Week 2 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

On Tuesday, the students started off with doing survey. We could see the students' preferable ways of learning English and the topics that they are interested in. I am sure that this will be a helpful reference to prepare effective lessons for the students. And then each group gathered together and we joined them as a big sister for each group. Every group started to make a poster about their group's name and group members. Therefore, group members started to think about the group name. They wrote the name on the poster and each member started to express themselves with pictures. Lastly, each group did presentation about their posters. They introduced their group names and explained about the pictures they drew. Their explanation were quite insightful and interesting. Also, their English speaking was quite fluent. On Thursday, we did interview on the students. Each big sister did interview on their own group members one by one. I started the interview with my group member by asking questions about her background like majors and experiences. And then I read several random situations to see if they can understand situation and respond well with English. I interviewed each member for 15 minutes and I rated their level of English speaking. It was a good time to know their level and about my group members more.

 

What Worked Well

 

The survey and the interview worked well to know students' level and effective ways to approach them in teaching English. Making group poster activity was successful to make them bond together and also with us.

 

What Did Not Work

 

During the activity of making a poster with our group members, I was aware of that only one or two members among the group usually talk during the discussion or during the activity. And during the interview, I was really into listening my group members talk but I totally forgot to record the interview until the end. --;;

 

What Could Be Done In Next time

 

So I will try to plan the activities which can make all the members can participate and talk.

 

 

Week 3 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

From week 3, we started to teach students with a theme and the theme was "travel". Hyangwon and Misuk and I were the group 3 who prepared lesson plans for the week. We looked at the lesson plans that prior practicum students made to see what activities can be applied for this theme. The lesson plans were a great reference to develop our own lesson plans.

 

What Worked Well

 

On Tueday, we gave students four activities. The first activity was the activity that students should pick one or two items among some unusual items for their travel and they wrote a reason to take those items. The reason had to be convincing, realistic, and creative. One member for each group was voted and they shared their items and the reasons with whole class. The students' reasons were interesting, realistic, and convincing. The activity made all members participate in sharing their items and reasons so the goal of the activity was made. Second activity also made the goal by making them participate actively together. Each group had to complete the sentences about their exotic place to travel by telling a writer of each group sentences that they memorized from the sentences on the paper strips attached on the wall of the classroom. Third activity and fourth activity made the goal of full participation as well. Therefore, all four activities on Tuesday were well designed to make all the students participate. Also, it went well mainly because of the students' active attitude and participation.

 

On Thursday, we also gave students four activities. The beginning of the class, students and big sisters seemed confused because I did not give them clear directions. However, the activity flow was good because the activities were connected each other. Second activity was making a brochure for the place that the group picked. Each group creatively shared their job and discussed how to make the brochure. Every brochure was totally unique and creative. At the last activity which is "be a travel agent!", students really actively participated in explaining and advertising their places for travel to to other group members with the brochures they made in the prior activity.

 

What Did Not Work

 

I could not read my ppt because the sentences was too many and long. Therefore, students had to understand the directions that I delivered. Also, when I had to pick one or two group to give them a reward, I planned to pick one or two groups right away right after the activity, but I felt that I should be fair. Therefore, I made students to vote the groups by clapping. However, it seemed like the flow of the time was not smoothly and promptly went. My leading was quite slow when I picked the groups. Also, I should have tell students the remaining time but I forgot and lost to chance to tell the time during the activities. On Thursday, my voice was not loud enough to lead the students and my direction was not clear to students. For the first activity, I planned to make students do a little role play with the sentence strips that has questions and answers for planning their own travel. However, I realized role play would not work within a group at that moment so I changed the plan to make all the students participate and more interactive. Therefore, students seemed confused with my directions. I went around the groups and tried to tell the directions clearly, but the activity was also lack of motivation because I did not tell them a clear goal for the activity. From the second activity, it went well, but I realized that the atmosphere and the flow of the beginning influence the next activity. Students seemed little bit tired compared to the responsiveness on Tuesday class. However, as time goes by, students were participated more actively with a clear goal.

