ESL Student Teaching-Conversation

X639803 Hsin-Yu (Teresa) Hsu

ESL Student Teaching Reflection: Conversation Lesson Plan

X639803 Hsin-Yu (Teresa), Hsu

28 unites Advanced TESOL Certificate Program

University of California, Riverside Extension Center

ESL Student Teaching-Conversation
X639803 Hsin-Yu (Teresa) Hsu

The conversation lesson planned this time focuses not only on providing students

opportunities to use the target language in a natural context but also raising their awareness of

cultural differences. Students were asked to make a poster presentation about national holidays

in different countries in groups of three. Jobs were assigned to each person in the group, one

was the speaker, one was the note-taker, and the last person was the presenter. The knowledge

of direct and indirect objectives was the grammar focus in this lesson.

There were several successful deliveries in this lesson. First of all was the pace of the

lesson, all the steps I planned were fluently delivered and students knew 90% of my instruction,

which was an improvement compared to the previous delivery. The second improvement I

made was the time control, although it took ten more minutes than I estimated to complete this

lesson, students didnt get tired from the instruction or the time given for each practice and

activity. Finally, I was glad that I took instructors commend in concern to switch the topic

from celebrating new year to celebrating national holiday. The new topic led to great

group discussion. Students were very involved into the preparation of the presentation. I could

see every student puts effort to make their jobs well done.

On the contrary to the good points, there were also some changes could be made for this
ESL Student Teaching-Conversation
X639803 Hsin-Yu (Teresa) Hsu

lesson. To begin with, there were repeated instructions about what each person was going to do

in the group work. According to the peer and instructor reflection, I mentioned the job

distribution three times in this lesson. Although it was a good idea to embed the instruction into

the reading, I should be aware of not to give the same instruction again and again. I think I was

afraid that students couldnt understand what they were going to do so I was well prepared on

the instruction. Actually, I found out that the paper guidelines for students were not needed;

students had already gotten what they need to do from the reading. Second, I would also want

to remind myself the importance of classroom language. I said something that unrespectable to

one student when I told him to changed seat. I immediately felt ashamed after I said this. It was

the biggest mistake I have made since I started doing teaching delivery. The languages I use

outside the classroom sometimes were not that proper but I should avoid saying them while I

am teaching. Regarding to the grammar focus, the instructor suggested that I could use the

grammar structures more in the reading. There were only three sentences in the reading. I

agreed with this comment because I realized that students awareness of the structures couldnt

be evaluated in this lesson. Although they knew the rules and forms of the target structure, I

didnt know if they could distinguish the patterns in the real context. Finally, I should also be
ESL Student Teaching-Conversation
X639803 Hsin-Yu (Teresa) Hsu

more careful and double-check the materials I planned to use in this lesson. I felt disappointed

that there were always mistakes on my worksheets and slides, which make me look like an

unprofessional teacher. I realized that I relied too much on others to find out what I did wrong.

I used to do teaching delivery in a group when I was studying language instruction in university,

I often asked my group members to check whether there were any errors on my materials.

However, I should be more careful on everything I planned because teaching is an independent

job.

To sum up this experience, I like what I planned for this lesson; the steps were coherent

and matched to the main objectives. What I should improve in the future is the usefulness of

instruction, whether its too unclear or too much. Meanwhile, carefulness of the context in the

materials is another very important consideration; mistakes I made might mislead students to

get the right information. Furthermore, to be a professional teacher should be more cautious

about the language I used and consider the effectiveness of every steps I planned.