What are you proud of?
I am proud of the experience today. It empowers me that virtual classroom can be  such engaging and meaningful. Also, I am proud of the different approaches to teach Aussie food, like the above online tools. This gives me more confidence in my future learning like my practicum.

What might you adapt?
I may adapt more hand gestures and personalization in my future teaching. I think these are cognitively manageable for my young learners like primary students, and thus make my teaching more related to their personal lives. 

What question/s do you have?
I am curious to explore if there are more online tools similar to Wordwall and Jamboard! Also, I am also curious to know how to maintain classroom discipline when my students are actually primary kids.

-The Australian education system has some relations to Australian economy. For example, the Australian education system has been highly privatized when compared to other education systems. Private schools enrollment of students in Australia account for  nearly 35% of Australian students’ school enrollment. Moreover, in 2016, the third largest  provider of education to international students was Australia. This generates remarkable revenue to the Australian economy, like $21.8 billion. 

-From Foundation (or called kindergarten/preparatory/pre-school) to Year 6 or 7, it is the primary education of Australia. From Years 7 or 8 to 10, it is the secondary education of Australia. From Years 11 to 12, it is the senior secondary education of Australia. Meanwhile, its tertiary education involves higher education and vocational education and training (VET). 

-Starting from the year 2010, it has been compulsory for Australian students to finish Year 10 as full-time students in Australian education, training or employment, unless they are 17-year-old young adults

-It interests me in terms of how the jobs in the future can be different from the present ones, through the rapid transition and modernization of the world. That reminds me of the importance of raising my students’ awareness about that as a way to prepare themselves for their future career. 

-It shows that students’ abilities to solve problems have been an extremely crucial ability desired for their learning and working. In light of this, I think designing more problem-based tasks in class may be a great idea to both enhance students’ language abilities and their problem-solving skills.

-Are coeducational schools more common than single-sex schools in Australia? 

Something you're keen to try
-I am keen to try these activities in a physical classroom, as this may be an important part of our teaching experience too. Also, I am keen to try co-teaching a lesson with my peers. Moreover, I am keen to explore how we can adjust our teaching to cope with learner diversity.

Something you'd love more of
-learning tools that we can use in our teaching, like Wordwall, Jamboard and Zoom annotations.

 

For this week’s peer teaching, we scripted our instructions for our activity. This has made teaching smoother and helped us better manage our time. With such solid preparation before class, I can feel a boost in confidence which may be shown in my teaching tone too. Moreover, by observing my peers’ teaching, my activity log has been enriched. As a way of illustration, I am amazed by the way how my peers use boardgame as a tool for students to take turns and give short speeches on various interesting topics!

 

What are you proud of?

 

I am proud of the staging of my lesson. Before the speaking activity, we have strategies to grab students’ attention, to set the scene and to share the activity purpose. ICQs are used to check their understanding of instructions. During the activity, we have designed ways to let students interact. Also, we have planned to check and monitor their interactions. After the activity, we have corrected and reflected on their performance, as well as connecting to the next task. 

 

What might you adapt?

 

I might work on giving clearer instructions and better manage my teaching materials. Moreover, I might better facilitate my students’ completion of the activity by closer monitoring of the task.

 

What question/s do you have?

 

Can this activity be adopted in the physical classroom without any adaptations?

 

The students are generally willing to learn actively by participating in the tasks and responding to the teacher’s questions. Overall, their behaviors in class seem to be very good.

 

Teacher

 

On the teachers’ face, I can see smiles and shimmering eyes which show their joy of teaching. In their tones, I can also feel their brightness and energy. I think these can be sensed and felt by their students too. Thus I think their positive teaching personas can help motivate their students to learn more actively and energetically. 

 

Resources

 

I think the teachers are selective in terms of adopting the learning resources that cater to their students’ learning needs. For example, one teacher employs fairy tales and nursery rhymes in her teaching to cater to the cognitive level and learning interests of her very young learners. The right use of resources may be one of the reasons that keep their students engaged in class.

 

Classroom setup

 

I observe that some students are sitting on the floor in a few videos. In other videos, the students are sitting on chairs. Yet, their classroom setups have something in common: the students are seated facing each other. 

 

Use of space

 

The students are all sitting closely with each other. 

 

Teaching language

 

In some instances, the teacher uses questioning techniques to encourage self-directed learning of their students.

 

Staging of the tasks

 

Before the task, some concept maps could be introduced on an interactive whiteboard for example, which help check their existing understanding. After the task, students can self-assess their performance today with the use of the Learning Intentions Wall for example.

 

What surprises me

 

I think I am most surprised to find out that the students are sitting on the ground, which I personally feel that their backs may be hurt. 

 

1 It is nice to see how cultural elements can be infused in language teaching. As a way of illustration, the teacher can introduce some national days of remembrance like ANZAC Day as shown in the video. Yet, I learnt that scaffolding would be crucial to make sure that the students acquire that cultural knowledge. They may not know what ANZAC Day is, like I did before watching the video.

 

2. I can feel the whole-hearted teaching in the video. For instance, the teacher in a video uses IndigiTUBE as a learning tool which caters to the interests of her students with an indigenous background. This teaching approach reflects her whole-hearted care for her students, and I believe her students would feel it as well. Also, the teacher in another video provides learning tasks of different ability levels to address learner diversity in class. I think that is a genuine care for the students’ fruitful learning experience as well!

 

3. I really want to remember the importance of creating a safe learning environment for students to share their ideas. The teacher in the video mentions how students will not volunteer to answer the question unless they are 100% sure it is correct. That makes me understand that education may also include reshaping the above mindset into a risk-taking one. For instance, teachers may give verbal feedbacks like “Nice try!”, “That’s interesting answer/” and “Try again” instead of saying “No, it is wrong.”

2 more GTKY activities

-personalised questions like “What is your favorite poem or story?”

3 activities with poems

-A letter to the poet

-Acrostic poets

-Matching pictures with the vocabulary in the poem

-Summarising each verse

-Reading the poem aloud

-Mini-drama

4 macro skills

-Read, Write, Listen, Speak

Read aloud for all age groups

Support our students' reading through a variety of strategies

use pictures

ask great questions

read aloud with meaning

use our voice to engage

add music to help students find their own voices

WILF

5 reasons why we read aloud with our students

-building vocabulary

-developing genre awareness

-introducing culture

-developing pronunciation

-learning about sentence structure

4 strategies to support reading

-read aloud for all age groups

-use our voice to engage

-use pictures

-ask great questions

3 things I change in my voice to change meaning

-pitch

-pauses

-point of emphasis

2 more Aussie stories

-Animalia

-Diary of a Wombat

1 famous Aussie story writer

-Sally Morgan

1 famous Aussie poet

-Banjo Paterson

 https://voca.ro/15vmCXvYAUFc

I learnt that we can make use of different tech tools to make amazing videos. For instance, we can use Powtoon, Canva or Prezi to make different videos.

What did you learn from your peers’ presentation?

In their presentations, lovely acronyms like SARA and AIR are very unforgettable. Also, their suggestions for different aspects of teaching are very useful and practical. Also, I learnt to use my voice better in presenting my ideas, which can better engage my audience.

Could you host a mini-conference with your Ss?

Yes, I think I could. That’s a great way for students to co-construct the learning of the day. It also better prepares them for any conference in real life. Additionally, I may combine a role play with the mini-conference as one of the many ways to design the mini-conference. For example, student A can take up the role as an environmentalist, and student B can be a businessman. With a topic related to land reclamation, their mini-conference can be full of sparkle!