Technical Session

Micro-Teaching in English
Dr. A.K. Srivastava,
PG Dept. of English.

Micro-teaching is a teacher training technique first developed by Dwight W. Allen and his
colleagues at Stanford University. Since its inception, micro teaching has been adopted by a
number of teacher education institutions that have become committed to it as a powerful tool in
teacher training. Each institution has developed the concept of micro-teaching in its own way.
The model I shall describe and question is the one I became familiar with at Stanford and
continue to work with at the University of Massachusetts.
For those of you who have no idea of what micro-teaching is, picture the following situation: as a
part of their preservice training, interns in English and other subject areas take part in a microteaching clinic. In this clinic, an intern teaches a lesson ranging from five to twenty minutes to a
class of four students. Immediately you see that micro-teaching is a scaled-down version of the
real world. The number of students and the length of the lesson are drastically reduced. One
basic assumption of micro-teaching is that practice in this scaled-down situation will have
beneficial effects when the intern meets his own class of thirty students for fifty minutes.
What are the advantages of reducing the length of the lesson and the number of students? First of
all, it is economical. For an intern class of 150, approximately fifty secondary students are
needed to serve in the micro-teaching clinic. With only fifty such students, the intern has the
opportunity to micro teach at least three times a week, and over a period of eight weeks he gains
considerable preservice teaching experience. Second, the scaled-down situation reduces the
complexity of the teaching problems the intern faces without necessarily reducing the difficulty
of the situation. The result is an increased focus on the teaching and learning process.
For example, the intern in English when faced with a micro-teaching lesson must first pick one
aspect of the language arts that he can teach in five minutes to a group of four or five students.
Let us imagine that the idea the intern picks is that of literary point of view. After a little
experience, the first thing that the intern will recognize is that he cannot possibly teach the
concept of literary point of view in five minutes. What then can he teach?
What component of the concept can he deal with in five minutes? He may decide that he can
have his students recognize that, when the same object is looked at from different physical
vantage points, different aspects of the object are seen. Because of the scaled-down nature of his
task, the intern is required to analyze the concept he is choosing to teach, break it up into its
component parts, and then choose the most effective methods for achieving his objectives.
1

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and
extend access to Selected Addresses Delivered at the Conference on English Education The
result is a highly focused experience for the intern which increases the possibility of his insight
into the teaching process.
Another vital aspect of micro-teaching that is a corollary of its highly focused nature is the teachreteach cycle. Having chosen to teach the idea of point of view, the intern plans his lesson and
then teaches it to his four students.
Immediately after the lesson, he has the opportunity of discussing the lesson with his supervisor
who has observed the micro-class. In the conference, the supervisor may use the comments of
the students in the class which they have written on reaction sheets; if the lesson has been
videotaped, he may play it back.
After the supervisory conference, the intern attempts to incorporate what he has learned from the
discussion as he reteaches his lesson to a different group of four students. The basic pattern of
micro-teaching, therefore, is a highly focused teaching experience, a supervisory discussion, a
reteach opportunity, and another supervisory discussion. The teach-conference-reteach cycle,
which can take place in less than a half hour, is considered one of the most vital and valuable
aspects of micro-teaching.
One of the major recent developments in micro-teaching is the concept of technical skills of
teaching. Technical skills are behaviors of teachers which when utilized appropriately would lead
to the accomplishment of what are called "performance criteria." For example, in English a
major performance criterion might be that the intern can lead a discussion of a poem in a way
that actively involves his students. To accomplish that performance criterion, the teacher would
have to be able to question skillfully. One aspect of questioning is the technical skill called
"probing," which can be described as the type of questioning procedures a teacher would use to
draw his students beyond their original answers to his question. For example, an intern can learn
to ask his students 'Why?" "Can you give an example?" "Can you define that?"
m such a way that he draws students beyond their first responses to a question.
Other technical skills involved in leading an engaging discussion might be reinforcement," the
ability to reward students in such a way that they are encouraged to contribute more to a
discussion. Something that has been given the awful label of "varying the stimulus" is a technical
skill which means simply that the intern learns not to stand in one place, speak in the same
monotone, and use the same gestures over and over again. The technical skill of "using
examples" is thought to be particularly important for an English teacher, who is often involved in
discussing abstract concepts which must be brought down to a concrete level if the students are
to become intelligently involved in the discussion.

