CELTA Experience (Day 17)

The class today looked different. Instead of setting the chairs around the table as usual, the chairs were organized in a horse shoe shape today. Ang guess what? We had a Hungarian lesson today. Never had I though about learning Hungarian in my life. I was excited actually during the class by following every single thing that the teacher, Zsofi, said, explained, and instructed. No wonder I understood everything fast. Anyways, I actually just guessed. Haha. 

Having this Hungarian class for zero background or experience of students showed us how it felt like teaching English for beginner students. Trust me, it's tough. Oh, I still remember a few stuffs. 

Szia. Siti vagyok. Mi a neved? .... vagyok. Hodg vadg? Jol vagyok. koszi. Es te? Enis, koszi. Szia. Szia. 

I might've made a lot of spelling mistakes here and there. Well, that's what we learned today. I can't imagine how hard it is teaching English for beginner students. But wait, I think I've got experience. Maybe I can share in a different post later. 

In the afternoon, we had a chance to meet the CELTA Assessor Alastair Douglas (I wrote his name down and Googled him). Nothing much to talk about. We shared how our experience has been going so far and if we have any comments or concerns to share. Everything was great anyways!

I was not too busy in the afternoon because I had no TP today. Carys, George and Ethan had their TP today. Well, as usual, I observed their teaching and took some important notes. I don't want to tell every single thing that I wrote from each of their lesson, but I'd just like to share some important notes I got from the feedback session after the TP. 

- In teaching, it's important to think about the distribution of students in grouping.

- Natural language, especially the weak form or sound of some words, needs to be emphasized.

- Make students notice the grammar focus of the lesson.

- In showing the answers of vocabulary practice or any practice, show the whole sentence to tell the context of its use. 

- Overall, the steps would be Doing the task > Checking > Meaning > Drilling > Form > Practice.

- Always give a task every time we ask students to watch a video, or listen to an audio, or to look at a picture.

- In revealing the answers on the board, do it one by one so students are focused and don't get distracted by other numbers.

- In writing lesson, make all stages clear. Planning (take notes, with who, for how long). Writing (what to write, for how long).

- In the freer practice stage in every lesson, many things might happen (micro stages), and that's why it's important to write everything in nice and clear detail.