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Week One: Day Two

Our sessions from now on start at 9.30am. In the morning we will have two input sessions and the afternoon will be teaching practice followed by feedback and a lesson planning session for the next day. Also today we will be given the first of our 4 Assignments.

Today’s input sessions are led by Robin and we cover Classroom Management and Learning Styles. The learning styles session is interesting as we get to take our own little “test” to find out whether we are primarily Auditory (through listening) learners, Visual (through seeing) learners or Kinaesthetic (by doing) learners. I thought I would be a visual learner for sure, not just as my background is in visual arts - I know I don’t fully register things (like instructions) if I don’t see them written down, but surprisingly I score highest of all on the Kinaesthetic scale. I wonder if our teaching styles are reflected also through this learning style. I don’t feel comfortable with a “lecturing” style of teaching and could never sustain that through an entire lesson. I do like to make lessons visually interesting, or to have students “doing something” - like matching cards, or sticking things into books or handouts.

It’s useful also for use to be aware of this as Assignment 1 is to focus on a particular student, assess their needs and prepare materials and a lesson accordingly.

The afternoon is my first teaching practice session and I’m up first for 40 minutes, followed by David and then Mikka.

David’s first lesson with the Elementary students.

Mikka’s first lesson with the elementary students.

Post-teaching feedback session.

After the teaching practice we have a feedback session. It’s a bit unnerving and a new experience to analyse your own lesson but it’s actually quite a liberating thing to do. It also helps that we are a small group and have created a good rapport already, so it’s easy as well as useful to be critical with each other without taking anything personally.

First one over though, so that’s a huge relief!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm and is filed under On the course, Hanoi, CELTA. You can leave a response to this entry.

One Response to “Week One: Day Two”

1. Hilal Hastaoglu Says:
   May 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am

   Hi Jennifer. I just want you to know that I AM SO HAPPY that you were not around during the CELTA diary competition =) Love your entries. Keep em coming and please take your DELTA in Istanbul so people can know whats going on with your words =) Take care

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