To aid in the training of the intern to perform these technical skills, we have begun to use
videotaped models of the technical skills. To produce these model tapes, we ask an experienced
teacher to teach a micro-lesson in which he illustrates the performance of the technical skill.
Thus we might have a model tape of a teacher focusing on reinforcing techniques; another model
might be on probing techniques, and another on the effective use of illustrations. The intern
watches the model tape and then plans his own lesson and practices the skill in the microteaching clinic. His practice is usually videotaped, and he can compare his performance with that
of the experienced model teacher. The modeling approach has been an effective training device
because it frees us from just telling the intern what he should be doing; with the model tape, we
can show him.
Our experience with micro-teaching has affected our concept of supervising intern teachers. The
major insight that we have gained from the micro-teaching experience is that supervision is
probably more effective if it is as focused and selective as the micro-teaching experience itself.
We have encouraged supervisors to limit their comments to the intern to one area of concern
rather than bombarding him with a full-scale critique of all his weaknesses. Even if the intern
wanted to, he probably could not change or react to all the things his supervisor traditionally
would tell him. By focusing on only one area of concern in any one supervisory conference, we
think that we do not so readily destroy the intern's motivation, and that we increase the chance
that the intern will be able to act on our suggestions.
Throughout this paper I have alluded to the use of videotapes in the micro-teaching process. In
addition to viewing model tapes, each intern is videotaped almost every time he teaches and
reteaches. Although micro-teaching can proceed without videotaping, it is a powerful adjunct to
the process. It is hard to describe how powerful a tool the videotape is in supervision. Marshall
McLuhan gives us a hint as to why it is so powerful. As he would put it, televisions a "cool
medium" which leads to a great deal of involvement on the part of the viewer. When you add to
the medium the fact that the content is the intern's teaching and his students' reactions, you can
imagine the involvement with which he watches the videotape. The tool is powerful, and it
requires great sophistication on the part of the supervisor to use it wisely. These developments in
micro-teaching are by no means finished products. Much remains to be done to sophisticate the
process of micro-teaching. For example, those interested in the training of teachers of English are
faced with the enormous task of looking at all the areas of the teaching of English and
identifying performance criteria and the technical skills which would enable
Once the skills are identified, they could be integrated into a training process which fully utilizes
the strengths of micro-teaching which I have discussed up to this point.

The very strengths of micro-teaching which I have discussed lead me to question whether microteaching as I have described it is appropriate for a program of English education. Micro-teaching
is an outgrowth of behavioristic psychology. It reflects a behavioristic view of the world. Microteaching trains teachers to perform in ways those who are running the program think are good.
Like a programed teaching machine, the goals of micro-teaching have been set by those who
administer the program; the goals are then analyzed in terms of their component parts, and a
pattern is devised that will lead the teacher trainee to perform in the desired way, or at least at
some minimal criteria level. The main technique of supervision in the micro-teaching process is
to selectively reward or reinforce behaviors which approximate the skills we are trying to teach
and to criticize those behaviors which do not lead the trainee to behave in the way we think he
should.
Do we want to base micro-teaching on a psychology that has been developed mainly using rats
and pigeons as the experimental subjects? Do we want to base micro-teaching on a psychology
whose most prestigious advocate says, Science is more than the mere description of events as
they occur. Science not only describes, it predicts. Nor is prediction the last word; to the extent
that the relevant conditions can be altered, or otherwise controlled, the future can be controlled.
If we are to use the methods of science in human affairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful
and determined. We must expect to discover that what a man does is the result of specifiable
conditions, and that once these conditions have been discovered, we can anticipate and to some
extent determine his actions.1
In short, do we as English educators want to base a micro-teaching program on a psychology
whose goal its chief advocate sees as the prediction and control of human behavior? As English
educators are we not interested in the freedom of the human animal and not his control?
If we accept behaviorism as the psychological base of micro-teaching, are we not then involved
in a program which trains rather than educates?
If we do, when and how does such training relate to their education? I tend to reject an
involvement in training English teachers for a number of reasons. First of all, do we know
enough? To be really honest as English educators I think that we would have to admit that we
know precious little about what good teaching of English is.
At this point would it not be presumptuous for a group of us to get together and decide on a set
of skills that our novices should master? Can we pretend that these skills would be the necessary
ingredients for good teaching in English for all our trainees? Moreover, can we train our teachers
to do what many educators consider to be the really important aspects of teaching? Can we train
teachers to be enthusiastic about their work? Can we train them to empathize with their students?
4

