Teaching Reflection Paper

Matt Altstiel
4/23/07
TESL 3001

Reflection Paper

Over the course of my brief teaching career, several specific situations, particularly my first successful implementation of group work activity stands out in my mind. The concepts taught in class readings, lectures and activities all provided a background and framework to use in actual lesson planning and completion. The group of students I worked with were all Latinos between the age of 18 and roughly 55 or 60 at CLUES in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis. As a facilitative type of teacher, I sought to provide guidance but tried to force students to think critically for themselves, especially in small group work. For a variety of reasons, however; the group exercises often frustrated the students and myself. It was not until I switched approaches, applying the techniques learned during class, that students really engaged and acquired the material.

Principles, techniques and In-Class Insights

Class materials and insight provided from the Brown textbook revealed that certain activities I had been using for group work, that is, for groups of 3-4 were really only appropriate for pair work, and vice versa. Longer problem solving activities that required a lot of on spot, creative dialogue often left pairing with nothing to say after only a short time. Course materials led to an understanding that, pair tasks ideally were controlled in structure, short and linguistically simple.[1] This principle of pre-selecting appropriate group techniques rather than simply assigning groups according to random order and attendance resonated deeply with the students. The principal of task selection therefore was crucial to proper implementation.

The typical tasks mentioned under the group task headings also sunk immediately for me as a teacher when we tried each activity as a class and then broke into a modified jigsaw to teach each new activity. Various activities such as: games role-play simulations, interviews, brainstorming, information gap and jigsaw all embodied several important principles of teaching. For example, these activities were fun; effectively lower the affective filter as normally introverted students were no longer nervous to speak within the group. Secondly, the course material was all student derived making the material completely relevant and giving the students a real sense of intrinsically driven motivation. Activities like the Jigsaw modified the difficulty as students first had to complete tasks of differing skill sets and skill levels, and then recount what they had learned to the rest of the group. Therefore, not only did these activities break the monotony of a standard group lesson and overdependence on curriculum based material, they also brought together reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

Selecting the appropriate tasks is but one facet on effective group exercise planning. I realized that my ineffective or non-existent planning often ruined the chance for success before I even walked into the classroom. During class material, we reviewed important rules for preparation such as “Introducing the technique, justifying the use of small groups, modeling the technique and giving explicit detailed instructions.”[2] All of these rules helped clarify techniques for the students as well as giving the teacher his or her proper methodology for using the techniques. In particular, modeling the technique and giving explicit detailed instructions really stood out to me. When examining reading exercises, Mike Anderson showed how different explicit instructions completely changed the nature of the task and the level of difficulty. The reading exercise employing the summarization and post-reading questioning of an old English text became much easier when accompanied with coherent instructions. Therefore, proper planning and modeling could greatly enhance student understanding of the task and lead to successful and efficient completion.

Another very important preparative rule involved forming groups or pairs of students who would complement each other abilities. This requires a substantial personal investment on the part of the teacher to truly know other student’s personality types, interests, linguistic ability and target language goals. Too often I had simply paired up students who were sitting next to each other not taking into account the vast differences within proficiency levels even though all of my students feel into the CASAS range of 620-650. Furthermore, one particular student could not be prodded into group work and would work on specific task himself even if a technique such as role play mandated multiple student interactions.

While proper planning following the rules of implementing, and choosing proper techniques ensures the possibility for success, proper monitoring during the task also is vital to encouraging learning. The list Brown provided listing a few don’ts gave me insight into several things I had done wrong in the past. For example, I had left class on one particular occasion to grab coffee. When I returned, most of the students had switched groups and speaking Spanish, joking with their friends about the past weekend. While they returned to their previous groups, the level of focus had faded and the task remained essentially uncompleted.

One particular area that I had always positive interacting and engagement from students was the post-activity wrap up as summarized in the techniques of Reporting on task objectives and establishing affective support. Through this post-activity, students gave me valuable insight into what they liked about and activity and what could be changed to increase the effectiveness the next time. Unfortunately, miscalculations in the planning and implementation stages probably affected students’ responses during this informal question and answer session. Our teacher, Mike Anderson always seems to encourage students to report on a specific task as a motivational temperature gauge[3] and logical progression point to begin a new activity or thematic subject.

The Incident

Gaining insight into these techniques, principles and insights armed me with the knowledge to properly plan a lesson and carry it out much differently than in previous weeks. In general, better planning leading up to the sixth teaching week had given me better class participation, increased attendance and more confidence in my abilities. However, my group work teaching epiphany only occurred when I utilized all of the principles I had been taught in class in tandem. The particular situation occurred around 7:30 when I had decided to transition from weekly journal time, (usually a free writing, informal kick back time for students) directly into a section involving apologizing and giving explanations. I remembered the barking dog - neighbor role play that we had used in class and designed an activity accordingly. In this activity, I told the class I was going to them into groups of three, explaining what the technique entailed and how this pragmolinguistic theme occurred on a daily basis.

After explaining the validity of the technique, I effectively modeled it by using my own example (I used to different voices to change characters) and traced the route of the conversation on the bored. I had them think up situations that would occur or already did occur in their every day life and based off their suggestions filled out the blank conversation bubble boxes to provide an outline. Finally, I put together students of differing ability and but similar personality types. Less advanced students were helped by more advanced students, and more introverted students did not have the activity dominated by more talkative students.[4]

I walked around the class careful to monitor students in a non-intrusive, but helpful manner. I avoided my tendency to overcorrect and even when asked would deflect questions through recasting and elicitation techniques. I noticed that the students; well aware of the task at hand, prepared with a class generated list of pertinent vocabulary and comfortable with the group selections really opened up within the exercise as never before. Careful to give the students a one minute warning, I could hear the students naturally change their pace to match the time limitation I had provided. Walking around, I heard students using a command of language they had seldom displayed during whole class exercises and concluded to myself: this is it! This is what I’ve wanted to see out of my class. I knew they could do it.” Students began writing down unfamiliar activity generated words and genuinely were having fun forming creative answers to common situations.

During post-activity wrap up and activity summarization, students seemed abnormally eager to share their opinions and stories from the activity. I no longer felt as if I had to pry information from the students by asking an excessive amount of questions or using gestures. I felt as if the exercise contained the right balance of fun and relevance to provide truly meaningful language acquisition. I began to plan all of my group activities in a similar way within the allotted boxes contained in the High Intermediate classroom binder. As each group activity became easier to teach and involve a higher degree of difficulty, I realized that this particular role play really represented a turning point within my teaching experience. Not merely feeding students information and hoping they digested it, it was if I had taught them to cook and enjoy what they themselves had made.

Connection

Reflecting upon this pedagogical change I realized the direct correlation between research, practice and perfection. In order to facilitate optimal group work results, I first had to learn techniques and see for myself the validity of their theory. This was accomplished through in class practice which familiarized students with ways to effectively introduce new activities. The book and course notes served as a refresher and a great way to compare theory and practice. The combination between learned and acquired knowledge allowed me to create a multi-step, multi-level activity that could reach all students regardless of ability or personality type. In short, the connection between theory and practice is always apparent, the only question is whether you combine these in the correct way.
[1] Brown, 183-184
[2] Brown, 187-188
[3] In class notes
[4] Brown, pg. 189