Reflection#2

Reflection on teaching

Reflecting on my teaching after being introduced to this course of study was not a very pleasant experience for me however very enlightening. This exercise forced me to take a very introspective look at my self and the teaching strategies that I employed during my two year tenure in the classroom. Was I a strategic teacher? Answering this question meant that I had to firstly examine what it means to be a strategic teacher. My interpretation of a "good" teacher was one who cared about her students' learning, and therefore took the time to plan her lessons, teach vocabulary skills, and generally assist my students in understanding what they have read. Strategic? This was a totally new realm of literature to me.

I now recognise that it is my responsibility to actively and directly teach my students the basic reading and writing skills that will equip them to becoming better learners. Previously during my teaching of Language, I did utilise some strategies to help my students become effective readers. Our lessons always commenced with an exciting scenario to focus the students or just to get them organised and energised. The topic would then be written onto board, followed by examples of the concept I wanted to teach. This was done especially when teaching spelling rules.

In the case of comprehension passages, I read the passage in their hearing, then distribute the passages to be read as a whole. New words would be picked out and students were required to derive meaning context. In many instances the results were positive, but there were other students lagging behind. I could not fathom their misunderstanding and this became very frustrating for the class. These students would have to be dealt with at another time or given other tasks to accomplish.

I know now that although i may have engaged in some useful strategies, this was hardly sufficient. The lessons seemed to be lacking and I must now admit that I was not a "good" teacher.

Every child has the potential to learn and therefore need special attention and the necessary skills to foster learning. The teaching/learning process must be an explicit exercise, and it is the responsibility of the English teacher to ensure that her students can apply the skills learnt to their other content areas. Knowing how to do so is a procedure that must also be taught not left to chance or assumption.

My goal is to become a strategic teacher, develop strategic learners and allow my students to view their learning as a journey where despite the hindrances we will get to our destination.
I have much learning to do.

Reflection #3 - Cindy, Ronnelle, Desma

REFLECTION #3.

Engaging in the activity of the ALPHA BOX was very exciting for us as we tried to find the appropriate words to correspond to each letter of the alphabet. We decided to engage in a strategic way of accomplishing the task at hand, by sharing the letters (co-operative learning). Although it was not difficult, it was none the less challenging, and enlightening as it spoke to our consciences. As we educated ourselves on the many comprehension strategies, we kept reflecting on our practice. Some comprehension strategies really stood out to us and by the end of the exercise we noticed that we had ourselves engaged in some as we read the article. For a while as we sat there discussing the article, one person felt like she had not done justice to her students at all.

In all, we had to admit that we ourselves were learning to be strategic teachers and learners, as we continually engaged in the Recursive Process.

As we look back on our practice, we recognized that it was imperative that we first understood what was expected of us/our role, and thereafter only could we set expectations for our students. The creation of the ALPHA BOX, led us to admit the unfortunate reality that we did not adequately equip our students with the necessary tools to making them fluent and competent readers. Throughout the teaching process we were employing many of the comprehension strategies, however not focusing directly on teaching such strategies.

Our primary concern as language teachers was ensuring that our students merely understood what they read as in the case of the text book, and expected them to answer the questions that followed. Most times we assumed that the students understood the questions and thus, never ensured that they knew what was expected of them. We must attest to the fact that though we utilized questioning to aid comprehension, we neglected to effectively utilize such a critical comprehension strategy. It is no surprise that grades in language arts were generally disappointing for us especially after administering a test. Understanding and making connections was essential to the entire reading and writing process.

Our present goal is to ensure that we make our students aware of their own Meta cognition, and encourage the use of cognitive strategies whereby they could make a reading and writing connection. By the end of the teaching process, we should have engaged our students in the many strategies such as group work, peer tutoring, co- operative learning, that would allow them to appreciate their own learning styles, make their tasks easier and give them the opportunity to exhibit their work in the different modalities.

In summation, we would like to say that we are grateful for this exercise as it bestowed upon us a wealth of knowledge that will ensure our own self monitoring and equip students with a continuing structure for becoming effective/strategic readers and writers as they take charge of their own learning, with our continued guidance.

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