 

What Could Be Done In next Time

 

From next time, I should give students clear direction with a brief and simple ppt that it can be easily noticible to the students. Also, I should design the activities with more clear goals that students can be motivated well to participate actively. My voice should be louder to lead activities that all the students can listen and follow. Lastly, I should tell the remaining time properly to the students and the plan should be not changed instantly in the classroom.

 

Week 4 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week, students worked on describing people on fashion. On Tuesday, students started off with an actively called 'stick it' using label stickers with adjectives and nouns on fashion items. They actively went around the classroom and sticked the label stickers on other students' clothes and fashion items. It was a really fun brainstorming activity to make students engage with adjectives and nouns on fashion. The second activity was speed game. Students started to describe celebrities to their group members and group members guessed who they were. And then students had fun with choosing one guy out of the 6 guys on a paper for date by watching video clips about the 6 guys and then they shared why they chose the guy. Lastly, students did a role-play as shopkeepers and customers. On Thursday, students brought their best fashion item and then they shared about it. Secondly, they described a person among many different people in the picture of finding Wally and other group members guessed who the person was in the picture. Last activity was Project Runway Sookmyung. Students set a theme for their fashion show and then they created 6 models with fashion item pictures from magazines on their paper.

 

What Worked Well

 

Directions were clearly delivered to students so students responded quickly on activities and the flow went smoothly. Most of the activities were well designed to make students use adjectives and nouns on fashion by describing. The activities were helpful to make students practice on describing people repetitively so that they could make the language their own.

 

What Did Not Work

 

On the speed game activity, students were very into the activity so they forgot the direction that they should describe only the celebrities' appearances and characteristics. They just directly gave some obvious information about the celebrity. They really focused on the speed to finish the activity, not on the language that they were using. As a big sister, I could not intervene well enough to fix the direction of the activity.

 

What Could Be Done In Next Time

 

The activities went very well and students were actively participated in using the target languages through activities. The goal was made. But it could be better when I could have kept track on time during an activity or given my group members better interventions and feedbacks.

 

Week 5 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week, the lesson was carried out on holidays. This week was the week that Easter just had been passed, so the lesson focused on Easter and we had really fun Easter activities. On Tuesday, we started off with an activity called Tic-tac-toe. Also, we did activities called Best event on holiday, Bet you did not know Easter tradition, and Easter bunny basket. On Thursday, we did activities called Jeopardy and Decorate Easter eggs.

 

What Worked Well

 

Tic-tac-toe was answering the question activity about holidays with playing tic-tac-toe. Tic-tac-toe made the activity very fun to participate and fresh. It was fresh because I thought the activities for speaking we made so far were in similar styles. It was a new style and I could assume that the group who planned the activity connected games with activities creatively and very well to be fun and support students' participation. Also, there was an activity called Jeopardy. It was also fresh and creative. Students picked one plastic egg and there was a piece of puzzle and different candies. Students shook the eggs and heard the sound. With the sound they found their members who had the same sound of the eggs with same candies. And then within the group, they opened the eggs and they could puzzle the whole picture. It was really creatively made and all the processes in the activity were well connected to the topic and the target language. Students really enjoyed the activities and they also participated equally well.

Additionally, there was an activity which students created holidays with some pictures. Students came up with very interesting holidays by making connection to the pictures. Most of activities were well made to support students to participate actively with fun and to speak the target languages.

 

What Did Not Work

 

Easter Bunny basket activity was an origami activity. The processes of the activity were well designed to help students to deliver the descriptions of the procedures about how to make a bunny basket by watching video clips. However, the origami itself was hard to explain and it was hard to complete to make the basket by doing origami. Therefore, it took more time and some students could not explain the parts that they watched to other members. Also, some students could not finish making the basket.

 

What Could Be Done Next Time

 

The lesson was successfully carried out and most of the activities were creative and well supportive for the goal of the lesson. For the origami activity, it could be better when students could practice their parts under their big sister's demonstration of making a basket on the parts to describe the process to other members and to make the basket than just watching video clips and deliver the process.

