Feedback 4

Feedback on Tuğçe Aydemir’s Second Offical Presentation

When I started watching the video of Tuğçe’s second official presentation, I thought that she made a good start to the lesson. She introduced the topic to her students by connecting it to the weather that day and started the lesson in a chatty way. This actually provided her with a good transition to the grammar point. Later, she elicited some reported speech examples from her students and quickly moved to the other activity by showing some questions from Harry Potter movies to revise their knowledge about the reported speech. At first, I thought that she was moving too fast between the activities. However, I later realized that there were only five students in the class and this was the main reason why the lesson was so fast.

There is another point I want to talk about related to Tuğçe’s lesson and also related to my own classroom experience: Should we give some right of choice to our students? At the beginning of her lesson, Tuğçe asked her students whether they liked Harry Potter movies. Most of the students unfortunately said: “No.” This could be quite a demoralizing answer if you prepared your entire lesson plan on a theme like this. As far as I can observe from her video, Tuğçe did not lose calmness and positive attitude even after this answer, and I want to congratulate her for this. In fact, the lesson went on quite well contrary to the students’ claims that they did not like Harry Potter. Yet, what can we do in such a situation? What could be a possible solution? I think that it is possible to be prepared in advance for such situations. For my first official presentation, I was really uncertain about what to do in the classroom as my teacher told me that I was completely free. Then, I taught that asking my students what they preferred would be a good idea. Actually, this worked quite well in the classroom and all the students participated in the lesson enthusiastically as it was their choice to have a speaking focused lesson. However, there is also a disadvantage to this: The students might be unhappy when you do not take their idea into account for the following lessons. It is not always possible to do what the students want. There is always a curriculum to follow and objectives to be met. In my second presentation in the same class, the students again thought that I would ask for their opinions about the topic. When I couldn’t do this as I had to follow the curriculum, they were upset and they did not attend the class as much as the first one. Therefore, I cannot reach an agreement about this issue right now. Yet, I think that if Tuğçe had chosen a theme according to her students’ interests, the level of participation could have been higher.

Overall, I think that this was an effective lesson and Tuğçe was successful in terms of classroom management. I congratulate her for being so calm and energetic at the same time. I hope that my feedback will be useful for her self evaluation as well. 

Feedback 3

Feedback on Asude Karaaslan’s Second Official Presentation

As I was watching the video of Asude’s second official teaching, I was really impressed by her self- confidence. From the beginning of the lesson, she does not show any sign of nervousness, which is in fact good both for the students and for her. As far as I have observed until now, the students generally prefer a firm attitude from the teacher although this should not be misunderstood as being inapproachable. In my opinion, Asude succeeded in being a confident and approachable teacher.

In the following parts, however, there were some points when some students lost their attention for the lesson and started to talk to their group members. This was demotivating both for them and for the other members of the classroom. In my opinion, Asude could have warned these students and she could have made them feel that she was the teacher. I am against harsh criticisms as I think that they will only make the situation worse. However, she could have used some practical strategies such as moving closer to that group of students or warning them in a polite way. It would have been better if she had changed her zone a little bit and moved among the groups.

For the problem of students talking in Turkish, I generally prefer warning them until they give up talking in Turkish or I make them feel that I am aware that they talk in Turkish. Asude did not warn her students but she preferred to address some questions to them and she tried to involve them in the classroom through the group activity. This way, the students attended the lesson but they continued to talk in Turkish from time to time. I am one of those people who believe in the need to talk in English throughout the lesson. That’s why I think she should have warned her students at some points.

I think that her lesson was generally successful; yet, there were some points that could be improved. I hope that this feedback will be useful in that sense. 

Feedback 2

Feedback on Özlem Öztürk’s First Official Presentation

While watching Özlem’s video, I realized that I was in fact unlucky for not being able to observe any young learners. From the very beginning of the lesson, Özlem’s nine year old students are so enthusiastic that it seems impossible to lose their attention. In my opinion, this is also partly due to Özlem’s good rapport with the students. She generally addressed them with their names, which is really valuable for the students. They feel that they are cared for by their teacher this way.

