Rapport and Flexibility

-

TESL 0100
Unit 7 Reflection

  One of the key ideas that stood out for me regarding classroom management was the idea of establishing rapport. One of the most important things a teacher needs to do at the start of a class is to build relationships and rapport with their students. It's okay if you don't get to the curriculum or lesson plan right away; more learning will take place if you, the teacher, have taken the time to get to know your students and allowed your students to get to know each other. Starting a new class with get to know you activities and ice-breakers in which students get to share about themselves and learn about one another will lay the foundation for future classes. Creating a warm, caring atmosphere in which students feel comfortable asking questions, contributing to discussions and taking risks is a key component to classroom management. 
Another key idea of classroom management is the need to be flexible. Even though we may have the lesson planned out, with several carefully selected and sequenced activities, something may come up that will make it necessary or even better to deviate from the lesson plan.  Maureen, a classmate of mine, said that, "Many good teachable moments come from students' questions and off tangent discussions." I would agree with this statement wholeheartedly! Once when I was teaching a class about the calendar and dates we ended up having a lively discussion about when we each got engaged, married, and had our children! (The class consisted of women from a few different countries) I ended up omitting an activity from my initial plan, but I felt that the conversation that we had was just as worthwhile as the activity I had planned to do. It's okay for a teacher to let go of some of the control of the class and allow the needs and interests of the students to guide the lesson.
Establishing rapport and being flexible are two important concepts that will help to create a positive classroom climate. Showing a genuine interest in your students' thoughts and feelings and being willing modify and adapt a lesson on the fly will go a long way towards making your students feel safe, cared for and respected.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Continued Professional Development Report

-
Image
TESL 0170 Practicum in Teaching ESL The professional development resource that I selected to engage with and analyze is the free online CLB Bootcamp provided by the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. The CLB Bootcamp is a 10-hour self-directed online training course that introduces and explains the CLB’s, as well as how to use the CLB’s for lesson planning and student assessment. The CLB Bootcamp is divided into three modules: CLB Basics , Planning and the CLB and Classroom Assessment and the CLB . Each module is then broken down into three to four sections. The material is presented in a format similar to a PowerPoint presentation, with links to resources, documents and example materials. There are also optional short quizzes throughout that can be taken more than once. It is not necessary to complete the sections or modules in order, or even to complete them all. You can pick and choose which areas you want to learn more about. If you do complete all of the modules...
Read more

My Classroom Community

-
Image
TESL 0100 So I kind of overlooked this assignment, or maybe I was procrastinating it and avoiding it because I am not much of an artist and was not really looking forward to attempting to draw my classroom. :) I tried to do some of the parts in 3D, but other parts are much more basic. It's kind of a mix of both. Attempting to draw a couch was the trickiest part! Anyways, I like to think of my classroom as a community of learners, which is why I used a circular table with me, the teacher (the one with the speech bubble), as part of the circle. When needed, everyone can turn their chairs toward the whiteboard for direct instruction, or to read sentence stems or discussion prompts. I would put our agenda on the board so the students would know what was in store for the day. There would also be a word wall bulletin board with high frequency words and words we had learned in previous lessons. The classroom would have a bookshelf with a wide variety of reading materials and games/...
Read more

21st Century Learners

-
Image
TESL 0100 Unit 9 Reflection As we begin to think about the language classroom that we may be teaching in, we need need to also take a step back and consider what teaching and learning looks like in the twenty-first century. We were asked to think about the skills, tasks and technologies that our students would need to have an understanding of in order to be successful in today's world, and to create an infographic to represent our ideas. Below is the infographic that I created. It includes the skills and strategies that I believe are needed by all students, including language students. In order to succeed in today's ever-changing world, students need to be taught more than just the basic knowledge and skills that were taught in traditional classroom. The four key skills that I have highlighted - communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, often referred to as the four C's, should be an important component to any classroom. In university, the workp...
Read more