Week Journal 3 (25 April 2014)

Significant Situation 

I made two writing tasks as preparation for my first year's, 1IGH2 and 1IGH5, writing test. 1IGH2 made these assignments on the 25th of April. I specifically told the whole class at the start of the lesson that I wanted to see and check everybody's writing tasks before the end of the lesson. After approximately 45 min I started getting their work then I checked it with a red pen and gave them feedback on what they should remove, edit or remember to use when writing a letter or a memo.

Reflection

I made these two writing tasks because I knew that the students needed to practice how to write a formal letter and memo in order to pass the test since they mostly skipped the writing section or didn't try their best when it was part of their homework.

The effect of concentrating on only writing for a whole lesson makes the test seem (more) important to the students if it wasn't before, they realize what they can and cannot do (yet) when it comes to writing, and they get the time to focus on how to improve their writing. They also get the chance to ask me specific questions about writing.

Some students were not working, but I fixed this by saying that they needed to hand it in before the end of the lesson or they had to stay until they finished it. However, other students took this opportunity to practice and to get feedback from me very seriously. They even asked me more questions about layout, vocabulary and grammar.

Some students gave negative feedback: 'This is so boring.' or 'Why can't we do something more fun?'. Although, most of the class said that they felt confident about the writing test after having done these writing tasks.

This was important to me because the previous 1st year class that I had in the third period, 1IGH3, found this test very hard and some of them had to re-take the test. I didn't want that to happen again. Therefore, I am making sure that I'm spending enough time preparing the students for the test, which I didn't do in the third period.

I think what this says about me is that I'm a person who's able to reflect and change my program in order to prepare the students for their tests.

My conclusions are that I'm able to reflect and develop as a teacher by focusing on how I can improve my teaching approach when it comes to teaching writing.

My learning aim for next week is:
-Taking and assessing tests.

Internship Progress

Next week, I'm going to be focusing on my LIO research by asking students and teachers to fill in my survey.
 Until next week!