 

Week 6 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week's lesson was designed on the theme, food and cooking. Tuesday's lesson started with a warm-up activity called what is your favorite food. Ss did a survey on other students' favorite food which they had in other countries. The second activity was my secret ramen recipe. Ss shared their special recipes for ramen. The third activity was about telling procedures of the 7 different dishes to put them into a right order. A student from a group went to a big sister and saw the picture recipes that the big sister had and she told other group members about the picture procedures. And then other group members found right pictures for the procedures and then glued the pictures in a right order. The fourth activity was about making food hunter's map by searching good places to go about each group's theme. And the students marked the places on the paper and they explained about the places and how to get there from Sookmyung university. On Thursday, students tried to figure out the procedures on a video clip about how to make sweet potato pie. They watched the video clip without sound first. And then they discussed it with other group members and came up with one last procedures for the recipe. They watched the video clip with sound one more time and then they revised their recipe. Each group started to take turn and to give one sentence of the procedures to the big sister who was leading the lesson and then the final recipe for sweet potato pie was completed by all groups. Next activity was about creating best menu with an assigned vegetable for kids and telling the recipe. Last activity was a cooking activity that students created some food with given ingredients.

 

What Worked Well

 

The theme "food and cooking" itself was interesting to the students. Therefore, they liked to talk and do some activities about food and cooking. As a leading group member of the activities, I also enjoyed the theme. Most of activities were good to help students to use target language a lot which was giving directions. Also, the activities supported to use cooking verbs that they learned from reading homework. Except for the food hunter's map activities, most of the activities about telling procedures of the recipes of some dishes. Therefore, students practiced enough on using cooking verbs and giving directions on making food. The food hunter's map activity was only one activity that students had to use the target language on how to get to the places. Also, when I led the activities, I could see our big sisters helped a lot on coking verbs and vocabularies while students had no idea to say about the procedures and while they wanted to find better verbs to say it.

 

What Did Not Work

 

In the activity called "Follow me" which had to do with the picture recipes of 7 dishes. During the activities, our group who planned the activity realized that there were some mistakes on the picture procedures which were not in the right order. Therefore, the mistakes gave students some confusions. Also, in Best Vegetable Recipe activity, regarding equal participation of my group , I should have facilitated my group members to have equal participation chances. Most of the time, one member talked mostly during the activity.

 

What Could Be Done Next time

 

I will facilitate my group members more on equal participation next time, and our group will check the activities before we carry them out one more time if there are some mistakes or not.

 

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Week 7 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week's lesson revolved around with the theme movies. The target language was narrative with transitional words. On Tuesday, the first activity was Bingo with transitional words. The second activity was Sentence Hunter that students put the sentences of a story in order. And they figured out some transitional words of the sentences. The third activity was Make a mini scenario. They created 5 stories with other groups. Next activity was about telling one of the movies they watched in a coherent narrative manner. On Thursday, the lesson started with Golden Bell about movies. The second activity was an activity that students create a story with pictures of a movie. The third activity was Honest Trailer that made students make stories with movie clips. The last activity was creating stories with sound tracks.

 

What Went Well

 

The activities were well designed to make the students busy all the time and to make students use target language. These activities required to use thinking skills to created stories so students tried to think a lot to make creative stories. This time, our group members had an equal chances to do presentation to the class. Also, directions and the goal were clear.

 

What Did Not Work

 

Even though our group members had an equal chance to do presentation to the class, only three members out of 6 spoke most of time during discussing and sharing stories before they wrote the stories. It was kind of hard to ask the members who did not talk much to talk because the time for the activities was kind of short to make the stories. Our group did not have enough time to share all the members stories and they just agreed with the stories that one or two members shared and they started to write them down to finish it within the time.

 

What Could Be Done Next Time

 

From next time, I will try to give a role of a writer by take turns during the activities. When the members who usually talk, they also write them down at the same time because that is the fastest way. Therefore, other members just listens other members' talk. To prevent this, next time, I will try to give a role of writer to a different member. Also, I will use reading homework and speaking homework to facilitate my sisters better.

 

Week 8 Reflection - Interview

 

What Happened

 

This week, students had a writing midterm exam on Tuesday. On Thursday, they had an interview with big sisters to assess their speaking proficiency improvement. Different from the interview in the beginning of the semester, this time, big sisters interviewed other group's little sisters, not their group's little sisters. We interviews each student for 15 minutes with our own interview questions and role play card.

