End of Second Year Teaching Reflection
“I believe I will have a more organized class and I can manage my class better next year.” This is what I thought by end of my first year teaching as I’ve learned many strategies for classroom management which is the biggest part I care about in my teaching journey. However, by end of second year teaching, the statement is half true and half incorrect.
I put very big part of my teaching enthusiasm on developing classroom management skills and strategies as I deeply believe that a poor-managed classroom would ruin a perfect lesson plan. An enthusiasm teacher may prepare a wonderful, educational, and fun activity as part of lesson plan for students to participant. However, if the teacher didn’t dress the expectation well; if the teacher didn’t point out the activity rules; if the teacher didn’t model the activity/instruction, it may turn out that students don’t seem to interest because they don’t know how to play the activity and don’t know what’s the teacher’s expectation. In this case, the wonderful lesson plan may just went to waste as it is not effective. A well classroom management is not just to keep students’ voice down or like a dead people sitting in the class listening to the teacher.
For me, a well classroom management is more like to get students engaged in what the teacher is teaching, to have students to understand the teacher’s expectations on each lessons/activities, and to have the class work smoothly which including a very big part of classroom management, procedures and rules.
As a teacher who teaches a foreign language, I want my students to talk in the target language I am teaching in classroom instead of just sit and listen to the teacher. Student learn more by speaking than listening in a language learning classroom. When a student is able to speak his/her thoughts about the topic we are talking, he/she is using his/her background knowledge, either learned from class or out of classroom, to apply in the situation in classroom. This is the reason I value students’ engagement more than if they are sit still and listen to the teacher.
Teaching in Dual Language Immersion (DLI) class, time is one thing we value probably the most. As students switching classes between target language and English, students would only with me half time of other regular students and my teaching content is as the same amount of other regular classes. That is, I need to squeeze my one day teaching content within 2 hours or three. At the meantime, I don’t want students to just academically learn materials in the textbook; instead, I use different ways to insert my teaching material to motive students to learn. These ways are including computer games, class activities, vivid videos, and more. To smoothly complete all my teaching materials in limited time, a clear expectation, procedure, and rules is extremely important in my classroom. That is, I need to limit my transition time down to as little as it could be. To do so, by starting every lesson, I need to clearly state my expectation and rules to students so they know what to do before, during, and after the lesson. Instead of disrupting teacher’s instruction, students clearly know what to do if they need a sharp pencil, if they need a drink, or what to do if they have done the assignment early.
I have tons of thoughts to share after two years of teaching, but I’d rather to choose “classroom management” to reflect as this is the area I care the most as a teacher, especially a teacher who teaches in DLI class.
I put very big part of my teaching enthusiasm on developing classroom management skills and strategies as I deeply believe that a poor-managed classroom would ruin a perfect lesson plan. An enthusiasm teacher may prepare a wonderful, educational, and fun activity as part of lesson plan for students to participant. However, if the teacher didn’t dress the expectation well; if the teacher didn’t point out the activity rules; if the teacher didn’t model the activity/instruction, it may turn out that students don’t seem to interest because they don’t know how to play the activity and don’t know what’s the teacher’s expectation. In this case, the wonderful lesson plan may just went to waste as it is not effective. A well classroom management is not just to keep students’ voice down or like a dead people sitting in the class listening to the teacher.
For me, a well classroom management is more like to get students engaged in what the teacher is teaching, to have students to understand the teacher’s expectations on each lessons/activities, and to have the class work smoothly which including a very big part of classroom management, procedures and rules.
As a teacher who teaches a foreign language, I want my students to talk in the target language I am teaching in classroom instead of just sit and listen to the teacher. Student learn more by speaking than listening in a language learning classroom. When a student is able to speak his/her thoughts about the topic we are talking, he/she is using his/her background knowledge, either learned from class or out of classroom, to apply in the situation in classroom. This is the reason I value students’ engagement more than if they are sit still and listen to the teacher.
Teaching in Dual Language Immersion (DLI) class, time is one thing we value probably the most. As students switching classes between target language and English, students would only with me half time of other regular students and my teaching content is as the same amount of other regular classes. That is, I need to squeeze my one day teaching content within 2 hours or three. At the meantime, I don’t want students to just academically learn materials in the textbook; instead, I use different ways to insert my teaching material to motive students to learn. These ways are including computer games, class activities, vivid videos, and more. To smoothly complete all my teaching materials in limited time, a clear expectation, procedure, and rules is extremely important in my classroom. That is, I need to limit my transition time down to as little as it could be. To do so, by starting every lesson, I need to clearly state my expectation and rules to students so they know what to do before, during, and after the lesson. Instead of disrupting teacher’s instruction, students clearly know what to do if they need a sharp pencil, if they need a drink, or what to do if they have done the assignment early.
I have tons of thoughts to share after two years of teaching, but I’d rather to choose “classroom management” to reflect as this is the area I care the most as a teacher, especially a teacher who teaches in DLI class.