The First Lesson

My first lesson in Çapa High School of Science was a great experience for me. I joined the 9th class' English lesson, in this classes teacher generally focuses on listening and speaking rather than grammar. The teacher was so cheerfull and the class was amazing.

                                
The theme was sport and the lesson started with some warm-up questions such as;

-What is the initial first number in basketball form?
-Who won the first World cup?
-Who is the first Turkish climber to Everest?

The class was so smart and eager to join to the activities as if there was nothing they don't know.
The teacher could manage the class well. Also, teacher asked some questions about her personal life which was a good way of drawing attention such as 'I have a son. Guess his age. Guess his favorite football player.' Then teacher asked every student about their favorite team. It was so entertaining and the class was so interested.

At the end of the lesson the teacher chooses one student and this student brings a song that she/he likes. Also the student distributes some kind of worksheet that he/she prepared which was written the lyrics of the song with some missing words. They listen the song first time just for entertainment and the second time for finding the missing words. The student who brings the activity chooses their friends for answers like a teacher and I find it encouraging. Finally they sing the song together. After the lesson I talked with the teacher and learned that they do this activity in their all lessons. It was a good activity to improve the students' listening ability.

Week 3

 This lesson the topic was ‘Feelings’ and the lesson overtly focused on speaking. As a warm-up activity the teacher asked some questions to class such as;

-What do you feel before exams?

-What makes you feel jealous? and so on…

 Than the teacher asked the class about their friends. ‘Who is the most pleased/upset/nervous student in the class?’ It was very good, entertaining and encouraging activity that the students liked a lot. The classroom athmosphere was very funny and motivating. But there is a point in this activity that the teacher should be careful about selecting adjective because a negative word such as upset or lonely can make that student feel bad. As they are in adolescence period we know that they are so emotional and the teacher should be careful about it.

 The teacher continued the activity by choosing a student and asking the class about her/him.

‘Tell me about her by using the adjectives.’ The class liked this activity a lot as well and they were so eager to see who was selected, who said what about her/him and they wanted to share their thoughts/feelings.

 Than there was a vocabulary activity. There were words and their definitions on the book so the students were supposed to match the words with their definitions. The teacher allowed the students to use their mobile phones or dictionaries. Of course most of them chose to use their mobiles J It think that it was good for the teacher to let the students  to use or engage all the amenities that they have in the classroom.

 As a post activity they watched a video on the smartboard with English subtitles. It was a documentary and the speaker had English accent so I think that was an authentic material. At the end of the class the teacher asked some questions about the video in order to check their understanding.

Week 2

WEEK 2

This week I observed the 10th class. The topic was ‘Past Tense & Past Continuous Tense’ and they were going to have English exam the following week so the teacher wanted to finish the grammar subjects as soon as possible.

At the beginning of the class there was no warm-up activity. The teacher directly started the lesson like ‘Open your notebooks and write down the sentences on the board.’ It was 8 o’clock and I felt as if the students had a bit difficulty to adapt the lesson. The sentences were about the usages of the past tense;

-actions at a definite line

-repeated actions in the past

- people who are no longer alive

Than the teacher asked the students which tense is it? As they already knew the tense from the last year they just reminded the rules. Teacher gave some sentences as an example which were funny from the newspaper headlines. (e.g. ‘Diana was stil alive hours before she died.’) It was real language and very authentic sentences taken from newspapers so I found it beneficial and encouraging.

In a same way teacher continued with ‘Past Continuous Tense’, first she gave the usages and than rules. After finishing the rules she wanted the students to complete the exercises in their book.While the students were doing the exercises about the tenses the teacher walked in the class, checked and observed the students also helped some students who needed help.

I observed that standing in front of the board while teaching the rules helps students to focus the subject and walking around the classroom while the students doing activity helps teacher to control, observe and eventually reflect to her students.