In this lesson experience, I taught with my colleague. Familiar students came back, and new names joined. Further, I was able to use the materials and resources to my advantage. When a timer had only a few minutes left, I was able to add minutes to the pre-existing timer. I did this because my plan was to have equal numbers of students join one of two breakout rooms (one by led me and another led by my colleague.) However, the count was somewhat imbalanced. As the student were talking, I saw that a lot more students had joined my breakout room instead. Now, seeing that I only had 2-3 minutes left to allow the others to converse, I thought of adding more minutes. I took a chance and all the students in the group were able to share and converse at a good pace. At the end, I appreciated this ability to change on the spot. Realization point: Flexibility

Throughout the lesson, the flow seemed great. My sponsor teaching did mention a few points for future considerations. I took to heart her comment on levelling. This is very crucial in teaching a low to high beginner classroom settings. If grammar structure, vocabulary and pacing are not appropriate enough, student might not fully comprehend anything spoken. If lucky, they might have understood half of what was said as instructions. Hence, I became aware of pacing and created easier dialogue for students to easily comprehend words’ meaning. As my sponsor teacher said, “planning more doesn’t mean you have to do more. You include more just to be able to use it if you have more time. If there’s no time, you can skip it.” This phrase or saying related to me because of what I’ve seen in my current lessons in the LLC. Sometimes we may plan the exit ticket, but we somehow don’t allocate enough time for it. For that, we either omit or vocalize it. Realization points: Relatability & Time Management

Lastly, I reflected on whether teaching a higher level is harder, or a lower level harder. Relating to what my sponsor teacher mentioned, levelling is very important. Knowing your class is vital, especially if a teacher promotes worthwhile learning. Worthwhile meant besides having challenging material or content, students are given time to wrestle with the new material. As i+1 suggest, the students must be given enough time and materials that are 1 level above their current level in order to grasp new understanding. I thought about materials we use that benefit students’ short-term growth. Later realized that those that can grow will never grow. Challenge needed concurrent experiences to facilitate. If not, the class progression will stay the same and never level up. Realization point: Appropriate Challenges

I enjoyed this lesson as it taught me to be adapting and reflective of my demographic. A teacher that forgets about this aspect, might wind-up teaching a class of puzzled students.

The following is the slides for my lesson about ‘school’.