On August 30th we had the opportunity to present our microteaching in grammar. As usual, it was full of ideas and a good deal of sharing. I could learn some very good ways of presenting a grammar lesson, which not necessarily needs to be boring and teacher centered.
I decided to teach adjectives ending in -ed and -ing. I wanted to teach it, because I believe it will help my students in class. They are not so difficult to understand, but a bit tricky to explain.
Something I try to incorporate in class is visual aid. I believe, nowadays, people are more stimulated through this sense. Therefore it draws people attention better. I started showing pictures in which they were telling me feelings that they had in order to have an adjective related to it and what action. I tried to engage them in a small conversation, but I am aware I did not give them enough time to produce their understanding. Nevertheless, I will develop it for next class with my students and allow them have their own discussions as well model it in a better way.
As our last presentation I felt we had a pretty good week with lots of learning and sharing throughout. Indeed, it made me reflect a lot about my classes in Brazil and how I can improve them in order to engage better the students and have them mastering the language in a meningful way.
Personally, I strongly believe, I am going to reflect about my goals as teacher in my country, find ways of helping students reach those goals and keep in touch with most teachers I can in order to share our knowledge and practices.
This is exactly what took place on that day and defintely will keep me thinking about the classes I had to opportunity to watch that day as I saw many good ideas being presented.
My final reflection about this day is that keeping simple is the best way to achieve the necessary goals and for having a meaningful class for students and for myself.
All a teacher needs to do is think about it a little and good ideas will come. We have given you ideas in these six weeks but I hope we have encouraged you to think about what you are doing in the class and always coming up with better, more creative ways of doing it. Does what your are doing in class make sense? Are students really learning something? Not just how to speak another language, but to think and use their minds. I guess we need to think about ways to get them to think.
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