A&HT 5301.

002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

CEP Video Self-observation

Part 1: General 1. What is the first thing (verbatim) you said to your students? So first I will just review a bit of the tag questions, the tricky ones we talked about. When I wrote the sentence down, I realized that I should have phrased it better. I should have said lets review instead of I will and a bit of is not necessary either. When watching the clip, I know that I need to work even harder to trim my language. 2. How did you introduce the lesson objectives? I didnt introduce the lesson objectives explicitly. When I had classroom practice last semester, we learned about putting the objectives of the lesson on the first page of the ppt. I understand that this help to give student better idea about what to anticipate, however, I am also concerned about giving the story away. For example, if I say, today we are going to first learn about tag questions and then transitional devices. Some students may immediately judge by themselves, thinking oh I learned tag questions before and I dont need to pay so much attention today. While others may ask what transitional devices are, and then it takes more time to drag them back. Therefore I feel as long as I scaffold enough, it is more important to keep the students with me all the time than to let them know what will happen in the next two hours. 3. How did you connect the lesson (or parts of the lesson) to previous lessons or students previous experience or comments in the class? I first connected the lesson with previous lesson by reviewing some special tag questions like I am arent I? Let me will you? etc. When we were learning the words to show contrast and concession, I asked them to write a five-sentence drama with the words we learned and related what they wrote in the drama with their real life experience. For example, one student wrote about two sisters Mary and Ann. While Mary being obedient and Ann being impolite, the mother always blames Mary but seldom blame Ann. When the student finished her little drama, I heard some of the classmates said, it was so unfair! So I asked them whether they have sister and brothers, and whether the situation in this students drama may be true in real life.

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

4. Did you notice any patterns in your tendency to call on some students more than others? If so, what were those patterns? What might the explanation be for those patterns? Students are generally very active and most of the time there will be students who volunteer to speak. I did find that I call on Fredi and Philip more in this class when there were several students raising their hands. Perhaps it is because they both sat at the two ends of the semi-circle, and I am always worried that I only speak to the middle and forget to look at them. As a result, I actually ended up paying more attention to students sitting at the ends of the semi-circle. There is another problem that I noticed while watching the clip. In the latter half when students got really into the class, they responded without raising their hands, and sometimes several of them responded at the same time. Even when I asked them to take turn to answer, some students kept answering by themselves. I felt the quitter students did not get their chance to speak when the other students had already said the answer. They probably felt they didnt need to repeat what was said. Actually I could have just told them to wait a bit and let the other students talk. Its really important for me to notice this because I realize that I need to stay calm and pay more attention to the quitter students especially when I feel the class is generally going well. 5. Were there any surprises or unexpected events during the lesson? If so, what were they? How did you handle them? After I introduced while and In contrast to show contrast, I asked the students to write a little drama, when one student was reading his story, I heard the sentence While Ann is pretty, in contrast, Mary is ugly. I didnt expect that he would use both in one sentence. So after other classmates commented on the story, I said it was a great story, but there was something thats not quite right and asked the student to read it again. Two other students then identify the mistake. I then asked them how we can make a better sentence. One student came up with the sentence using only while, and the student who wrote the story revise his sentence using only in contrast and concluded by asking, So you dont use both at the same time? After I wrote out the two sentences provided by the students: 1. Despite he was innocent, he was caught. 2. He was caught despite his innocence. I asked them to judge and vote for the correct one. When most of them voted both to be correct, I drew their attention to the part after despite and asked them what the difference is. Then the students noticed that one was a complete sentence while the other is not. So I concluded that after despite, we need to use noun phrase. Then one student raised his hand and said that he didnt understand the

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

rule. I was surprised but I guess its because he was not sure what noun phrase means. So I provided several other examples, and pointed out the noun phrase part and explained the difference between a complete sentence and a noun phrase. I also changed the order of the second sentence into Despite his innocence, he was caught. to make the structure parallel with the first one so that its more obvious for them to notice the difference. 6. What is one compliment you would give yourself about your teaching, based on this recording? I asked questions to stimulate student thinking much more often than when I first taught this semester. In this way, I learned to keep students thinking actively and staying with me the whole time. 7. What changes would you make to this lesson if you were to teach it again? I will reduce the part I talked when introducing the words for concession. The way to introduce worked quite well, but I can talk a bit faster. Besides, I will type those sentences I prepared in a word document. Writing on the smart board can be really slow and noisy, especially when I cant write with my finger but have to use that smart board pen. When teaching while, I will first elicit the meaning thats similar to when, and then provided sentences with while showing contrast. I will then explicitly direct their attention to the difference, because I didnt do it in this class, some of the students mixed the two until one students brought up the question. 8. Did you see anything on the tape that you were unaware of during the lesson? (e.g., Were you paying more attention to some students than others? Was a student trying to get your attention and you didnt notice? Anything else?) Its a pity that I didnt record my students in the camera. I noticed however, that I talked more slowly than I realized. While I think I did a good job explaining things clearly, I could have talked faster. Besides, though the volume of my voice is enough for students to hear me, I think its too soft and I should speak with more conviction and less uptalk. I also noticed that I had a lot of hand gestures when I talk, that seems distracting and I will try to reduce them.

