RFLECTION ON CLILC LESSONS 1 AND 2: Charity

 Friday, 12 Mai 2022

RFLECTION ON CLILC LESSONS 1 AND 2

The lesson today was a continuation of my previous lesson on Charity, and the topics were - The people who need charity and where to find them / The history of charity and people who do charity. The students were 11 in class. This time around, I reached 2 hours before time because on the two previous attempts, I had some issues with transportation, and I got late to school, stressed up and psychologically exhausted, and I couldn’t teach. But now I could say I was in a teaching mood, very relaxed, and eager to start teaching. I realized that teachers are also concerned with Stephen Krashen’s affective filter. They need to be confident, motivated, and with no anxiety, because the students would feel that something is wrong somewhere, even though they won’t be able to tell what, and the teaching-learning connection would not really be established. It is important that the teacher is in a good mood to teach. I would like to specify that Today I had a great surprise that boosted my morale, my coursemate, Erick, came to observe my Mentor’s class, and it just happened that I was the one to teach.

Before the lesson, I sent the posters to my Mentor to be printed, and I was prepared to the effect that even if for one reason or the other the posters could not be printed. That is why I duplicated the slides and removed the writings from one of them so that the students would see only the pictures and discuss them in their think-pair-share task. My apprehensions were later confirmed when after 3 trials, my mentor said the files could not download, maybe because they were too large. Anyway, it didn’t really matter, and she also suggested the same thing that I set up to do in this situation- to show them the pictures on the slides. The class usually begins at 8:15 and lasts 45 minutes, but I started effectively at 8:30 because I was still waiting for more students to come from another program with a teacher. I was a bit worried about the minutes that were reducing because I know, I am such a poor time manager, and even if I had an hour to teach, I always thought it was not enough, and I would not feel time passing.

While waiting, I got to know each Ss’ name, because I learned calling people by their names engages them and helped a lot to create rapport for effective communication. I even went further to translate the question “what is your name?” to “Jak masz na imię?” in an app on my phone. Some were agreeably surprised, and others saw it funny and were smiling as I was struggling with the pronunciation. One of the Ss helped me with the right pronunciation, I repeated after she and I thanked her, and it was really fun. I was very satisfied. I wanted them to see that it was ok not to know and that even the teacher can learn from them. So they should take the risk to make mistakes. The other thing I did was to set a routine to keep others and get Ss’ attention. I actually did that in a previous class, but I wanted to be sure they remembered because I couldn’t teach them for over 2 weeks. I told them that when I said “Hello” (with a melodious voice), they should respond with “Hi”, and we did a very short practice.

I began with a revision of a definition of charity. The Ss watch a video defining charity, giving the various types of charity, and how to start a charity. I was happy there were no issues playing it as in previous classes. The Ss were attentive, and they could answer most of my questions, and their only blockage was language, because they had to switch to Polish, and they knew exactly what to say. They would also seek help from their teacher with the right words.  We also revised some vocabulary connected to the charity.  I talked about the history of charity in general, and about the history of charity in Poland, connected to WW II. Here too, I asked for SS’ help in pronouncing the name of the Polish political leader who initiated charity in Poland, “Władysław” Sikorski, to grab their attention. I was particularly happy when I came across this historical fact on Poland, because in my previous lesson when I asked Ss where to find poor people to help, one said in Africa. I wanted them to understand that poverty is everywhere, not only in Africa, and I showed them pictures of Polish refugees in Africa and in India. It could happen to anyone anywhere at any time to need charity because of unforeseen circumstances they were not prepared for, and I quoted the Ukraine war. We have to be careful about the way we treat people, because one day, we may need their charity. This is one of the big understandings I wanted them to carry home.

