendance.
None of their efforts go unrecognized.
English
for All was not my first time gaining real teaching experience, but it was my
first opportunity to gain practice in professional Lesson Plan building (both
weekly and daily), as well as in team teaching and team feedback through alternating
observations. In my past teaching experience, I have tutored for Ohio
University in the OPIE Pronunciation lab for two full academic years and an
additional summer (Fall quarter 2010-Summer quarter 2012). Additionally, I
taught English in China for 2 ½ months during the summer 2011 at Linkman
International Language Institute in Hangzhou, China (Xiaoshan District).
Although my previous experience has prepared me well and allowed me the
teaching immersion which is necessary to gain a concept of what it is like to
teach, the teaching Practicum: LING 410
(in addition to other Ohio University classes in the TEFL sequence) has enabled
me to advance my teaching skills to the next level by reflecting on it,
comparing it to the teaching styles of other peers and professional teachers,
and allowing me the chance to analyze my teaching and break it down in a way
that professional teachers must do.
Some
of the most beneficial parts of the practicum were daily reflections about how
we taught (completed after class), workshops (to help us improve in specific
skill teaching such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening), observing
our classmates teach, observing professional teachers in how they instruct
their OPIE (Ohio Program of Intensive English) classes, and lesson plan writing
(both daily and weekly plans).
Through
the help of our daily reflections, we were able to think about how we taught
that day, what went well, what did not go according to plan, and what we need
to change for the next class. By completing these reflections, we, as teachers,
were given the chance to discover for ourselves our strengths and weaknesses
and learn how to improve them through trial and error. This has helped maximize
my teaching style as I have made a proactive effort to continue with things
that I found effective, and do away with or improve on things that were less
effective. Otherwise, I would have not taken as much time to make these
realizations, such as in monitoring my speaking pace and monitoring time
management. It is also helpful that our classmates observe us while we are
teaching (we take turns depending on the day) so they can give us feedback,
such as Allison’s complimentary remarks about my ability to explain vocabulary
and directions clearly.
The
workshops were helpful in giving us tips about how to teach specific language
skills (reading, writing, grammar, listening, speaking) with greater affectivity.
One that I found especially useful was the grammar workshop, which made me more
aware of tips and techniques to use when teaching difficult grammar. As native
speakers at times have the disadvantage of less language awareness when
compared to non-native speakers (as they have acquired, rather than learned the
language), class T.A., Olena, taught us the “presentation, practice, and
production” technique when teaching grammar to avoid confusing explanations
that might not make sense to non-native speakers.
Observing
other teachers in another great thing that helped my improve on my teaching, as
learning from observation is something I often find to be more effective and
practical than learning teaching through concepts and textbooks. OPIE teachers
were extraordinarily helpful in giving feedback and advice when asked and kind
in facilitating our observations by making all materials available to us when
asked. Observing classmates was also very helpful, as it offered a means of
comparison and realizing ideas from someone else on the same teaching level.
Finally,
lesson planning was one of the most challenging parts of the course, in my
opinion. Not because I had never planned a lesson before (as mentioned above in
my previous teaching experience), but because I had never needed to plan a
lesson in the detailed and exactly worded-out way which was required for the
Practicum course. Through this style of lesson planning, we have learned to use
the specific “pre-activity, activity, post-activity” format required by our
instructor, as well as in writing objectives and evaluations for each activity.
This allowed me and other practicum students a sense of appealing to the
desires of the employer and following instructions for how lessons should be
planned in a professional manner.
Through
the Practicum, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my own previous
teaching experience and improve on it while gaining even more teaching
experience. Through observations, reflections, lesson plan writing, and
workshop attendance, I feel that I am now a more organized, professional,
experienced, insightful (with other people’s opinions and feedback), creative,
flexible, culturally rounded, and academic English teacher.
I
thank you for your time in reading my letter and invite and encourage you to
take a look at several of the lesson plans and sample teaching video posted on
the other pages of this blog site.
Please feel free to contact me for any further information or questions at sd257007@ohio.edu.
Cordially,
Sarah M. Dunfee
No comments:
Post a Comment