The game part was incredibly effective with this classroom. In fact, they were so enthusiastic that it was sometimes impossible to stop them from jumping on their desks or shouting all together to be chosen by the teacher. This is in fact one of the difficulties of working with young learners. At some points, the class was noisy and it was difficult to hear Özlem’s voice in the video. She tried to handle the situation by using her voice and by moving around the class. She was quite effective in doing this. However, the number of people in the classroom may also be a disadvantage for a novice teacher. In my opinion, if there were less students in this classroom, Özlem’s lesson could have been much more effective as she could have managed the class more easily. There were still some students who did not wait for the teacher’s instructions and continued to talk in their groups. If the classroom was bigger and if the grouping arrangement allowed Özlem to go and visit all the groups, she could be able to solve this problem.

Regarding her instructions, I think that she did a very good job as the students generally did not have any problems understanding what they were supposed to do. In the group work part, she did a very good job providing assistance to all the groups and giving them positive feedback when they did something correctly. Overall, I think that this was a very lively and successful lesson.

Feedback 1

Feedback on Mehmet Demir’s First Official Presentation 

In his first official presentation with the seventh graders, Mehmet shows a good example of attracting attention of the students to the subject. At the beginning of his lesson, he makes the students play a hangman game where they try to discover the topic of the lesson, which is “holidays.” This game proves quite good for activating them as they are really challenged while trying to find the word. Also, by making a concept map about the subject, he was able to activate the students’ background information about holidays. The level of participation in this part shows that the subject was really interesting for the students. 

 I was also able to observe the way Mehmet presented the conditional structure to his students. In fact, I found him quite successful in this part as he focused on the usage and meaning of the structure instead of the grammatical rules. The students first found some conditions and results from the text about the Iztuzu beach and caretta-carettas. Later, they talked about these sentences and negotiated about the meaning with the questions Mehmet asked. He asked them whether the actions in the second conditional format were real or not real. Through this discussion, the students were aware of the fact that second conditional is meant to be used for unreal situations. 

 In the following parts, the students worked on a worksheet and reviewed their knowledge about the conditionals. Mehmet was helpful to his students both in this part and the other parts. The students were successful in completing the exercise and they controlled the answers all together. In my opinion, it would be better if the sentences of this worksheet were connected to the theme of holidays as well. Such connections between the activities make the lesson look like a complete unit rather than separate parts added after one another, which in my opinion makes the lesson more effective. 

 The issue of time management may be a big problem for all of us from time to time. Mehmet also could not finish the post-activity as a result of the lack of time. In my opinion, this is a skill which we will all gain in time. Being in a real classroom is different from presenting to your peers in many ways; that’s why we sometimes cannot see that all the activities we prepared for one lesson plan are in fact too much in an actual classroom. 

 To sum up, I can say that I found Mehmet’s lesson quite effective. He was a positive and helpful teacher. I especially liked the way he prepared his students for the class and the way he presented the grammar. He needs to work on his time management as all of us do. I think that he will be an effective and positive teacher in the future.

Official Presentation 3

This is the video of my third official presentation. This lesson takes place in the same classroom as my second official presentation. The students are 5th grade students and they are around eleven years old. Actually, this lesson is following the previous lesson; so it is possible to say that my second and third official presentations are connected. In this class, we are again talking about holidays. However, instead of talking about other people's holiday plans, the students will assume that they plan holidays for tourists as they are travel agency workers. My aim is to make my students use "can" for making suggestions. I hope you enjoy watching this video!

My First Official Presentation

 This is a video of me making an official presentation at my practicum school, which is a private institution. The students are in the 9th grade. They are very lively and energetic teenagers and I have always tried to have a good relationship with them. This is their reading class, but they seem to be more interested in speaking lessons. The teacher told me that I was completely free in doing any activity that I would like to do. Before preparing for this official, I asked for the students' opinions and they told me that they would really appreciate it if my activities were communicative and speking centered. So, I prepared a lesson mainly based on speaking and they were really active in the lesson, I am grateful to them:) I unfortunately I could not have a peer observer during this lesson, so I had to arrange the camera myself at the beginning. In the first 1.30 minutes of the video I am doing the arrangements so you can just skip that part. I hope you have a good time watching my video.

Official Presentation 2

This is the video of my second official presentation. In this presentation, I am in a 5th grade classroom in a private school. The students are around eleven years old and their proficiency level is intermediate. Throughout this lesson, we talk about holidays and holiday plans. The grammar focus of the lesson is "going to". I did not want to focus on grammar very much but I rather tried to make them use "going to" in appropriate places during their speaking activities. Hope you enjoy this video !