On June 7, I began my first teaching lesson for the second half of Jason’s two-hour long ESAL 0350/0450 Advanced Oral Communication class. Though I had previously done some very brief lessons in my other TESL classes, this was the first one that I taught for an extended period and for ESL students. I was nervous going into the lesson as I had not previously had any experience teaching ESL students and did not know what to expect.
After some discussion with Jason about topic ideas, I decided to incorporate debates into three lessons with each one building on the next; I called these lessons “Debate Club”. My first one focused mostly on practicing giving opinions and agreeing or disagreeing with other’s opinions. Having completed the practice and activity around this part of the lesson, I was able to reflect and realize that the students were more advanced in their language skills in this area than I had anticipated. There was also too much focus on practicing the phrases associated with opinions, agreements and disagreements which took away from the other part of the lesson where the students were able to compare two items and decide the one they preferred, then explain why they preferred it. After speaking to my teacher observer after my lesson, I realized that I had not paced my lesson as well as I could have and will have to plan for a more balanced lesson next time.
My teacher observer also shared with me that my rate of speech was too quick for the students. I do know that I speak faster when I am nervous and tend to speak more frequently as well. I remembered that some students did have to ask me to repeat some things I said, so I will try to be more conscious of this going forward in my next lessons. Smiling, or lack of, is also something I struggle with when I am nervous, so I asked my teacher observer if I had smiled enough. She said at the beginning I was not but began to more as she could see I became more comfortable with the group and the lesson. This will be something else for me to be more conscious of.
Overall, I felt that this was a good first lesson. I had some obstacles to overcome but felt that when I did, the lesson went more smoothly. I was able to take a lot away from this experience and will be sure to use the feedback to build into my next lesson.