First Week, First Impressions

Hi everyone !

          It is time to share my first post about my school experience. When I saw the school for the first time a few weeks ago, I was impressed by this historic building very much. I wondered also the students of this school. Fortunately, I met with some students last Friday and I had a chance for observation. It was a prep class.

          The first thing I noticed is use of smartboard. Teacher uses smartboard effectively. The book of the class is “Solution (Oxford)” in the classroom. The level of the book is elementary. In my opinion, that book is really good. It gives importance on four skills deeply. Teacher opened the text in the book by using smartboard. Including technology into education is great! Students had already read text at home so teacher started with listening activity. She used smartboard for listening and speaking activities.  Although I was sitting at the back row, I could easily hear the voice. The words were very clear. Students listened to the record for two times. They answered the comprehension questions by rising their hands. When a student gave a wrong answer, teacher asked others to correct their friends. I liked this point very much because I believe that peer-correction is very effective in language learning. Speaking activities were completed in a good way. Students were very assertive in the class and spoke in English. I think the reason for this is teacher’s attitudes. Teacher ignored when she heard something in Turkish. Instead of humilating them, she encouraged students to speak in English. Classroom management was great. Teacher used the tone of her voice in order to keep students focused. Teacher said different meanings of words in order to make it clear or teach a new word. For instance, when she said “about”, she also gave the meaning of it as “approximately”. She provided different words.

          I also want to say something else: Teacher knows name of the students!  She calls them by their names so the students feel themselves important. I liked teaching style of her. I look forward to going there again. I will go on sharing about my experiences next week. See you soon ! :)