My fourth observation was an online 1-1 lesson. The lesson was an IELTS writing lesson which focused on the process of writing body paragraphs. 

In many ways, this was a completely different experience from my previous observations. Primarily, because it was an online lesson taught through the Zoom platform due to the COVID-19 lockdown, also, it was a one-to-one lesson which has its own challenges. 

Although I have now been teaching online for over a month so far, I still don’t feel entirely comfortable teaching online. I think this is because I have spent twenty years developing as a teacher in the classroom environment and haven’t quite worked out how to transfer all of my skills to the online platform yet.

Nevertheless, I have been teaching my one-to-one student on zoom since the beginning of the lockdown and feel like we have developed a way that works for both of us. As can be seen from the attached lesson plan, I attempted to apply some of the approaches that I have learnt on the module. Firstly, trying out Flipped Learning by introducing the learning material before class. Secondly, by basing the lesson on Process Writing. 

During the lesson, I focused on the Pre-writing stage of process writing by discussing the topic and encouraging the learner’s flow of ideas. Once we had the ideas, I introduced the structure of the target piece of writing, which we then practised, producing two draft paragraphs. For homework, the learner was tasked with proofreading their draft paragraphs and making any edits before we looked at the paragraphs in the next lesson.

I was surprised by how nervous I felt before the lesson. I have been observed numerous times in a classroom setting but never teaching an online lesson. I have always thought of my classroom management as one of my strengths as a teacher and felt that teaching an online one-to-one lesson was not playing to my strengths at all.

However, I actually thought the lesson went well. I managed to stick to my timings which had previously been a problem for me. I also thought that the lesson managed to meet its aims and learning outcomes for my student.

I think one of my problems in my previous observations has been trying to fit too much in, so this time I made my lesson plan with the idea that ‘less is more’. I think on the whole the lesson achieved what I intended, to keep the lesson student-centred and to practice the skill of planning and organising body paragraphs for an IELTS lesson. In the next lesson, we were able to work collaboratively to evaluate the learner’s edited paragraphs and focus on the content and form. 

Conclusion

I think on the whole the lesson achieved what I intended, both for the learner and for myself. I think that I still have a lot to learn with regards to online teaching but having watched the video of the lesson, I do feel more confident in my ability to deliver online lessons. The learner expressed a positive attitude to what she had learnt and felt that it was bringing her closer to her goal of achieving her target score in the IELTS, which in the end is all I could ask for.

Development points after feedback from Barbara:

1. I would like to improve my use of technology with regards to online teaching. There were moments in the lesson where I could have visualised the learners writing by displaying on the screen (which I would have done on the board under normal circumstances). This, as Barbara pointed out, would have made the production of the first paragraph more collaborative.
2. To try and think of ‘online lessons’ as just another teaching context and not some hardship we all have to endure. I believe that instead of my starting point being ‘it is online’ it should have the same aims and learner outcomes as classroom-based lessons but with some adjustments to account for or take advantage of it being online.

lesson plan

Lesson PPT p1-4

Lesson PPT p5-8

Lesson PPT p9-12

For my third observation, I decided to do a task-based lesson. The basis for the lesson was from Cutting Edge Advanced, but I decided to adapt the materials to make them more communicative and to encourage more student interaction.

Although I was happy with the overall plan and the materials adaptions I had made, it became apparent very early on in the lesson that instead of the changes I had made improving the lesson, they, came at the expense of the completeness of the task and therefore the timing of my lesson plan was almost immediately lost.

This leads me to my first action point – The need to be more aware of how long each activity will take. The first activity seemed was more difficult for the students than I had anticipated. I think that is something I have struggled with in the past and have often planned the timing of activities with too high, or unrealistic, expectations of the learners.

My second action point is related to my first – To think more about which activities could be extended and which ones shouldn’t. Looking back at my lesson plan, you can see that I have tried to extend almost every activity, and as such, the lesson was never going to stick to its timing.