Can we train them to respect the opinions of their students? Can we train teachers to commit
themselves to continue learning about English? I suggest that the things we can train people to do
are really inconsequential when we look at the teaching and learning of English in a broader
perspective. In short, I suggest that we do not know enough about what good teaching is to know
whether the skills being defined are necessary, and intuition tells us that they are certainly not
sufficient for good teaching.
Even if we grant that we have come up with technical skills and performance criteria which are
important to good teaching, I would question whether we should train our students to perform
them. By doing so, wouldn't we be perceiving our interns as automatons who could be shaped to
behave appropriately?
As Peter Wagschal has written in an unpublished article called Performance versus Experience
Based Curricula" (available through the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts),

We would all agree that human beings can be manipulated, but the question is not one of fact but
of value; the question is whether teacher education should be conceived and designed as a
comprehensive system of behavioral control. Those who urge the use of performance criteria are
taking at least an implicit stand in favor of manipulation towards the behavioral goals they deem
desirable. I, on the other hand, would quite explicitly take the reverse stand: insofar as we
consciously control the behavior of other people, we may be able to produce beings which
perform in manners which we deem adequate, but we are in no way helping to produce human
beings. I would carry this further. Wouldn't you agree that there is a relationship between the type
of people we are and the type of teachers we are, between the types of living we do and the type
of teaching we do? It seems to me that that relationship is inseparable. Any attempt to train
teachers, I think, presupposes an attempt to train human beings to be a type of person. Do we
want to be involved in such training?
Another question I have about micro-teaching, as I have seen it developed so far, is the
assumptions it makes about teaching and learning and about the role of the teacher in the
process. Most of the skills that I have discussed, reinforcement," "probing," "varying the
stimulus," presuppose the idea that the teacher's role is to control the students and to direct the
class. As those who are training teachers assume that it is their role to control the training of the
teachers, the skills developed in micro-teaching reflect the same assumptions operating between
the trainee and his future students. If we treat our interns mechanistically, how will they treat
their students? As of yet, and I would love to stand corrected, I have seen no skills developed
which assume any other role for the teacher than that of controller of the students' behavior.

Yet it seems to me that some of the most recent interesting ideas about teaching challenge that
concept of the role of the teacher. Those of you who are familiar with Carl Rogers' concept of a
teacher as one who facilitates learning by acting as a resource for his students would find it hard
to see how that concept of the teacher fits into what has been done in micro-teaching to date.
A purely pragmatic question along these lines of facilitating learning might be whether the highly
structured micro-teaching process really does facilitate learning. I am reminded of a conversation
between Dean Dwight W. Allen of the University of Massachusetts and Robert Mager which
might be entitled
"Students are better than we give them credit for being." In that conversation, Mager suggested
that we encumber students with too much in the way of instruction, assignments, and drills, more
than is necessary for them to achieve the objectives we have for them. He goes on to talk about
his by now well-known meter reading experiment. He devised an intricate programed instruction
system to teach girls to read complicated electrical meters used to test products on a production
line. He found that his programed instructional system did reduce the training time, which
previously took a number of days, to an hour and a half. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending
on your point of view, in the next door laboratory he was doing a learner-controlled instruction
experiment. In that experiment the task was the same, but the learner could turn the instructor on
and off like a TV set. The students in this group achieved the same criterion level, not in an hour
and a half, but in an average of twenty minutes. Those results led him to ask, "How is my
program getting in the way of the students?" For those of us working with micro-teaching, it will
be imperative that we be sensitive to the possibility that our highly constructed program might be
getting in the way of some of our students.
The focus of my question has been on the psychological base of microteaching and its
mechanistic use as a training procedure. I have no doubt that micro-teaching could be used not
just for training English teachers but for educating them. But to do so we would have to forget
the precepts of behaviorism and think in terms of education rather than in terms of training.
In educating teachers of English there could not be a presumption to come up with a list of skills
which it would be necessary for all of our prospective teachers to perform. Even if we thought
we knew of some skills that might be useful, we would object to training our students to perform
them; instead, we would present them for their critical examination and let them decide whether
they are appropriate for the kinds of teachers that they want to be.
Education as opposed to training presumes an interest in presenting and sharing with students
experiences which will lead to self-insight and insight into the relationship between the type of
human beings they are and the type of teachers they will be. In a process of education we would
be interested in presenting them with experiences which encourage them to develop confidence

in what they are and what they want to be, not in experiences in which thefocus is on being
trained to be what others want them to be.

