My lesson was not a traditional course but an innovative one.
It was more of a
communicative-based course where students could express their opinions freely. The fact that it
was a fun lesson was the most positive aspect of my course. My constant cheerful behavior
encouraged the participation of the students in the class. As much as possible, I tried not to stay
in a fixed place in the classroom and to move around the classroom, giving individual feedback
to the students and checking their work. I think that the video, visual materials, and applications
made the lesson enjoyable. The students aged 12-13 were especially interested in the lesson and
were curious about what they would do. They participated actively, even though they usually
don't care about English classes; the fact that they did well shows how good these new features
are.
I had good control of the class for 20-25 minutes of the lesson. However, later on, when
they sent the people in charge of the administration to the class twice and asked some students to
leave the class, it caused a noise in the class, and the children's focus was disturbed. I tried to get
them to get back into the lesson and had some success. I could also have done some of the
activities in the lesson differently. For example, when the students came to the board and wrote
the answers, they made noise. This caused a lot of talking among themselves and affected the
lesson.Another problem was that my class was crowded. The class size was around 33-34. This
made it very difficult for me to recognize all the students in the class, and although I wanted to
pay special attention to them, it took a lot of work to find time for each one.
This teaching experience was fascinating for me. Before, I had only done a short training
session of about 15 minutes, but this one was an entire 40-minute lesson. I learned class
management, time management, and material selection are essential. If you cannot control the
class at the beginning of the lesson, you cannot control the class until the end of the lesson. Also,
we must think carefully about the duration of the lesson. I had too many activities and wanted
them to do all of them. However, it took so much time to do all of it. In addition, course
materials are also significant. Because if the students are not interested, the lesson cannot be
taught successfully.
If I could teach the lesson again, I would consider including fewer activities. Sometimes,
I couldn't dedicate much time to certain activities, but they were necessary. I could have
extended the presentation part and added more context. This way, it would have been more
understandable. I could have done it individually rather than collectively when telling students to
come to the board. This would have reduced noise in the classroom and made it easier for
students to focus. However, despite all this, the lesson was successful, and I achieved my goal
and covered the essential parts I wanted to teach.
