Evaluating

The simulated teaching for this course (EDU 3217) started on the 13th March 2008 and I was one of the first few chosen ones to present or shall I say, teach. “The students” were given evaluating sheets for them to comment on each teacher’s performance. I had a hard time commenting on others as I do not wish to hurt their feelings because I know for a fact that there are some people who can’t take criticism well. I admit that I’m one of those people so I empathize them. So, my way of criticising them will always start off with good qualities and gradually I move on to the bad comments. For most of the teachers including myself, we have a tendency to swallow our words. So, instructions are not clear because of the soft voice projection. Only students at the front rows can hear the teacher and so they are the ones who gave a lot of attention and participated in the lesson. Another weak point that I noticed is that teachers failed to get hold of students’ attention and so, I saw a lot of students not being co-operative and starts disrupting the lesson. Teachers also didn’t manage to get a good control of the class and this is one of the things that we must take into account in order to become a well-respected teacher. The language of most of the teachers is fairly fluent which is alright and they are using simple vocabulary which suits the students’ level of proficiency. This will bring down students’ anxiety level and improves their condition of learning. The set induction for most of the teachers is appropriate for students and suitable to continue with the pre-reading stage. I would have to advice my friends to not display a video of violence, racism or anything that is inappropriate even though it is parallel to the lesson. Almost all the tasks that the teachers ask the students to do are rather simple and so, the students really enjoyed completing them. But, sometimes the teacher gives a very vague instruction for the students to comprehend. For example, the teacher asks them to underline phrases that “indicate” something. This is a rather hard task to give students in the pre-reading stage as they didn’t get the whole picture of the play yet and so it is easier if teachers ask them to identify words such as adjectives and modals. Teachers can also re-phrase the instruction by making it simpler for the students to understand. The while-reading activities are all in line with the set induction and the pre-reading stage. Good job, friends!!