Reflection from last week: Debating how to be a better teacher.

This was supposed to be a dry-run of my microteaching from early last week for my debate class. I’m a bit embarrassed to post it, because it didn’t incorporate TD, BU and TDBU as it should have. I still think there was a lot of good interaction in the class. It was a new class, so

I was trying to teach them the basic components of a debate and what would be expected. By using the PowerPoint and showing them a video of a debate I was hoping to activate their schema so they could better relate the vocab terms to what I was describing. Then at the end (though not on the filmed clip here) I had them do their first mock debate with each other, which helps them to “learn by doing.”

In this clip, even though I’m showing them a PPT, I’m trying to keep them constantly engaged by peppering them with questions throughout and doing my best to personalize the concept of a debate for them (“when have you debated someone?”, “how do you win an argument with a friend?”). They eventually got together after the PPT and worked together in groups, organizing their points for the eventual debate and this culminated with them speaking in front of their class, personalizing the issues they felt passionate about. It was a fun class and it had a good energy, but it wasn’t what it should have been and I should have done a better job incorporating the Harmer readings into my class. It’s aggravating because I know now what I could have done differently, and I’m going to try to do a proper listening/reading task with my class this week.

            Tom, if you’re reading this, I also want to work on what you said yesterday about putting too much attention on myself.  Looking at this clip I know there’s too much teacher-talk, which makes me think I overestimated the students talking proficiency as well. I want to change this imbalance and I know it’s a problem, but I worry about the direction of the class if I’m not keeping the students’ attention or guiding them. What should I do less of (or more of) to give the students more autonomy in my class?