 

What Worked Well

 

The interview we had in the beginning of the semester, I was nervous and with unclear heart about how I could handle the interview. Therefore, I forgot to record the interview. This time, I was not nervous and my heart was prepared to meet the students. Even though they were not in my group, through the several lessons, most of students got familiar to me. Therefore, I did not have to spend time to break the ice between the students and me. I welcomed them with delightful voice and smile. To help them to be warmed up, I started with casual questions. This week was their midterm week, so the students were very tired due to the lack of sleep. I wanted to help them to feel relaxed at the interview with big smile not to give them tension. They started to express their condition and feelings about their midterm week and their classes. And then I started to tell some situations with role play cards to make them to response to it. Their response was very quick to answer to the situation. Sometimes, their response was too short, I started to ask some questions to make them add more. Lastly, we did a role play and they were pretty active to do it.

 

What Did Not Work

 

I listened to the interview that I recorded, I realized I talked a lot to make them feel comfortable. I thought it was okay to talk actively to do the role-play. But I think I should have talked less and rather than participating role-play actively with talking, I should have helped them to produce more languages with some helpful questions or pushed students little bit on their talk. I was too into the role play.

 

What Can Be Done Next Time

 

Next time, I will prepare more on interview questions rather than too much depend on the role-play cards. Also, I will try to think more helpful questions to make them produce more languages. Additionally, I will try not to fill the tension gap with talking so that I can give them time to think more and talk. If I should to fill the tension gap during the interview, I will try to use helpful questions to make them think and talk.

 

Week 9 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week, the lesson was about cultural differences. Our group was the teaching group. On Tuesday, other two members taught the lesson. So I could be a big sister for my group. First activity was about interviewing partner's culture shock experiences, and the second activity was writing a letter to family who are opposing their marriage which is going to be international marriage. The third activity was be a new announcer. Each group watched a video clip and they wrote the information of the clip to deliver it as a news announcer. The last activity was telling the stories about cultural differences among the scenes of a movie called My Big Fat Wedding after watching it. On Thursday, I taught the lesson. First activity was researching and telling the eating tips of 5 different countries. The last activity was making a business plan for setting a Korean food restaurant in the 5 countries in the previous activity.

 

What Worked Well

 

In the first activity on Tuesday, students were actively participated because they were paired up in each group. Each member had more chance to talk and they enjoyed to talk about culture shock experiences. And on Thursday, the two activities were well connected each other and students actively participated to produce target language which is formal narrative. The direction was clear and it was good that students could have ideas about the information for the activities through the reading homework. If there was no information about the eating cultures of 5 countries, students might be confused to search the information with broad ranges of the information on the web. The last activity on Thursday made students to discuss actively each other because the theme of the activity was quite interesting to them. As a big sister of my group on Tuesday, I tried to interact with low proficiency student in my group by asking questions to help her to have some ideas and to talk for the activities. My little sisters participated actively and I tried to manage time often because they were very into the activities.

 

What Did Not Work

 

On Tuesday, the last activity had not enough time to carry out whole processes. So we cut off the presentation part of the activity. Also, On Thursday, for the last activity, only two groups could do the presentation with the paper ppt slides that they made passionately because we were running out of time. On Thursday, we started late because professor had to talk about children's day class. However, also we should have planned the activities with more time. The target language of the lesson was formal narrative, so it took more time to write and produce languages. For the activity of writing a letter to family who are opposing their international marriage and the activity of writing a script to tell the information as a news announcer about the video clip they watched, most of the time, only two students in my group actively participated whose speaking proficiency is high. Because they were busy to finish the task within the time, so the two students constantly made the sentences for the activity. I tried to ask other students some questions to participate but the students had hard time to make sentences quickly with the information. I think the activities needed more time for other students to think and make sentences with the information.

 

What Can Be Done Next Time

 

Next time, I will try to make students to take turn to write some sentences of an activity which required to write something for the equal participation. Also, I will try to plan and manage the time better for the activities. It was sad and sorry that all the group could not do their presentation after they prepared so passionately for the presentation.