Part 2: Teacher-initiated questions 1. As you watch the video of yourself teaching, write out all of the questions that you ask your students. Categorize them into the following groups: Present the list of questions, categorized into groups.

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

a. Yes/No questions Do you remember some of the transitional devices we talked about before? Did you learn this one before? Is that Ann? Is that right? So you want to say Is that right? Didnt we just talk about that? Have you learned the word innocent? b. Rhetorical questions (questions that cannot be answered) I am really bad at drawing, arent I? Thats kind of true, right? Did you hear that? So we assigned the homework 2, right? Then we have seven, dont we? c. Questions that elicit one- or two-word answers If I say, I am pretty, what should the tag be? What is the tag for No one cares, ____? Who can tell me how many transitional devices there are in the sentence? What are they? What can be change but into? What is the transitional device in this sentence? Can you say that again? Whos the poor girl in the story? And how many words are there? Who would like to share? Whats the other word that I am going to teach in this box? Make a guess. Any idea? Can you repeat the last word? Repeat it out loud. How many of you think this is correct? Is that clear now? Whats the key word? Anyone put dont they? d. Questions that stimulate student thinking or ask for student opinions Is that what every one thinks? Are there any other answers? Why isnt it dont? Why do we use they there? Do you think its they? But why?

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

Can you give me the word in sentences? Can you try to make another sentence with in addition? Can someone else try? Do we have other sentences? How can you answer this tag question? What is the meaning of while here, can someone explain? Can we say John killed someone while he was not caught? Why doesnt it sound right? Is there a reason for that? Are we still showing contrast? Can someone rephrase the story for me? Whats the difference here if we put however here? Is it true? Do you believe that? Do you think its possible in real life? Do you think its true for man? What was the problem here? How can we make it a better sentence? Why it is not right? Is there anything you noticed thats not quite right? Can someone explain the meaning of innocent? How can we change the sentence with despite? Do we have other sentences? Do you think the first sentence is right? Why? Can someone try to explain? Can we say that? Lets talk about it as a class. Is that what everyone has? How can we decide whether its can I or arent they here? Why do you think its a she here? 2. Do you notice yourself using any IRF (Initiation, Response, Feedback) sequences? What type of activity were you doing? When we were reviewing tag questions at the beginning of the class, I asked several questions about what the tags are for some special cases (Initiation). Students answered (Response), and then I gave feedback. However, I also asked whether everyone agrees or is there any other opinion even when the student had already provided the correct answer. I think thats one thing I learned from the reading on the EPA (Explicit Positive Assessment). It also happened when I checked homework in the last five minute of the class, there were a lot of IRF because time was very limited.

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

3. What patterns do you notice in your questioning habits? (What kinds of questions do you tend to use most often? I used a lot of questions to stimulate student thinking. Thats something that I consciously monitor myself since the beginning of the semester in order to cut down teacher talk and encourage student output. Because I came from a teacher-centered classroom and I am very aware of the influence, so every time I want to explain something, I try to put it in a question for students. I also like to ask Is that what every one has? or Do we have other answers? even when the answer provided by the student is correct so that students who think differently will have time to ask if they are not sure. 4. How do your students respond to the different kinds of questions you ask? It has never been so clear to me how the way the teacher asks questions can either stimulate or limit student output. When I watched the clip to note down my questions, I saw (heard) how my students respond to me differently just as the questions are differently categorized. Though I am also lucky because my students usually react actively, sometimes even when I asked a yes/no question like Do you remember what transitional devices we learned before?, they would start to recall and give me words that they remember. When I asked them to provide the words in sentences, they not only provide the complete sentence, but also ask questions about the parts they are not so sure. I feel that its really essential for me to first know and keep in mind what exactly I am looking for when asking questions, so that students will be guided properly and get practice through production. 5. Are there any times on the video when you are able to encourage student participation without asking questions? After introducing the words to show contrast and concession, I modeled for them the drama I came up with using these words, and then I asked them to write their little drama using what we learned. They found this activity interesting, and when I said we need to wrap up, one student raised her hand and said I want to share my story. Some other students volunteer to share their story as well without me having to ask. They also asked questions and commented after listening to others drama. 6. Based on this observation, what changes, if any, would you like to make in your questioning habits? Why? One thing I would like to change is to cut out the rephrasing part after I ask a question. In fact students can understand the question without me putting it in other words, often times

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A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum Spring 2014 Boblett

its just my habit and it inevitably increase teacher talking and may even make students more confused. The other thing is that I want to add more specific questions after students say something to expand the conversation a little bit. That kind of question makes the communication more genuine and I am indeed interested in what they say. When I observed Sian, she did this really well, and I think Nancy you also showed us in class. At present, most of my questions are limited to serve the teaching objectives, however, adding questions that pertain to the content of what students say can make the class more interesting.

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