On June 21, I taught my final debate lesson for the second half of Jason’s two-hour long ESAL 0350/0450 Advanced Oral Communication class.

For this lesson I began with a short breakout room for the students to share with each other the information they had found that was their Northern Canada in January homework from the previous lesson. I did not check in on the breakout rooms nor ask the students to share their information when back in the room. When talking to my teacher observer after the class, I realized this choice was a mistake I made. I explained that the activity was meant to be brief and a way for the students to show that they had done their homework. I felt afterward that my thinking had been limited or nearsighted, especially in not allowing the students to share what they found out about Canada. I made my choice on my own presumption that the students would come back with the same information that summed up Canada as being cold. Some students may have found something different and might have wanted to share. What I could have done was offered the opportunity for sharing; this still could have kept the activity brief but allowed for the students to demonstrate their knowledge. My takeaway from this is to not let my own presumptions influence the student’s chance to share and to always at least open the floor to create the opportunity to do so.

The students during this class were quiet, and this made part of the lesson difficult, particularly the end when I asked the students to share some thoughts about something they liked, learned or hoped to have learned about during the three debate club lessons. None of the students volunteered feedback. I tried calling on students individually to share, but my request was met with silence, even from the students that normally are the first to take the opportunity to speak. I was left with no feedback from the students about the strengths or weaknesses of the lessons and had to accept that I would have to rely on my teacher observer’s notes and my own self-awareness.

My teacher observer was the same for this lesson as my first. I tried to remember what she said about slowing down my rate of speech while I was teaching and asked her after the lesson how I had done in this area. She said there were a couple times she noticed I started speaking quickly and then slowed down, but overall, the rest was better. I took her comments as a win!