Basic to education is a faith in the nature of our interns because we assume that they want to be
the best they can be. Training, on the other hand, seems to me to say, We will shape you to be
what we want you to be; we dont have much confidence in you. Training looks to
standardization rather than diversity, constraints and requirements rather than options and
freedom.

I hope that I have made it clear that my questioning does not mean that do not consider microteaching a potentially powerful resource in the education of English teachers. The confrontation
with smaller numbers of students for shorter periods of time and the use of models and television
and focused supervision would be immensely valuable if they were used as a resource available
to our prospective teachers rather than as a process they are forced to go through. But the
initiative to use these resources must come from the students themselves. I have no doubt
whatsoever that a supervisory conference would be more beneficial to the trainee when it is a
result of his feeling the need for it rather than that of the supervisor. The same options might
profitably be employed throughout the entire program.
The main concern I hope my questions have raised is whether we are using and will use microteaching to mould and shape our future teachers or whether we can devise ways of using it which
would be more consistent with the aims of an educational experience.
References
Allen, D. W. & Eve, A. W. (1968). Microteaching. Theory into Practice, 7(5), 181-185.
Allwright, D. & Bailey, K. (1991). Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction to
Language Classroom Research for Language Teachers. New York: Cambridge UP.
Amobi, F. A. (2005). Preservice teachers' reflectivity on the sequence and consequences of
teaching actions in a microteaching experience. Teacher Education Quarterly, 32(1), 115130.
Bekleyen, N. (2011). Can I Teach English to Children? Turkish Preservice Teacher
Candidates and Very Young Learners, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education,
32(3), 256-265. Doi: 10.1080/ 10901027.2011.594700.

Attitudes of the Student Teachers in English Language Teaching

Programs towards Microteaching Technique
Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Mishra,
Associate Prof.

This paper evaluated the attitudes of student teachers towards microteaching experiences. The
research was conducted with a total of 57 fourth year students attending the ELT Department at
Trakya University, in Turkey. The data were collected via a Likert type scale developed by the
researcher. The research results were evaluated regarding the benefits and disadvantages of
microteaching. The findings revealed that the ELT students at Trakya University in general held
positive attitudes towards microteaching applications with regard to its effectiveness for
professional development, self-assessment, self-confidence, material production, and teaching
experiences in various courses in which students are of different ages and linguistic levels.
Microteaching as a professional development tool in teacher training programs provides student
teachers with opportunities to explore and reflect on their own and others teaching styles and to
acquire new teaching techniques and strategies. Microteaching was developed in the early and
mid 1960's by Dwight Allen and his colleagues at the Stanford Teacher Education Program
(Cruickshank et al., 1996). Nowadays, in many teacher education programs, microteaching
issued to expand the scope of student teachers while mastering various teaching skills and
teaching experiences; alternatively, it orients them to gain teaching experiences for natural
classroom environments . Two associated components are generally taken into consideration in
the implementation of microteaching activities: videotaped micro lessons and feedback with
individual watching of the videotaped teaching for the evaluation of teaching performance is a
common practice aimed at encouraging the development of self-analysis and reflective practice;
the other component in microteaching activities is the requirement of feedback.
A micro lesson may create an occasion to view a sample picture of what/how/where/whom you
teach and offer opportunities for getting feedback on teaching styles, material evaluation,
teaching performance, repertoire improvement, etc. in a constructive manner which is
constructed with direct tutor observation of teaching. Moreover, microteaching gives the
opportunity of teaching in an instructional setting in which time is limited. Such a limitation
directs student teachers to prepare and implement their course subjects in a well-organized and
fluent way in limited time .
Several studies have revealed that microteaching comprises practical experiences for meeting the
desired objectives of training teachers to become effective and reflective in teaching profession
In this sense, microteaching activities enhance student teachers to gain professional experiences
such as efficiency on preparing and applying lesson plans by taking target students capabilities,
learning capacities, needs, and expectations. In consequence of such experiences, they become
more conscious about their future occupations and can be able to implement teaching issues
successfully in real school environments. Some studies have concluded that microteaching
activities help student teachers overwhelm their anxiety levels, defeat hesitation and fear,
increase professional commitment, raise consciousness about teaching profession, become
efficient in all topics related to teaching proficiency, learn how to interact with students, become
experienced in testing and evaluating, become professional for taking students attention to
8

