This week, the lesson was a great end of semester wrap-up. Obviously, I meant that this lesson was a potential last class due to how next week may look like in school. We had more students come in progressively, but they missed a fair bit of the beginning. Luckily, I was able to quickly gain the attention of the students that came late. They immediately immersed into asking others and responding to each others’ questions. During the breakout room activity, the students spent a few minutes asking one of six questions to ask questions to a peer. Also, the same peer responded back to them. The students had growing opportunities to discuss and practice their speaking and listening competencies. For that, I had to make sure I remove myself as the teacher but as the facilitator instead. It was successful, but there was a point during the activity that a student was stuck with a thought. And so, I deemed it necessary to step-in and give him/her some ideas as examples. Takeaway: committing to change what is needed.

Students had expressed before that they would love to do more drawing, so I included it in our lesson slides. They participated a lot, and explained the image importance. It was surprising as it related how “listening to the students” and asking them based on their interests can increase their participation in the class. Reflecting on my TESL classes, I found that students enjoyed the lesson if they had personal experience and/or became interested in the topic. Takeaway: committing to valuing student feedback.

Even though we had included learning objectives and outline in our previous lesson slides, the teaching assistant really spoke about how vital the two were to our lesson. She was in charge of the class today, and she thought the inclusion of both the LOs and outline served as guides for students to what was the next sub-topic. Bringing an effective way to engage students. She added the remark that this lesson was the most engaging thus far. I appreciated this comment, as both my partner and I hoped to change what was needed to make sure students enjoyed coming to the LLC. Also, used the feedback we have obtained till now and show our growth. Takeaway: committing to detailed schedule.

Reminiscing on the past weeks of teaching in the LLC, I thought that teaching opportunities are to give teachers a list full of experiences to reflect and grow from mistakes. Teachers were never meant to be perfect figure head in the classrooms. Presumably, I had this notion in mind as we began teaching our first lesson in the LLC with our sponsor teacher. It was supplemented weekly by the autonomy our sponsor teacher gave us, which encouraged us to make mistakes and change them overtime. I also appreciated how we grew in the time that we were assigned. Firstly, our lessons were not meant to be long, nor had time to be long. As a 50-minute session, time usually was our worst enemy. Somehow and someway, my partner and I pulled through and made sure the lesson was as fluid as possible. In addition, we made sure to hear and apply the student feedbacks. From the TA’s and our Sponsor teacher’s feedback, I wanted to changes to be seen in the next lesson. At the very least, there was an attempt to change. Bad habits or character changes were difficult, but once you understood the root of your mistake/habits/character and amend it a bit, all went well. Students appreciated the opportunities to talk and express personal relations to the chosen topic. Takeaway: committing to accept changes within ourselves.

Lastly, I would say that if this week was perhaps our last lesson, I was proud how the lesson ended. There were parts that could be better (as always), but considering the overarching fluidity and content, we engaged the students consistently. These lessons saw the differences between talking less and talking a lot. “I talked a lot” was not a negative, rather showed that students did not receive sufficient time to reflect and speak in succession. Contrarily, “I did not talk much” showed that the roles were switched, and the progression of the class lied on the students’ ability to move on. If they wanted to stay on a sub-topic, we stayed on it. Students observed and quickly realize they were in control of the flow of the class, so they loved talking when given the chance. Takeaway: committing to noting difference and using it in future lessons.

The following are the slides of our Dream Vacation lesson: