Teaching Evaluation...

Teaching evaluation

This two month teaching experience has added immensely to my life.

History:
If I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to teach English at the Asylum Seeker Centre (AZC) in Middelburg last year, I could never have come up with the idea of initiating English classes at the AZC in Leiden. Therefore, I must say I am much obliged to Vincent, who came up with the idea of starting the SARA committee at Roosevelt Academy, and to Djeyhoun, for coming up with this brilliant idea of teaching English at the AZC in Middelburg. Last year I realised for the first time in my life that I could teach and I loved the experience of doing something for the people. The best reward for a teacher is the appreciation his/her students show for his/her efforts and work. I come short of words if I try to describe the delight I get from teaching. Perhaps it was this infinite amount of positive energy that I got from teaching, that gave me the push to start this project in Leiden.

Teaching at Leiden:
First I’d like to thank Mr. Peter for believing in my motives and intentions and giving me permission to start this project at the AZC in Leiden. I’d also like to thank him, Mr. Jac and all staff members (including the security/reception staff) for their help and support at all times. : )

Teaching English at Leiden was somewhat different than in Middelburg. In Middelburg I was part of a group and therefore, I only taught 1-3 times every 2 weeks, depending on the number of teachers available in a certain week. In Leiden I was on my own and I taught twice a week for a period of two months. Initially I had to combine it with the last module of this university year, but soon the summer holidays started and I was a free bird.

Error Analysis:
In these two months, I have learned immensely from my mistakes, planning and the pressure of my responsibilities. Since I was teaching more frequently I could track my own progress by means of these evaluations. I started to improve my teaching methods e.g.
- I started putting the website links on top of the handouts, so that the students could trace the exercises and perhaps find more exercises related to the topic.
- When I first began with teaching, the first few weeks were a disaster what concerns the duration of the lessons. However, with some practice I mastered (well, kinda) the art of having each lesson from 16:00 and 17:30.
- I also became less chaotic when compared to the first few lessons. This point would need some thorough explanation I suppose :). My English class consisted of students with various levels of English. Actually I divided the class in three main levels, namely beginners, general and advanced. It was the difference in levels that resulted in a chaos initially. By chaos I mean to say that I was running from one end of the classroom to the other explaining things. However, after a few weeks matters became quite stable. I not only got a better idea as to how many handouts were needed for a lesson, but I also knew how to divide the lesson and my attention between these three groups.

I hope to have learned from my mistakes. It is after all practice what makes a man perfect! : P

My teaching at the AZC Leiden has come to an end since the Asylum Seeker Centre is closing. I’m not entirely sure about my future plans in connection to teaching (English). I’ll try to begin a teaching activity soon as teaching keeps my soul alive, happy and active. :)


For questions, remarks and/or suggestions, please feel free to comment on this post... :)

Once again my thanks to everyone who helped me with this wonderful project :flowers:

Lesson no. 16

Lesson no. 16
5 Augustus 2009 / Wednesday
(16:00 – 17:30)

No. of students present = 1

The following link was given to the student: www.learn4good.com/languages/index.htm . This is a very useful website. Both explanations and exercises about various topics can be found on this website.

Topics of today:
Articles
Prepositions

An explanation was given to the student about the use of articles (definite and indefinite).
Explanation - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/articles.htm
Exercise 1 - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/article_ex.htm
Exercise 2 - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/article_ex2.htm

The explanation with the preposition exercise was explanatory in itself but it was still discussed. After each exercise I checked the exercise with the student and explained him why a certain answer was wrong.
Explanation & handout: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/adjectives_prepos.htm
.
P.S: On 7 August 2009 I planned to repeat this lesson once more since there was just one student last time, therefore before the lesson began I put the following explanation on the green board: (On 5 August 2009, the articles were explained in the same manner)

Lesson no. 15

Lesson no. 15
31 July 2009 / Friday
(16:00 – 17:30)

Total number of students present = 3

Beginners:

The following vocabulary (in alphabetical order) was present on the handout:
busy / cold / cute / dangerous / famous / fast / fat / handsome / heavy / hungry / noisy / poor / rich / scary / sick / sleepy / strong / warm

The teaching method used this time was the same as during lesson 14.

General:
I found a reading comprehension exercise on http://www.learnenglish.de/vocabulary/jobs.htm#dialogue . I edited the text of the reading comprehension in the following way: I erased prepositions from a few places in the text, and put blanks there instead. I asked the students to fill in the right prepositions. Once this exercise was done, we used the complete text to answer MCQ’s related to the text: http://www.learnenglish.de/Games/Reading/ReadInterview.htm . The MCQ’s were of an average level but the preposition exercise was considered a bit difficult by the students.

I also had a conjunction exercise http://www.esoeonline.org/main-index/index-exercises/grammarexs/elem/elemconjunctions.htm
about the use of ‘so’, ‘but’ and ‘because’. This exercise was found relatively easy.

Since prepositions are always found difficult by the students, I plan to search for or assemble an explanatory handout for the next time.

One student also attempted a preposition exercise from one of the previous lessons.

Extra note

1. Recently I started putting links on the handouts so that the students can see the source of the exercise and thus practice more exercises on that website if they like.
2. I plan to make a list of useful websites for learning English.