lesson, consume time professionally, utilize educational technologies, and control classroom
management .
The efficiency of microteaching on gaining professional consciousness is generally agreed;
additionally, microteaching helps student teachers analyze their present teaching performance in
order to discover their strengths and weaknesses by engaging in reflective practice. Reflective
practice in teaching implies a tendency to revisit the sequence of ones teaching for the purpose
of making thoughtful judgments and decisions about improved ways of acting in the future, or in
the midst of the action itself. Due to the reflection by teacher educators while student teachers
are teaching, reflective habits of mind can be extended; in this sense, the quality of reflection is
directly related to guiding student teachers to use all aspects in their teaching experiences.
Further, microteaching technique is a reflective learning process shaping student teachers
professional growth. Therefore, microteaching activities need to be considered as positive
experiences which improve the development of professional awareness.
In this pattern of paying close attention to all aspects of teaching action, a microteaching cycle
comprises teach, review and reflect, re-teach . First of all, a microteaching lesson is initiated by
teaching stage in which student teachers teach a lesson. While teaching, they are observed by
their classmates and educator; then, the lesson is discussed for evaluating student teachers
performance; after that, in re-teaching stage, student teachers re-teach the lesson with regard to
the proposed points in the discussion and evaluation stage.
Preparing lesson plans, as part of microteaching activities, in conformity with the syntax of the
lesson cycle is the initial stage of microteaching. Preparing lesson plans are influential for
gaining teaching experiences and making decisions on teaching points, and great differences can
be observed between the lesson plans prepared and applied by less experienced teachers and
experienced teachers . Because less experienced teachers may tend to follow their plans and
seem devoted to teaching depending on it during teaching process, while experienced ones may
tend to divert from theirlesson plans at some points for making decisions or adding activities to
provide more practice when necessary. In this sense, teaching practice through microteaching can
be assumed as a boosting activity for any interactive decision to be made during teaching. Thus,
student teachers may gain experiences to make quick decisions in their lesson plans.
Although organization of any course is usually planned before teaching and the activities are
arranged regarding the course duration and the needs of target group, making changes in the
prepared lesson plan may be required in some cases.
Therefore, the sub-divisions of a lesson plan into which activities are included are ongoing
processes and can be modified by teachers when any problem is encountered (Woods, 2000).
Hence, the success of a micro lesson is directly related to lesson planning with comprehensible
objectives in a planned sequence. Initiating the lesson by gaining the attention of students at the
beginning of the presentation, presenting the planned lesson by explaining and giving examples,
using gestures and body language during the presentation, focusing on the core of the planned
lesson, using teaching and audio-visual aids properly, highlighting ambiguity and encouraging
student participation, asking and responding questions, and concluding the teaching session by
self-evaluation of student teachers and their classmates are all the subsequent stages of a micro
lesson. In this context, depending on the implementation of microteaching activities, a number of
studies reveal that microteaching is an effective means of improving student teachers' teaching
9

skills depending on the prepare lesson plans and a tool of continuous training applicable at all
stages of the teaching profession.
Although microteaching has long been used as a professional development tool in teacher
training programs, student teachers are sometimes reluctant to involve in microteaching activities
due to non-natural classroom environments, material production procedures, time limited course
schedules, etc., so this unenthusiastic attitude reduces the efficiency of microteaching (Stanley,
1998). In addition, lack of satisfactory awareness of the use of microteaching has led to
criticisms that microteaching produces homogenized standard student teachers with model
procedures and stands for a form of teaching play in unnatural surroundings, that is, the
artificiality of classroom environments; in addition, the cost and maintenance of equipment
regarding reduced budgets of student teachers, the amount of time for preparing materials, the
difficulty of material production may also cause unwillingness. The general emphasis on practice
with regard to microteaching disappears during student teaching, although students still stress the
importance of preparation in general. They attribute this change to the students perceptions of a
lack of time for complete preparation may create obstacles in teaching processes of student
teachers and lead them to develop reluctant attitudes in teachingexperiences. Despite these
criticisms, in-depth awareness of microteaching, the motivation of the student teacher to improve
himself/herself and the ability of the observer to offer comprehensive feedback may bring into
remarkable improvements in teaching skills. Therefore, this article deals with how efficient
microteaching as a teaching tool in teacher education is and examines the student teachers
enthusiastic and reluctant attitudes towards microteaching activities.

