Reflective Summary

        “Teachers who engage in reflective practice can develop a deeper understanding of their teaching, assess their professional growth, develop informed decision-making skills, and become proactive and confident in their teaching” (Farrell, 2008). Reflecting on your own teaching helps acknowledge your weaknesses and strengths, which is the utmost motivation to continue.

When I reflect on my teaching demonstration, I identified my pivotal consideration as making the learner willingly engage in the lesson, not because they are being compelled. That led me to work with utmost rapport with the 2nd-grade students I selected for the demonstration practice. I focused on the sounds of animals in the lesson and demonstrated eliciting[1] and grading[2] as classroom management techniques. The efficiency of a stirrer can be identified by the enthusiastic and active learners in the classroom. The stir activity[3] I used was a careful consideration of the students' level and their behaviours. Once they settled, I acknowledged the previous lesson by which the demonstration lesson was used as a continuation. Understanding the primary learners' interests through an experienced primary teacher, I utilized miming as the eliciting technique. After a meticulous selection, I gathered several vocabularies that did not overwhelm the students yet added input to their knowledge[4]. Hence, my demonstration agrees with Krashen's (1988) input hypothesis that enunciates that acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language (natural communication) in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages conveyed and understood[5]

 

Furthermore, teacher language grading is an essential component in primary-level classrooms. Hence, the language I used was well-measured with pitching and intonation variants. The stirrer refreshed the classroom atmosphere, and the students were enthusiastic to watch the teacher and play the 'guessing game' rather than acting themselves. The instructions were well comprehended, and thus, I could elicit my intended vocabulary expectations. At the end of the lesson, I could understand that the students had fun during the session because of their laughter and the positive comments. 

    Apart from selecting an innovative approach to vocabulary building, I called out the students to answer the questions Whenever I identified a confused face, I asked them and elicited the answer by nudging and guided discovery. I wanted to let everyone participate in the lesson without making anyone feel left out. 

    To conclude, the teaching demonstration was an impeccable experience for us and laid a solid foundation for the teaching career ahead. It helped me manage my stage consternation and deliver a successful presentation. Furthermore, I use that opportunity to practice classroom management techniques learned. However, the lack of access to an authentic level classroom hinders the accurate judgement of my success as a teacher. 

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[1] Teacher interventions (Scrivener, 2012)
[2] Teacher language (Scrivener, 2012)
[3] ‘Hands-up…Hands-down’
[4] I used the sentence structure: ‘cat goes meow’. In addition to the vocabulary input, the students received an initiation to the simple present sentence structure without overwhelming them with grammar.

[5] Krashen (1988)