This afternoon I went into an English class with some of the
pupils from Chemistry this morning, when they all came in it was explained to
them that the second half of the lesson would be led by a teacher currently in
training.
The first half of the
lesson was with their normal teacher; they were studying two poems and were
very engaged. Throughout the whole lesson, they were focused and constantly
asking questions if they did not understand something, which shows that the
teacher was approachable and respected by all of the class. Everyone in the
class was included; if pupils were not raising hands they were asked questions
to make sure they got a chance to voice their opinion or answer.
As always in a young class of pupils there is some shouting
out in lessons because they are eager to answer questions, which is good but is
disruptive and does not give other students a chance to think of their own
answer. When they shouted out in this lesson they were told straight away not to
do that and to raise their hands if they wanted to answer a question,
eventually they stopped doing this which showed respect for the teacher again.
The first half of this lesson was delivered to the class
simply and clearly, none of the students misunderstood what they were asked to
do even though some of them needed help with the task. During the time, that
the teacher was speaking none of the pupils had their own conversations,
everyone was engaged, focused and enthusiastic. The way this lesson was
delivered was very inspiring in the way she kept the class in control at all
times and for all the aspects, I have mentioned previous.
Towards the end of this half of the lesson, they were given
a spelling test to keep them involved and liven them up. I am under the
impression they do this every week and even during this task, the teacher was
approachable with questions, not the spelling of the word but in what context
she meant.
After the break the teacher in training took over this
class, their usual teacher told me that she has them once a week as part of her
placement. The trainee started off well engaging the pupils using whiteboards
for answers to questions she was asking, they seemed excited to use the boards
because it was something different and meant every pupil could write their
answer and show it without people shouting out and feeding them with their
answers. However, after this task they seemed to become very unengaged and
unfocused. During the delivery of the lesson plan, some of the pupils were
doodling in their book and whispering to someone next to them, they were told
not to do this and were quiet for a few minutes after. As this lesson went on
the teacher was asking them questions frequently trying to engage them and it
was working for some but the vast majority were disruptive. The lesson deteriorated
quickly with pupils turning around and not caring what she had to say, it was a
struggle to get pupils attention so she used the 5-1 count down system, which
seems to be popular in DACA. By one, they were quiet but soon after, they would
be chatting again and turning round.
It seemed for different points of her lesson the children
seemed confused and unaware of which point they were supposed to be. I felt
there was too many aspects of the lesson going on, from them standing up and
down for true or false statements and filling in A3 size charts, which were
very complicated all at the same time because of this they were bored and irritable
from not understanding the tasks.
One girl during this task was repeatedly told to be quiet
and too stop turning around, their usual teacher was sat next to me and started
talking to me about her delivery of the lesson and how the children reacted.
She also said there were too many aspects of the lesson and as every child was
confused as to where they should be she said she would have done it a
completely different way. Another thing she pointed out was that the girl who
was asked to stop talking and turning round in her lesson would have been
removed after three times of being asked, she was not interested in stopping
talking and carried on doing so throughout. The class was noisy as a whole in
the second part of this lesson so their usual teacher also said she would have
just added on the disrupted time onto the end to make them stop talking.
I really benefited from this lesson as I saw the different
delivery from a qualified, confident teacher to a trainee who is finding her
feet and methods. I have seen from an outside point of view what works, what
doesn’t, and what should be highlighted during the delivery of a lesson.
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