Step Inside My Classroom
A snippet of a practice teach at a high school for a TESOL course
In this video, I was reviewing main idea and theme with a class of junior students. After a quick review of main idea and theme and strategies on how to identify both, I created a PPT slideshow and audio recorded myself reading the children's book, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and I had students listen to the story and discuss in their groups what the main idea and theme of the story was. Although the story is rather simple and not grade level, my goal was for students to use the strategies taught in class to identify the main idea and theme using an easier to read text. I used instructional paraphrasing to validate students' responses to build their confidence while also making their responses more accessible for other students.
The Importance of Rereading
This was in a classroom of 11-14 year old Chinese students in Shanghai, China. The lesson was on making inferences, and I had them read a short but difficult to understand story. After they read the short paragraph/story, I realized that many of them did not understand the story, which I had anticipated. I decided to teach them the importance of rereading. NOTE: This was my first year of teaching. Watching this video now makes me realize how far I have come as a teacher.
It's a lion! Run!
I taught a 30 minute lesson on colors to a class of second graders in Japan. The objective of this lesson was for students to identify basic colors in English. This was an activity that I borrowed from a former colleague of mine when I taught in China.
Hello, what's your name? Hello, my name is... Natto?
This is a picture of me performing a puppet show for the same class of second graders from the video above. The purpose behind the puppet show was for students to listen to a story and answer comprehension questions about it such as "What is the name of the wolf?" I had so much fun performing for them! If only it was video recorded!
Cultural Exchange
Teaching English wasn't the only responsibility I had while teaching in China. I also had to share my culture, and what better way to do that than share my favorite holiday? This was taken on Halloween, and I designed a lesson on Halloween. This was a BINGO game using Halloween themed vocabulary words. The best part was dressing up!
Volunteer at a School for Hard of Hearing Students
One of the most fun and fulfilling teaching experience I had while living in China was volunteering once a week at a school for hard of hearing students. They were super sweet and always so energetic!
Building Rapport with My Japanese Students
One of the easiest way to build rapport with Japanese students is to recreate iconic anime moments. Ginyu Force, assemble!