I think I got a bit carried away in the planning stage and was maybe too eager to impress my observer by showing them that I could incorporate material adaption and creative ideas when what I should have been focusing on was the learners.

What I was happy with was that I was able to incorporate some of the action points from previous observations, focusing on student engagement and giving them opportunities to practice the language. Another area I was keen to improve was the transitions between activities, which, despite my slight panic at the planned timing being lost, I think I still managed to do.

One thing I did notice when watching the lesson back was that despite my feeling of panic over the activities taking far longer than I had expected, I remained calm and was able to adapt to the issues and still finish the lesson. I think that this ability to remain calm under pressure is something that I have developed through experience.

Overall, although the lesson wasn’t a complete disaster, I have learned some valuable lessons regarding how I plan activities within the lesson and how sometimes ‘less is more’.

Observed lesson 3 – Lesson plan

My second observation was with an ESOL Level 1 class, and the lesson was a speaking and writing lesson which used common superstitions to prompt discussion and then shared writing using cultural information.

After the feedback from my first observation, I was able to reflect the positive and negative aspects I noticed from watching the lesson back on video, and the suggestions for improvement given by my observer. I approached the planning of my second observation with these areas for improvement in mind.

The first area which I wanted to show improvement in was the lesson plan itself. To do this, I did the following:

• Provided a more detailed class profile, including information about the learners’ reasons for studying, strengths and weakness, and personality.
• Added columns for rationale and anticipated problems.

As a result of this, I felt more confident with the plan and thought that the addition of the anticipated problems column helped me to focus more on teaching the class, rather than teaching the lesson as I sometimes tend to do.

Having watched the video of my second observation and taken some time to reflect on how it went, I think there are three main areas I would like to discuss further

Giving the learners opportunities for personalised input

The first area was something I reflected on after my first observation; giving the learners opportunities for personalised input. This was an area I was extremely conscious of during the planning stage for this lesson. I attempted to meet this aim in three separate activities where the learners were able to personalise the topic of superstitions:

1. As part of the lead-in to the topic of superstitions, instructing the students to discuss in pairs:

• • Are you superstitious?
  • Do you believe in good luck and bad luck?
  • What things do you do in your life to avoid bad luck or get good luck?

2. Giving the opportunity to discuss if they had the same or similar                                      superstitions as the examples I had given them in their own culture.

3. An activity where the learners wrote superstitions from their own culture on strips of paper then explained them to their group, discussing both the meaning and if they believe in it.

I thought these moments of reciprocal sharing of cultural information helped to keep the students engaged and led to high levels of student interaction. I also wanted to try and reduce my teacher speaking time while increasing student speaking time which I believe this helped me to do.

How I monitor the learners

Another area which I wanted to improve on in this lesson was how I monitor the learners while they are working together. For this lesson, I focused on two areas that I wanted to try and show improvement in, and which I hope will help me to develop a more effective procedure for monitoring my students:

• Not being too much of a presence when monitoring.

For this, I made it a point to squat down when I joined a group so that I was less imposing and was at the same level as them. Another thing I did, was lower my voice when joining a group so that the learners in the other groups wouldn’t become aware of me speaking and stop their discussion to listen to me. Watching the lesson video, I thought I achieved this reasonably well, coming across as was relatively unobtrusive yet also available when needed. 

• Not interfering too much.

After my feedback from my observer on my first observed lesson, I re-watched the video myself teaching and saw what my observer had pointed out with regards to my eliciting answers from students. This tendency to not wait for the learner to say the answer and answer the question myself was something I wanted to cut out from my teaching. I believe that I have shown improvement with this not just in the observation but in the classes I have taught since the first observation.

Another area of weakness that I noticed while watching the first observed lesson was that when I joined groups, I often became part of the proceedings. To try and counter this, I decided not to interfere and only to offer a prompt if it was needed before moving away.

• How I transition between stages

This was an area I hadn’t really thought about before and always presumed because the learners started the next stage that it was an area which needed focusing on. Having watched the lesson again, it became apparent that it is an area that I could improve.