References
Benton-Kupper, J. (2001). The microteaching experience: Student perspectives. Education,
(4), 830-835.
Brandl, K. K. (2000). Foreign language TAsperceptions of training components: Do we
know how they like to be trained? The Modern Language Journal, 84(3), 355-371.
Brewster, J., Ellis, G. & Girard, P. (2002). The Primary English Teachers Guide. Harlow,
UK: Pearson Education Limited

10

Lesson Plan and Reflection Before Teaching

Dr. Nilima Jha,
Associate Prof.

My class is a general English class, but it is designed to focus on speaking and listening skills,
which are often neglected in the foreign language classroom, while continuing to support reading
and writing. Class meets Monday through Friday at 10 am (when their parents go to work after
Breakfast), and usually end around 00:30pm. This is a semester long class, and then students
either advance to the next class the following semester, or stay in this one. There are desks in the
classroom as well as a chalkboard for instruction. There is also a learning lab at the education
center with computers as well as printers available for the teachers.
We have recently been discussing movies, which the students seem to enjoy because they get to
watch clips of them in class. This is an opportunity to expose the students to a cultural aspect of
the US that may sometimes give them the wrong idea of America based on Hollywoods hyped
up version of reality. The best part about this is that I have been able to use movies to teach them
a learning technique where they watch a movie with English audio as well as English subtitles.
This allows them to hear the words, and if they miss a word, they see it in writing, which allows
them to realize words that they heard but did not pick up.
The movie segment that we are doing focuses on speaking by providing a topic for the students
to discuss via short movie clips. This fits into our culture segment and will lead up to a project
that the students will do to create their own screenplay and movie next week.
After this lesson, students will be able to talk about the plot of murder mysteries, utilize
vocabulary concerning them, and decipher clues to decide who the criminal is.
This is a group teaching exercise so it provides a unique set of variables and consequently the
possibility of problems.
First, and already introduced, is the factor of group teaching. This is an entirely new idea for all
of us, so the dynamics in the classroom will change completely from anything we are used to.
This brings up a few areas of concern that we will each have to monitor: teaching time, flow
that each part flow into the next teachers part, consistency of instruction, and target on task.
Second, we could run out of time because this lesson has several sub-sections. The section I am
most concerned about is the group activity. The group activity asks the students not only to
understand the clues, which can prove to be too abstract in nature, but also to synthesize them
into a complete picture of what happened. The first part of this concern, abstract vocabulary, has
the potential of bringing problematic English learning areas to the surface, but this is ultimately a
good thing when students express concerns that we can address for them.
11

Finally, the student is always a factor. Having more than one instructor will be an entirely new
concept for the students, so they may not engage as well. If this is the case, I can see two options:
all but the focal teacher sit at the back of the class, or outside of the room, out of view of the
students, or each teacher get involved with a certain group of students that they will stick with
throughout the lesson.
The major drawback of the lesson as a whole was that it lacked cohesion and better planning.
Although the individual parts of the lesson went well, they did not find the synergy from one
another that they should have had in order to be effective. As an example, it was mentioned in
our comments that the video was expected to come up in latter parts of the lesson, but it did not
and it slowly became apparent that it had no purpose in our lesson. Because the lesson lacked
cohesion, our group appeared unprepared for the task of group teaching, and therefore missed the
goal altogether.
I received a wealth of positive feedback from everyone who observed our teaching. Overall, I
succeeded in most of the areas I performed poorly in during the previous lesson that I taught.
However, there were parts of my teaching that I could have done better. The most noticeable was
the video, which I mentioned above. I failed to introduce the video well after discussing the
vocabulary. Also, the purpose of the video was schema activation, so it was supposed to provide
the students an audiovisual to the topic of mysteries, but because the video was fast and full of
humorous references which can be difficult to understand due to their abstract nature the
students were not able to keep up. Finally, I had not made sure they understood that they were
watching the video so they could listen for the vocabulary we had just talked about, try to get the
gist of it, and to discuss what was happening in it, which I also did not do.
This is easy enough to answer, because it seems to be human nature for us to know what we
should have done. I would have introduced the video better in accordance with the above
mentioned points. On a group level, I also think it would have been better to include the
vocabulary section, the section that followed mine, in with the schema activation. Because I
could not help but to include vocabulary in my introduction, I found it difficult to keep new
vocabulary to a minimum.
Each of our parts turned out to be longer than expected and as a result, our lesson ran over the
time limit. Sadly, the portion of the lesson that was cut short was the activity the students were
supposed to have the most opportunity to use English, so they were cheated out of a great
learning experience. Not to mention that without this opportunity all of our hard work was
wasted.
Another point worth mentioning is that since neither of us had never done a group teaching
exercise, we were confused about what to do with ourselves when another group member was
teaching. We had not worked out the details concerning helping one another during our lessons,
nor had we discussed what we would do if we individually had no part to play in the others
12

