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Candidate name: Claire Liu Word Count: …958 words………….

Assignment title: Lessons from the classroom

This is to certify that this assignment is in my own words:

Signed: ______Claire Liu_______ Date: ___2021/07/12____

To be filled in by the CELTA Tutor:

Result on first submission: Pass / Resubmit

Comment:

Tutor Signature: ______________________ Date: __________________

Result on re-submission: Pass / Fail

Comment:

Tutor Signature: ______________________ Date: __________________

1: Teaching strengths

Rapport：
Maintaining good rapport with the students was definitely one of my strengths. My teaching practice student said that I
was friendly all way through and used the students names on every occasion. In addition,I always encouraged and made
eye contact with all students, but not in a condescending way.

Teaching techniques :
Teaching techniques such as eliciting, drilling, stress marking, concept checking and monitoring all seem to be
progressing well. In TP 6, the drilling of the natural disasters worked well and the rapid fire drilling I did on the board was
fast and effective at reinforcing the pronunciations and checking the students’ abilities.My concept check questions were
well-designed and clear shown by feedback from my peers and my tutors following my TP3,5,7.

Awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses：

Feedback from my tutors has highlighted that a key strength is my awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses, and
the self-evaluation I make in feedback sessions. I think this will ultimately prove to be invaluable in my future teaching as
it is enabling me to take forward my own professional development.For example,in the first three TPs, my classes were
very teacher-centered but with the assistance from members of my group, there were clear improvements in student
centeredness onwards.

2. Areas for improvement

Area for improvement How to make progress

Signposting: My signposting was unclear at times which 1.Observe colleagues and make a special note of how they
affected students’ understanding and their response. Some give signposting.
of the tasks were affected by this in TP7 and TP8. 2. Script my signposting on my lesson plan.
3. Ask someone to observe my lessons focusing particularly
on this area.
Time control: Throughout all the TPs, five out of eight 1.Set an alarm clock for each stage and plan the stages with
went overtime in some stages according to my tutors’ more anticipation of problems.
feedback. As a result,students didn’t get a chance to 2.Keep on working on lesson plans and timing for at least
practise the language or fluency activities.Sometimes they three months from now on.
couldn’t get feedback or delayed correction at the last stage.
TTT: My tutor have told me that I must resist the 1.Record myself on my cell phone and take a dictation of
temptation to dominate the class. My TTT was high in first random single minute bursts of TTT. Prune these down to
three TPs and I got it under control onwards. But I still convey only essential messages.
need to pay great attention because my TTT would still rise 2.Ask my colleagues to observe me and feedback on this
if I get loose. issue at least three or four times over the coming months.

Lesson planning: I struggled every time with my lesson 1. Keep all my lesson plans and rewrite at least one a week
plans especially for the first three TPs. I received the to improve on it for implementation in a future lesson.
comments from my tutors that I needed to add more 2.Swap plans with peers and colleagues and exchange ideas
anticipation of difficulties and solutions in my procedure in on anticipation of difficulties and solutions.
TP3,4,5,6. 3.Observe experienced colleagues teach at least once two
months and try to plan the lessons taught post observation
and check this with the original plans at a later date.
3. Observation
Observing MC in the first week of the class was a big bonus. She made the students feel comfortable and involved our
Upper-intermediate English students in the process of teaching and learning. Her lesson thought me the dominant
importance to have a suitable and student-centered lead in and connect it smoothly into the main aim of the lesson. MC
prepared a set of recent pictures of hers for the students to make prediction. During students’ discussion, students’ current
knowledge and inaccuracies with the target language (present perfect and present perfect continuous) could be observed
and tested. I found it a very effective method of the testing stage in a TTT class and at the same time students enjoyed
speaking English and were highly engaged. I will adapt the TTT class procedures for my following grammar class and
check their suitability with experienced teacher before the class.

Observing Charlotte do her reading lesson was very useful. She showed us her plan and all her teacher talk had been
clearly scripted and pruned to a minimum. She had also clearly plotted open ended ICQs, not just one word or Y/N
questions, for students to respond to. The CCQs on her LA handout was also very effective in reducing her teacher talk. It
just proved that with clearly focused planning and a procedure which ensures that the learners are encouraged to talk helps
teachers achieve aims. I will certainly use Charlotte’s idea of using a different font for my scripted language in future!

4. Further development

My future plans with the English teaching would be setting out to gain a variety of experience,such as teaching classes of
different sizes (one-to-one,small groups of learners or larger groups), with a different set of materials and syllabus or at a
range of levels. Also I will use my resource centre or staffroom, and the internet to read or browse the full range of
available materials including course books,reference books,teachers’ resource books and so on. I have thought a lot about
eventually taking my DELTA, but after speaking to several experienced teachers, I think an MA in Applied Linguistics or
Education Management would be the next qualification I would like to study for, which will give me the qualifications I
would need to be a school director in a local language school.