Yoav – Pedagogy Final Assignment

Pedagogy and Lesson Planning

During our second year, we continued the fundamental learning of teaching theories and their practice. The major difference between last year and this one was the switch from learning theories only to direct practice in classrooms, and what a change!

Before entering any classroom, we have learned during the whole year that a lesson plan is a must! A teacher cannot start a lesson randomly without previously set goals, and plan each part of the lesson (opening, body, closure) and its activities.

To set goals, “Can Do” statements are essential: a teacher has to set each lesson’s objectives using “Can Do” statements, which will allow him to set activities accordingly.

Lesson plans are a teacher’s guide to provide his pupils the most effective lesson according to the planned goals and directions from the year curriculum. A lesson needs to be meaningful, entertaining, and interactive, to enhance each skill of language learning (speaking, listening, reading, and writing).

Helpful lectures

Many interesting and helpful lectures have been taught during this year of pedagogical learning. Although it is hard to choose between all of them, I believe that there a some that really impacted my young teaching experience:

From the first semester:

Lesson plan activities: from the lesson plan padlet, the many lesson plan examples and tips (from which we have learned how a lesson plan is built: opening, body, closure) to Tali Shaashua’s weather lesson, we have talked about lesson planning during the whole year! We learned how to approach creating a lesson plan, approach goals, and plan activities. As I already stated on the first page, a lesson plan is a must that cannot be avoided in any case, and this year deeply emphasized that statement. In practice, it helped and saved me many times to have my lesson plan printed and placed on my desk while teaching! Setting the lesson’s goals using the “Can Do” statements also helps to focus on those goals, as we determine what do we want our pupils to acquire during the lesson and plan the lesson’s activities accordingly.

Article assignment: While we learned the PPP rule (Present, Practice, Produce), the article I read: “Activities to Active and Maintain a Communicative Classroom” by Courtney allowed me to understand how important it is to add to include in the PPP rule the concept of CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) by using activities in every step of the lesson. Quoting from Courtney’s article, the activities must be “fun, meaningful, interactive, and frequent”, to enhance our pupils’ communicative skills, which is crucial for ESL learners.

Penny Ur’s presentation on how and when to use L1 during ESL lessons: The presentation answered many of my questions about the use of L1 while teaching. The use of L1 during ESL lesson is an important issue which seems to be one of the hardest to work on. The boundary between not enough/too much L1 in the classroom is thin, and that is a skill that an ESL teacher should reach fast during his teaching experience, not to harm the pupils’ learning and use of the L2.

From the second semester:

Pair activity on teaching reading: The pair activity on teaching reading that I have done with Binat about Animals and Colors was a great activity that allowed us to understand how to plan a reading comprehension lesson. The steps of a reading lesson are pre-reading, while reading, and post-reading. For the pre-reading activities, we’ve learned that we should start our lesson by introducing the text by presenting its title and ask many questions, using brainstorming as a tool to introduce the subject without talking directly about the text itself.  During the reading of the text, it is important not to forget about explaining new vocabulary and continue to ask questions to verify their understanding. At the end of the reading, the post-reading activity should include production by using the text and the pupil’s own imagination, allowing them to produce freely while using the new vocabulary from the text and ideas both from the text and their own minds. Those activities also enhance their creativity. I really enjoyed working in pair to prepare a reading lesson plan as it was mainly new for us, and Binat is also a great, creative, and intelligent partner from who I have learned a lot!

Lori Rot’s teaching speaking activity: The tips provided by Lori Rot were very interesting. I have learned how it is important to maximize speaking during a lesson right from its beginning by asking random questions as “How are you feeling today?”, “What do you think of the weather?”, “What are your plans for the weekend?”. During the lesson, it is important to demonstrate words (using our bodies or images) and let the pupils work in pairs or trios while helping them to be more fluent by letting them feel comfortable to make mistakes and correct them.

The Zoom simulation: Noei’s Zoom simulation was very enriching. During the whole year, our little pupils have been through a lot! Although teachers also went through hard times, it is way harder for children to control their emotions and stay motivated while being at home. Noei’s handling of the situation, facing a pupil that was not cooperative both during the lesson and while being “camera-to-camera” with the teacher was great. He was patient, asking many questions, allowing the student to express her feelings while being an incredible listener. The fact that he used examples from his own personal experience while talking to the pupil was great! The activity in general was a meaningful experiment of what heroic teachers faced daily during that pandemic.

Topics not discussed and thoughts about next year:

During this year, I believe that the emphasis of our pedagogical learning was put on lesson planning and its content, as we started to teach for the very first time in classrooms.

We have learned the four skills of language learning (speaking, listening, reading, writing) and how to create activities according to the goals of the lesson and its progression (opening, body, closure).

If there is a topic that comes to my mind about a topic that we’ve not discussed that much about, it is mostly pupils’ evaluation (tests) and the creation of homework.

Another topic that we have discussed both in pedagogy and classroom management was to be assertive and the relationship that we should create with our pupils. It is still something that I would like to learn more about next year, and as cited before, the creation of meaningful and evaluative tests and homework.

I believe that next year is going to be a challenging one, as we are going to teach Junior High School pupils. The teaching of Junior High School pupils includes a different approach of classroom management and more difficult subjects to teach. Also, we will have to manage even more with English level gaps, from the smartest students to ones arriving from the Elementary School with missing acquirements in all ESL learning skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing).

General reflection:

This year of pedagogical learning provided me many tools and comforted me in my choice of becoming an ESL teacher.

In relation to practical training at school, I have learned that my lesson plan should be completely structured with a complete set of goals thanks to the “Can Do” statement.

About the structure of a lesson plan, I must choose my activities according to the lesson’s goals but not only. Pupils need to be entertained while learning. To do so, I will need to be creative, ORGANIZED, and assertive.

It is also important to ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN B, prepare other activities in case of need.

At the beginning of my teaching experience, time management was for me an issue: I have had hard times planning a lesson according to the time I could teach, which was challenging until I successfully understood how to make it function.

During the second semester, the switch from capsules to full classes came with another challenge for me, assertiveness. It was difficult for me to manage as I expected a classroom of around thirty pupils, being used to work with a half. I have learned thanks to your advice and encouragement how to manage teaching with more students by using the techniques we have learned during our pedagogy classes.

I have been lucky enough to teach way more frontally than the other students from my class, which was for me a real blessing. I feel that having that opportunity allows me to consider the coming year as a reachable challenge.

I am proud of myself, my teachers, my pupils, and all the Israeli teaching community in general for that incredible year that we all went through. It was hard but we all made it!

I cannot wait to start next year of studies after a full summer of rest, a summer in which I hope we are all going to “recharge our batteries” and come back next year as strong and confident ever!

Thank you for this amazing and challenging year where you provided your best as always, thank you for granting us all your best tools and tips, thank you for standing by our side during our “future teachers to be” growth, thank you for who you are!