lesson. As mentioned in the Before the Lesson section, this probably lead to confusion in our
students as to what we were doing, and possibly divided their attention altogether.
I liked the content of the lesson. The idea was presented first by Mieca as a lesson that she was
familiar with. Once we saw it, we were all excited about it and began work on making it ours
right away. I also liked having group members to bounce ideas off of, but the greatest part of that
was being able to take note of their ideas. For Betsy and I, who both have no experience, this was
an opportunity to learn from others who have had experience in the context we are aiming for.
What I liked about the actual classroom teaching was that it allowed each teacher to spend less
time planning the lesson, more opportunities to observe the good habits of one another, the
flexibility to serve as both a teacher aide and a teacher, and being able to observe my own
students while they are being taught which could teach me something about myself if their
reactions to the other teacher appear to be more engaged.
Before the lesson I was feeling restless about doing my part. I had an art conference in Dallas to
attend with my fiance the preceding weekend, so while the rest of the group met again on
Friday, I had only got one chance to meet with the group in person. The second time we met, I
joined them via instant messenger, so I was sort of out of the loop. When Monday morning
came, Joe, Betsy and I met to go over any last minute details. Mieca was having technical
difficulties with the printer, so she was not able to make it, and it appeared to me that they had
not already decided on all of the details. I was in need of instructions, and since they hadnt
really thought about it, I was anxious.
When the class began, we all had just a few minutes to clear things up, so we decided and
moved on. When everything came into focus just before we began, I regained my confidence
and began the lesson. During the lesson, I could feel the interaction between the students and
myself, and everything felt a lot more confident. As the lesson moved on to my other group
members, I was no longer nervous, but I could see where we had failed to organize.
After the lesson, while everyone was talking about the different things that we could have done
better, I could do nothing but agree. It was one of those feelings you get when you know that
youve done something wrong but have no choice but to take the feedback and try again the next
time. But all in all, I was glad that we got it done because the semester is winding down with its
many papers like this one. I was just happy I made it.
The activities planned reflected my principles. The activity was meaningful because it played on
some of the great literary themes that connect with the human spirit: mystery and entertainment.
So, the students were engaged and they had both meaningful and comprehensible input. They
also had an opportunity to communicate with one another in the TL and continue to learn about
the cultural tradition of American movies. However, as noted above, the lesson was cut short

13

during their opportunity to interact, so in this way my teaching principles were not reflected in
the lesson.
No matter how much improvement I make from previous experiences teaching, there is always
room to improve. Besides, keeping an open mind about self-improvement ultimately benefits the
entire classroom. So, although I did a whole lot better than last time, I still learned that I can be
better at ensuring that my students know what I expect from them when we begin new activities.
Also, I learned that group work can be a great thing because it divides the work. However, I must
note that it can also be a lot more work if the group is not organized, and this could mean that the
lesson may not be taught effectively or even not at all.
Other peoples observations have shown me that I can improve, and in this event they boosted
my confidence in the classroom. Also, their comments about my approach during the first
teaching exercise in comparison with this time give me an idea of what to shoot for. This
exercise turned out all better from what they said, so I know that I am on to something here, so
this is a good place to build on.

References
Butler, Y. G., Someya, S. & Fukuhara, E. (2014). Online games for young learners foreign
language learning. ELT Journal, 68(3), 265-275. Doi:10.1093/elt/ccu008
Bykyavuz, O. (2014) Professional Competencies Required to Teach English to Young
Learners. Journal of Language and Literature Education, 9, 1-7.
Fernndez, M.L. & Robinson, M. (2006). Prospective teachers perspectives on
microteaching lesson study. Education, 127(2), 203-215.
Garton, S., Copland, F. & Burns, A. (2011).

14