Written Assignment 4

Part A: Teaching strengths

LESSON FROM THE CLASSROOM

CELTA is said to be a course primarily meant for those teachers who are going to embark upon their teaching career. Generally young teachers tend to be more flexible than the older ones. They are open to change themselves. On the other hand, experienced teachers often prefer to sticking to their old methods. Since I also had more than 20 twenty years of teaching experience at my credit, it was quite difficult for me to unlearn some of the past methods and relearn modern techniques and procedures to come up to the standards that CELTA has set for competent English language teachers. It was this point that Mr. Taufique, Head Trainer, impressed upon me during pre-CELTA interview. He said to me, You are an experienced teacher and it will be difficult for you to adapt yourself to the new methods and procedures. As I was determined to go for CELTA, I assured him that I would try my level best to show the flexibility that was needed to be successful in the rigorous training. Now I feel fairly relieved that I demonstrated the amount of flexibility that was needed to sail through CELTA course. So I count this one of my strengths. Another point on which I feel I became gradually strong is the lesson planning. From my TP feedback, it is quite evident that most of the lesson were well planned and their execution in classroom, though not ideal, mostly achieved the main and stage aims. Particularly, at elementary level, I showed a lot of progress. Generally, interaction pattern has also been satisfactory. In almost every TP lesson, there was pair work and group work. While teaching at a university, most of my lectures were based on presentations and as such my TTT was very high. Before I embarked upon CELTA I had never realized this fact though I always got a good reputation as a teacher. During the training, it was observed that this was the problem with every trainee. The trainers and the observers launched a campaign to reduce TTT. Now I feel that not only I checked my TTT but also became a good involver. Never ever before I had used games to stimulate the students. Never ever before I had done so much elicitation. ICQs and CCQs are some other areas where we improved a lot. My first tutorial records in CELTA 5 show that mostly I met the standard. My peers also made constructive criticism on every TP lesson. In one of the TPs, one of my peers pointed out that 29 time I

repeated, You know . meaningless repetition. Part B: Areas to work on

This observation helped me a lot to reduce this

In TP 6, we were directed by the Head Trainer to strictly follow the TP point, i.e. to plan a single lesson by two teachers in which one teacher will give presentation and the other would carry out practice. We missed that point, I had to bear the brunt because I was the second to complete the TP. It was this TP in which I did not meet the standard. It was quite shocking and I am still struggling to come out of it. Proper coordination wit h other peers is the area on which I have to work on. The recent feedback from the Head trainer, Mr. James and the peers shows that I need to inject variety and enthusiasm into my TPs. I have also realized myself that I work more on the plan than on the actual TP. As a result, some tasks are not carried out effectively. Sometimes, I give the task first and give the instructions later. I observed my counterpart, Mr. Sadiq, who in TP 8 set the task before writing a business letter very clearly. So I sincerely intend to follow that model in future. Another area I have to work on relates to CCQs. Although I am good at making CCQs, sometimes I neither mention them in the lesson plan nor I use them in my TP. So, Mr. Taufique categorically asked me to men tion some of the CCQs in the lesson plan. I also accepted this lapse on my part in myself observation. Pacing and timing are also the areas in which I am still faltering. In 40 minutes TPs, pace remained a little bit high. However, in the 60 minutes TP s, it dropped down to a level where the observers had to gesture to quicken it.

Part C: Action Plan Areas to work on y Injecting variety enthusiasm Action Plan  Focussing more on stage aims and  Making the activities interesting  Following good models  Taking help from colleagues  More focus on MPF and CCQs

y Better task setting

 Give clear and precise instructions.  Model before the task, if necessary.  Use ICQs.

y Make the plan more effective.

 Avoid unnecessary stages.  Reject the activity from the book if it seems redundant in relation to stage aims.  Read the TP points clearly while planning.