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General Reflection Part2: How I have applied what I have learnt from this module for the teaching practice (TEFLi course)

General Reflection Part2

In my previous post, I have shared my context in details and theoretical implication of materials in my context (Okinawa). In this post, I would like to reflect how this module has helped me and how I have been applying some ELT materials for my teaching practice in TEFLi course.

In this module, I have experienced a lot of beneficial things. Firstly, I have set my ELT materials’ evaluation criteria based on readings, mostly from Tomlinson (2012, 2011) and discussion with my peers in the seminars. Secondly, I have gained various insights from interactions with my peers and on group works. Each other’s teaching context is different, so I could be exposed myself to different teaching situations and issues in different contexts. This has made me think about my teaching context more deeply and critically and given me ideas how I could exploit the materials if I were a teacher in their teaching context and when I return to Okinawa.

Through this module, I have experienced designing my worksheets and creating several digital materials. In the process of creating them, I tried several apps and online tools that I had not used before yet, and what I found was that I have improved my digital literacy. Even though I have used YouTube and PPT in a class before, I had never had an experience making and editing videos and uploading them on YouTube, and also creating digital comics, infographics and poster until I took this module. I personally believe that those experiences are helpful and having the digital skills crucial as a teacher/materials creator so that I can create materials as I want it to be and lead my students when they create their own portfolio using digital tools. (Important to note: all apps and online tools that I have used were very easy to use and FREE!)

From the experiences of this module, I have created some new materials for my teaching practice course. In my first teaching practise, I designed  paper-based materials for reading comprehension. I used a template when I designed my worksheet for week7’s seminar (link is here). In the resent teaching, I created other worksheet using techniques that I used designing worksheets task.

Worksheet 1 for Teaching Practice

Worksheet 2 for TP

In one of my teaching classes, which was listening skill, I could exploit Videotelling (link is here) to elicit target languages from students. The languages were how to say ‘I don’t know it’ and ‘I know it’ in other ways. (E.g. I haven’t a clue, I’ve never heard of her, I’m fairly certain.) To do Videotelling, I edited the video about J.K. Rowling’s story with iMovie on my laptop and it was my first time to use the tool but it was really easy. In the class, I told J.K. Rowling’s story and asked student if they know her name and have heard of the story. After telling the story, I showed them the edited video. Students enjoyed it and it was useful to elicit and introduce the target expressions in the class.

I have also created two infographics; one is for explaining the procedure of debate activity (on the left), the other is for explaining target grammar (present perfect simple) (on the right). Particularly, I found it useful when it is used to explain a step of an activity or task. This is because it helps students understand the procedure visually and I can keep the target languages on a screen. In the class, I could see a student used some target expressions during the debate.

(Please click the images to make them bigger.)

So far I have been expanding my repertoire of my ELT materials. I have been enjoying creating and using the materials in a class. As challenges in the future, I will develop my further digital knowledge and skills to create other kinds of ELT materials and analyse how the materials work in different classes.

Manami