Firstly, there were moments where because the learners were so engaged in their discussions, I struggled to get their attention when it was time for me to give instructions for the next stage of the lesson.

I also think I should have used concepts questions to check that they have understood my instruction (There was one activity which I thought I had set up, but I ended up going to each group and explaining the task to them again.

Something which I always do, and indeed is college policy, is to have a menu of the lesson stages on the board, which I use to draw the learners’ attention to what is coming next. I think me forgetting to do that was probably due to some nerves about being observed.

Conclusion

I think on the whole the lesson achieved what I intended, to keep the lesson student-centred and to encourage student interaction and personalisation. From the perspective of my teacher development, I felt that there was some improvement from the first observation. I also became aware of another area to work on, how I manage the transitions between the stages of the lesson. Another area which I would like to explore in future assessed observations is differentiation. I think if it were something I could think more about in the planning stages, I would be able to provide a more effective and relevant learning experiences for the learners.

My first observation was with an ESOL level 2 class, and the target learning area was future forms. Overall, I found it a positive experience, although one which highlighted a few areas that I need to work on. I was initially worried about the lesson being videoed, but having the opportunity to watch the experience again has been extremely helpful me in letting me reflect on what my strengths and weaknesses are.

I should say that despite having lessons videoed on occasion in the past, this is the first time I have ever actually watched myself teaching. Although, surprisingly, I didn’t feel self-conscious during the observed lesson, seeing myself on the screen inevitably caused me to cringe a little. I was slightly amused to watch myself with my glasses. I’ve only recently had to wear them more often but was completely unaware how often I remove them, put them back on again, perched them on the end of my nose and waved them around. On a positive note, it was nice seeing how relaxed I looked both at the front of the class and amongst the students.

Having listened to my hot feedback, there were two things that I said that I wanted to be aware of when watching the video of my lesson. The first was that I thought it was a ‘normal’ lesson rather than an all-singing and dancing observation style lesson. The second was that I said that my main goal was to try and get the target language from the students rather than standing at the front, presenting it. Having watched the lesson again and had time to reflect, I think both of these points are important discussion points when reflecting on my teaching.

With regards to my assertion that the lesson was just a ‘normal’ lesson and not something I had made to impress the observer, I think in hindsight, this may not have been the best idea. Looking back, I was surprised that in my hot feedback after the lesson I had been happy with the thought of the lesson just being ‘OK’. On reflection, I could have attempted more and maybe tried to showcase my skills a bit better.

With regards to my goal of trying to get the students to work out the target language structures rather than me explicitly explaining them, I feel this was only partially achieved. Watching the video, I noticed times when I didn’t wait for the students to explain the form or meaning and jumped in and explained it myself. I would like to use this as an action point to work on in future lessons and observations.

Another thing that I became aware of whilst watching the video was that the stage of the lesson where then students looked at sentences 4-10 didn’t really work as I had planned. I think the first part where students worked together to highlight the future forms was OK, but the bit with me at the board trying to elicit or explain the forms seemed somewhat laboured. I had planned to give the learners more example sentences and to give them an opportunity to produce some sentences using the forms, and to try and personalise the language, but I think the mixture of time pressure and the fact I was being observed led to me to forget these things. My second action point is to remember to let students personalise the language and to make sure I give them more opportunities for practice.

I think a better way of approaching the sentences would have been after modelling questions 1-3, to give each pair a sentence using a future form and then given them five more examples and instruct them to work out the form and function, which they could then present to the class. That way, it would minimise the time I was at the front of the class ‘teaching’ and actively involve the students more. A third future action point could be to focus more on the planning stage on student involvement during tasks.

All in all, I was pleased with how I kept the students engaged and focused, and I felt for the most part that they were all actively involved in the lesson. I think the whole observation process, especially being able to watch the video, has been extremely valuable and will hopefully lead me to explore more fully the areas of my teaching that I can improve upon.