I also took this lesson as an opportunity to observe a particular student (whom I name N to preserve her privacy) who was the subject of my Action Research, as suggested by my Mentor, because she has Asperger's. From my research on this disorder, I learned that such persons are generally introverts and have a sophisticated language and high vocabulary, but from my interview with my Mentor, I realized N was instead the extrovert and the dominant type in a conversation. I could confirm the latter because she was constantly answering questions. So, I got my list to call names, but she would talk even before I had time to go through my list and choose someone. The amazing thing was that her answers were generally correct. For example, I showed Ss 2 posters of different types of people, and they had to find out the name of the places where these people lived. The Ss could guess that the kids in one of the pictures were children without parents, orphans, but for the word “orphanage” that the other Ss struggled to get, N got it. Later on, when I was talking about how all these people are found everywhere in the world, N said even in Cameroon! I was like baffled! How on earth did she know it was my Country. I stopped a moment, and looked at my Mentor, trying to figure out when exactly did I mention it in any of my lessons to the kids before that time. That was when she said it was on my T-shirt. I couldn’t withhold some laughter. That was smart of her indeed! From my Mentor’s answers to my questionnaire concerning N, my Action Research puzzle was to find out how to make her give chance to others to talk during conversations so that she does not dominate the others. Now from my observations, I could confirm it and I decided to add “and also in class”.

The lesson went on smoothly, but the only thing that didn’t work as planned was the reading of the course book passage about the true story of a child who needs charity. My Mentor used a reading technic that I loved and wanted to implement. Each S was to read one sentence and to indicate that they were done, they had to say “popcorn”. Unfortunately, time was short, so my Mentor suggested I should read it. At least we could finish and we answered some questions before the break.

For the second lesson, I was happy and also impressed that some new vocabulary I planned to teach, the Ss already knew- the fauna and flora. I did not have to waste time on it. But we had some issues at the level of the maths that I introduced. The Ss had to do some calculations to find out how much the richest charity in the world had spent on charity since its year of creation. They got the right answer, after a second attempt, but could identify the specific operation they did to get it. They sought their teacher’s support; she gave some tips to say how they find the difference. They said “minus”. I agreed but needed the name of the specific operation. As it was delaying to come, I put the 4 mathematical operation symbols on the board and asked them to choose the right one (+ addition/÷ division/ x multiplication/ - subtraction). This time I sent a boy to the board because the girls were dominant in answering questions. I was very pleased to notice that some Ss were taking down notes by themselves Het didn’t get it. Even after the class ended, they remained on the board to talk about the operation. I showed the right word just before the end of the lesson. Again, my Mentor had to remind me of the end of the period. As usual, a display of my poor time management. Fortunately, I was done with my day’s goal this time.

After the class, Erick made some pertinent comments. He first complimented me and said I “ had a lot of presence”. This was the type of sentence that if you try to explain with the wrong word, it lost all its precious meaning and value. I understood what he meant, but I couldn’t explain it, I just enjoyed it. Neither could he explain it himself when I asked the meaning later when we were waiting for the bus. these were things we just feel. Then he also told me that I almost lost the Ss trying to et them to produce the word “subtraction”, because they struggled hard to get it in vain. He said I should have just given the answer to keep their interest. My Mentor on her part said one could tell I had a passion for this topic. She said the Ss also followed, and that it was a completely new topic to them, and for me they did great! She explained that these were Ss no one wanted to teach because they were difficult to manage, they were always argued, and the least chance you gave them, they filled it with noise. She encouraged me to follow my feelings, and she gave me the total freedom to direct the lesson as I felt important to the kids. She was of the opinion that we must not follow the course book, that they were there as a source, just to guide and inspire us, like a menu at a restaurant. There are many meals, you select what you want and build on it. If you don’t finish this year, it is still ok to continue the following year with it. I completely share this viewpoint. Today I would add, that it is not how vast we teach that matters, but how deep the students learn   She recommended a video on “visible Learning” by John Hartie, and quoting him, she said, “you see what you learn, and you see what you teach”.

To conclude, I would simply say besides the small issues that I had, they couldn’t disrupt the lessons, and my day’s objectives were met. I need to work more on my time management skills and make sure I don’t waste too much time explaining, a few concise examples would help me to put my point across. The students were engaged, motivated, and motivated in spite of some little language barrier. Besides the fact that providence made my coursemate watch me at work and give me constructive peers feedback, this teaching session provided me with my Action Research puzzle.  I am so thankful for the whole program.