Procedures of my teaching
Below is the procedures of my teaching when I taught grade 5 students.
Time management and organizing activities
The time given to teach in every class is 60 minutes. Thus, I had to maximize the short time as effective as possible. Before I teach, I already predict how much time for each activity and the time for the activity is as follows:
a. 10 minutes for preliminary activities (greetings, warming up and motivation).
b. 15 minutes for presentation (teacher’s explanation and discussion).
c. 20 minutes for practice and production (teacher asks students to work in a group to discuss the lessons).
d. 15 minutes for evaluation (teacher asks students to do a task).
Problem-solving
During my observation period, I already predicted the problem that I might face and how to solve it.That came from the reflection of my coordinating teacher’s teaching. The are two main problems that he had to overcome and I thought that I would face the same problems because we both are foreign teachers. The first problem is how to control the students. The students tend to make noise when they just listen to the teacher. However, they will pay attention to the lesson if they also get involved in the learning process like giving opinions, writng on the board etc. Therefore, to solve this problem, I created a lesson plan that gave the students a chance to contribute in the learning process and not just listen to the teacher such as giving them questions, asking their opinions and pronouncing words and working in a group. The second problem is the language barrier. Most students can still hardly understand spoken English especially if the teacher speaks fast and not clearly. Thus, to overcame this problem, I spoke slowly and clearly and used body language or gestures a lot so that they can easily understand what I said. That worked well.
Classroom management
To manage the class run well, I always tried to grasp the students’ attention and paid attention to what they did. I spoke to them with a big smile and I think this is important to make them interested in me. I taught them energetically. I used to stand and move around the class to look at every student. If I found one of them talking to their friend or doing anything else, I would greet him/her and ask question like ‘are you okay?’. Surely, doing this can discourage other students to do the same. Sometimes, I made jokes if the situation was getting tense. Also, I often asked them questions related to the topic and gave them reward if they can answer the question correctly. For the first one who answered the question, I gave him/her a gift (key holder) that I brought from my hometown and for the next, I just asked all students to clap their hands for him/her.
My overall impression in teaching
I was so impressed with the students’ willingness to study. I thought that it was going to be difficult for me to encourage the students to learn or to listen to what I’m saying. In fact, it was easy. The students were eager to learn. They paid attention to me and always followed my instruction. They are also brave. They wouldn’t be shy to answer the questions that I asked. They always asked my permission if they wanted to go to the toilet. Moreover, they do the assignments by themselves without cheating on their friends. I found it so much fun.