Lesson no. 14

Lesson no. 14

29 July 2009 / Wednesday

(16:00 – 17:30)

No. of students present = 4 (2 beginners, 2 advanced)

Beginners:
I used http://iteslj.org/v/ei/verbs.html to prepare a handout. Before the lesson began I wrote down all the words present on the handout on the green board in alphabetical order. I handed out the exercise and explained each word. Most words were a repetition from previous lessons, however there were a few new words. Once all words were explained, I asked the students to attempt the exercise and choose the words that represented the pictures. This way of teaching was more successful than last time because when I was explaining the words written on the board, I asked the students to guess their meanings first. In this way I knew whether they were acquainted with the meaning of a word or not.
Once the exercise was finished I asked them to make sentences. Afterwards I asked both students to write 5 sentences each on the green board.
In constructing the sentences, different forms of the verb ‘to be’ were used:
I ‘am’, You ‘are’, He/She ‘is’, We ‘are’ and They ‘are’.
The following vocabulary was discussed today:
Bloom / Cook / Cough / Clean / Climb / Cry / Dance / Drink / Fight / Get married / Look / Paint / Pull / Shout / Sit / Ski / Sleep / Smile / Smoke / Swim / Think / Wait / Wake up / Walk / Write

The handout can be found below:

Advanced:
For the advanced (and general) group I had written explanations of the handouts on the green board beforehand. The advanced students were taught the following topics:
- comparative/superlative (2 handouts: 1 from last time, 1 for this time)
- prepositions (only one student attempted this exercise)

The explanation of the comparatives as written on the green board can be found below:

I wasn’t well-acquainted about the rules when to double the consonant in a words when converting it to the comparative or superlative form. Therefore, for Friday I’ll check the rules and explain them.
Another difficulty was guessing whether a word ended in ‘–er’ (‘-est’) or whether ‘more’ (‘most’) was added in front of the word. Using the right form of the comparative and/or superlative can be learned by practice.

Link for this time: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=1140
Link 1 from last time: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2065
Link 2 from last time: http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/exercise-3-adjectives.html

One student who wasn’t present last time, found today’s exercise a bit difficult, therefore I gave him the exercise from last time first. After finishing it, he managed well with today’s exercise.

The second topics dealt with the use of conjunctions ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘or’.
Link: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/coconj1.htm
Their explanation as written on the board can be found below:

This exercise wasn’t marked as difficult by the students.

Only one student attempted the exercise about the third topic ‘prepositions’ - use of ‘at, about, on, etc’.
Link: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/gerund_prepositions.htm

The student found the exercise quite difficult. It was a very informative exercise in the sense that it taught the use of prepositions in combination with other words --> there are certain expression that need to be learned. The following expressions were used in this exercise:
- good ‘at’ playing volleyball
- complains ‘about’ bullying
- afraid ‘of’ losing
- feel ‘like’ working
- looking forward ‘to’ going out
- dreams ‘of’ living on a small island
- apologized ‘for’ being late
- agree ‘with’ staying in a foreign country
- insisted ‘on’ going out
- thinks ‘of’ climbing trees

Lesson no. 13

Lesson no. 13
24 July 2009 / Friday
(16:00 – 17:30)

Topics of the day:
Beginners: common nouns
General (and Advanced): Comparatives/Superlatives

Beginners:
I used http://iteslj.org/v/ei/nouns.html to assemble a handout about common nouns, which referred to objects and animals. The handout can be found below:

The following vocabulary was present on the handout (in alphabetical order):
Baseball / Beaver / Bicycle / Bowling / Bus / Cake / Car / Carrot / Cat / Cheese / Coffee / Computer / Dog / Egg / Elephant / Face / Fruit / Gorilla / Guitar / Hamburger / Hospital / House / Ice-cream / Laundry / Love / Music / Orange / Penguin / Person / Pizza / Salad / Snake / Strawberry / T-shirt / Umbrella / Vegetables / Wine

General:
Today comparatives and superlatives were explained to the students. After the explanation an exercise was given to the students: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2065. Once a student was done with this exercise, I checked it and discussed it with him/her and handed him/her the second exercise: http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/exercise-3-adjectives.html.
This was a new topic for most students and the students didn’t entirely consider it to be an easy one. Initially I had three exercises but since we didn’t have so much time during the lesson, I will use the last exercise (which is two pages long) for next time.

Lesson no. 12

Lesson no. 12

22 July 2009 / Wednesday

(16:00 – 17:30)

Today it wasn’t very busy in the class: 4 students in total.

PART 1:
I briefly explained the general students what question words were (who, when, why, what, where, how, etc) and gave them a written explanation and two exercises to work on.
Link of explanation: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/question_words.htm
Link of Exercise 1: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/questions/question_words.htm
Link of Exercise 2: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/questions/question_words2.htm

Overall it was an easy-to-do exercise for the students.
.
PART 2:
In the mean time I was busy with the beginners. I used the following website (http://iteslj.org/v/ei/furniture.html) to assemble the pictures and their respective options, as present in the quiz, on one page. Below you can find how the handout turned out to be:

I explained the students all the words that were present on the handout. Since the topic was ‘furniture’, I could show most of the objects mentioned in the handout also in the class room. Once we were done with the exercise i.e. encircling the word that described the picture, I asked the students to choose ten words they liked and make sentences with them. I needed the help of another students to convey this message to them though.
.
PART 3:
For the general group I also had an exercise about four conjunctions namely ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’ and ‘so/therefore’. I explained them what conjunctions were and when each of these four conjunctions was used. The students could then work on the exercise. This exercise can be found on: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/coconj1.htm
.
PART 4:
After a while Ì asked the beginner students one by one to read out a sentence they had written. And we practiced different types of sentences together. It was a good exercise because the students could practice their conversational skills and think about words to use in the their sentences. Once the board was full the students were given the chance to write down the sentences.
.
PART 5:
After checking the exercise about conjunctions (which was done by only one student), I wanted to explain a few things about the simple present. Last time we did some practice with the simple present and some mistakes were made quite often by students, therefore before the lesson started I had written an explanation of all the things, which you can find below: