Diary
Hamburg
Please choose one of the documentation items below:
| 3.1. | Feedback | ||||
| 3.2. | Peer Evaluation | ||||
| 3.3. | Diary | 3.3.1. | Hamburg | a) | Teachers' Diary |
| b) | Weblog Angelika | ||||
| c) | Weblog Sabine | ||||
| d) | Weblog Werner | ||||
| 3.3.2. | Kaunas | ||||
| 3.3.3. | Reykjavik | ||||
| 3.3.4. | Rzeszow | ||||
| 3.4. | Photo Evaluation | ||||
| 3.5. | Diverse |
Teacher’s diary
Objective: to become more aware of your teaching, reflect it and improve it, getting response from other SEFES participants
Method: teacher’s diary, published in a web-log
When/Who/Where: 9-1-2004 till 23-1-2004 / 27 students of an English class, 12th form, teacher: Angelika Wollermann, Staatliche Handelsschule mit Wirtschaftsgymnasium “Am Lämmermarkt”, Hamburg
Description: As agreed upon with the other SEFES participants I decided to keep a teacher’s diary for a certain period of time, i.e. after each lesson I sat down at the computer and described and tried to analyse it. I then sent it off by email and it was published in a safe area on our website, so that it could only be read by the SEFES members. They did the same.
Results:
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It helped me to focus on this particular class and to become more aware of weak and strong points in my lessons, as I spent more time thinking about it, in the daily routine most lessons usually just pass by. The comments from the other SEFES members were of some help, too and it was very rewarding to read the diary entries of the teachers in Poland, Lithuania and Iceland.
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It is very time-consuming and you have to be very disciplined to write everything down, preferably right afterwards.
Development/Consequences:
I stopped it after 4 lessons due to the aforementioned reasons.
Example:
I have decided to describe a unit in my English class (12th form, i.e. the students are between18 and 20 years old and have already had 8 years of English at school. I have got 27 students and the majority (about 80 %) can neither speak fluently nor write without awful mistakes. Actually, I have never had a group with so many students with such poor knowledge of English. In the last exam I had to read expressions like “she didn’t can went”. I sometimes wonder what they have done English-wise in the last 8 years ?! As a group they are quite friendly, but they are very fond of talking with each other in German about things they are interested in, which are usually not part of the lesson. Of course, in my point of view, they had better be attentive and practise their listening, reading and writing abilities in English, but so far it has been very difficult for me to convince them of it. That’s the reason why I decided to do a short unit with them about a topic they might be interested in: unexplained phenomena. My aim is to motivate them and to make them participate more by doing short presentations on various aspects dealing with this topic. Furthermore I want to read a novel with them (“Don’t look now” by Daphne du Maurier). I have also got the film on video.
Jan. 9, 2004
Today is the day where I want to start my diary and I haven’t really slept well, not a good precondition to make a good impression…
I start the lesson with collecting different kinds of unexplained phenomena on the board which takes rather long.
Then the students are reading a short text dealing with the topic – e.g. computers used to be magic some time ago. And I have the intention to trigger a discussion with the question:
Imagine in 1910 you see a computer: what might be strange/mysterious about it? Only a few students can or want to say something about it, it is very slow and gets boring. Although I find the idea very interesting, it does not seem to be of any interest to the students.
The next step is to write down useful vocabulary from the text to enlarge their range of vocabulary.
When I ask if there is anybody who doesn’t believe in unexplained phenomena only one student lifts his finger. However, when I ask what the students believe in I get only a few responses.
My last question “Has anything unexplained ever happened to you? does the trick, quite a lot of students are eager to say something.. Regrettably there is not much time left, we have come to the end of the lesson. This definitely has to be continued in the next lesson
On the whole the lesson was dragging on a bit, the students did not participate as much as I expected. One reason was that I could not concentrate so well and therefore I could not react as quickly as I should have done and I could not sense what would actually motivate the students and on the whole everything had taken longer than expected.
Jan. 16, 2004
This is the second lesson dealing with the subject. I start with testing the vocabulary in order to make them think in English and to prepare them for the next task. Then I show them the beginning of the film “Don’t look now”. Afterwards the students are asked to describe what they have seen. This is more or less o.k. I’m still not sure if I should interrupt them and correct them right away, but running the risk that they don’t want to speak at all any more. The alternative would be to do it afterwards which is a lot nicer. However, when I hear them say “She fells down” I simply can’t control myself and interrupt right away. I somehow have to be more consistent.
In the film the main character has a premonition about his daughter’s death. I now want the students to describe this aspect of the film, not just the order of events. They are also asked to use the vocabulary I checked at the beginning of the lesson. It seems to be very difficult for them, although I don’t know why. Is it just laziness or are they simply not capable of doing it – which would be worse?!
Having the outcome of my last lesson in mind my original plan was that they get together with a partner and talk with him/her about premonitions they might have had or they might have heard of to ensure that everybody is talking in English (although most of them would not take the chance but speak in German). Then a few of them would present to the class what their partner has told them. However, regrettably not enough time is left and I ask the whole class to talk about premonitions. A few students actually say something, which is quite interesting, the rest of the course is quiet. So the majority hasn’t said a word of English in the whole lesson. This I must definitely change – it is my plan for the next lesson.
Jan. 20, 2004
This was a nice lesson today, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Three groups of students did their presentations on unexplained phenomena. All groups tried to give their best making their presentations on palm reading, unusual abilities, hypnosis/walking on fire as interesting as possible, using transparencies, role plays, and an extract from the film “Rainman”. Some of them even tried to involve their fellow students. The presentation where all students were involved was the one about palm reading. Everybody was looking at his hand trying to find out something about his character and chances in later life. It was good fun.
Of course, some of the presenters had a bad pronunciation and made some mistakes, but still, also the weak students wanted to do well at their presentation and they succeeded. It is astonishing what students are able to if they are actually motivated, and in this case they obviously were.
Jan. 23, 2004
The homework for today was to read up to page 12 in the book “Don’t look now” by Daphne du Maurier. In order to check the comprehension I divide the class into 5 groups and give them 6 slips each with relevant sentences from the text. The task in the groups is to find the right order and then write a summary. It is only allowed to speak English. I had in mind to get as many students involved as possible that’s why I decided to do group work. I sometimes wonder whether it is so effective, it takes so long till they get started, they often distract each other and of course I am permanently running around to make sure that they speak English. They don’t see a real need for it and feel stupid speaking to their fellow students in a language they both don’t speak very well. How can I create a real need??? In order to make them work more concentratedly I tell them I am going to collect the written summary afterward. This I do at the end of the lesson, even if only two groups have actually managed to finish the summary. Their homework is to read up to page 30 and I ask two students to write down 6 sentences and to mix them up for the others to find the right order in the next lesson.
---- to be continued ---