 

 

Week 10 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week, group 1 taught a lesson with the theme, language learning. The lesson was carried out with the language function of describing graphs and tables. There was only Tuesday class this week because Thursday was a national holiday (Children's Day). On Tuesday, students did three different kinds of activities. First one was about matching spoken languages with countries. Second activity was graph chart making. The last one was article analysis.

 

What Worked Well

 

Students were able to make formal languages based on information about graphs and charts. Even though they knew about the graphs and charts, it was little bit challenging to explain about the use and the benefits of graphs and charts. Therefore, I could see that content was a learning for them as well as language functions. It was formal so they tried really hard to produce languages based on the given information. Group 1 gave them enough information through the reading homework and handouts, so students were able to engage activities well. For the last activity, my group members really enjoyed to make graphs and charts based on the given article. They came up with rationales with charts and graphs about why we as a global citizen should learn English. I have realized that students are good at project based activities with clear motivation. They were like a dream team for the project. As a big sister, I tried to manage the time when they were too into discussing two terms on the article by telling them to move on to the next step. And two students tried to explain some graphs in Korean, so I told them to use English. Also, dividing two teams in a group worked well so that it helped them to participate more actively.

 

What Did Not Work and What Can Be Done Next Time

 

The lesson went very well and my group members really produced target languages through the activities and given information. However, in the beginning, there was a time that group members ask vocabularies on the reading homework they did not know. I explained about the definitions some vocabularies, but some definitions of vocabularies were not well defined for the context. So I searched it on the internet and tried to give them the definitions again. I should have read the reading homework well to be prepared for the lesson.

 

Week 11 Reflection

 

What Happened

 

This week, group 2 taught a lesson with a theme of music and art. And the language function was giving opinions informally by using adjectives. On Tuesday, the activities were designed based on music. The activities were crossword puzzle, speed game, how you feel, and let's make super song.

On Thursday, the activities were made based on art. The activities were ice cream painting, speed tea party, and my curator.

 

What Worked Well

 

There were many interesting and creative activities that students enjoyed. On Tuesday, my group members had fun with describing songs they heard with adjectives. And whole class moved around and asked about the song and shared their opinions about it. They gathered with same adjectives for the songs. They had a great chance to use various adjectives to describe the songs and they also learned new adjectives and how to describe the feelings and opinions about songs. Most of group members had no difficulties to use various adjectives because the adjectives were on the reading homework. However, the low proficiency group member had a hard time to describe songs with adjectives. Therefore, most of time I sat beside her and I tried to help her with questions and adjectives. On Thursday, one group member was absent, so I had to involve the group like a group member. We took a turn to be a judge who accepted the adjectives for the pictures that other group members used. They convinced very well with their adjectives for the pictures and it was fun learning various adjectives in a creative way. Most of my group members were very brilliant to describe the pictures and they asked questions each other about the adjectives that they did not know. The vocabularies on the reading homework were very helpful to make my group members have background knowledge about the adjectives that they had to use for the activities. I could see the students were making the vocabularies their own by doing the activities. Also, most of the activities with taking turns and pairing up were successful to give the students equal chances to participate and speak.  

 

What Did Not Work

 

On Tuesday, my group members had fun with listening 15 different songs to describe the songs to other group members so that they can guess the title of the songs. However, they did not use many adjectives and languages because they focused on the speed and they also knew the song pretty well. I told them to use more adjectives and languages to describe the songs, but they used very simple languages to describe the song and they got the answers very fast. On Thursday, the activity called speed tea party was fun to describe many different drawings. It was successful to describe the drawings with simple adjectives, but we needed more time to describe the pictures with more languages. Also, I forgot to bring snack for Thursday. It was frustrating moment, but I decided to order pizza for them. So students really enjoyed the pizza.

 

What Can Be Done Next Time

 

On Tuesday, the crossword puzzle activity demanded more time to finish up because students did not study the adjectives on the reading homework well. Especially, the low proficiency level student had a difficult time to describe the adjectives to her partner. Next time, I will be more prepared on the vocabularies with definitions so that I can help the low proficiency students on the definitions.Also, this time, I moved around the students to help them, but next time, I will try to sit next to the low proficiency level student and tried to help her more.