Natalie Brentano

C&T 491
Dr. Cho/Dr. Peter
24 June 2015
Reflective Practice
1. What is your overall impression of the lesson? What part of the lesson do you think went
well? What part of the lesson do you wish had gone better?
The overall impression I have of the two lessons that we implemented into the EB classes
were well prepared lessons that were at the appropriate level for the students. I think that
there are many things that I would change about the lessons, but I believe that for the first
time teaching, and the first time creating lesson plans, it was a good effort. I think that the
games were the highlight of the lessons, because we were told to make the classes less about
the grammar and more enjoyable. With these ideals in mind, it was hard to create a lesson
that was able to be centered on a fun activity. The first week, there were many bumps in the
road, but I think by the end of that first week, these issues were ironed out, and I feel I was
able to execute the lesson with confidence. The second week, I thought that the lessons were
repetitive, and some were at the wrong level for the students. Regardless of these weaknesses,
I think that the lessons demonstrated our skills by building off of the past lesson to potentially
allow a better retention rate for the material that was learned last week. I think that the part of
the lessons that could have gone better would be the way the games were approached. I think
that having more structure within the games would have allowed students to create their own
sentences making them longer and possibly more complicated. Overall, the lessons we
created were good for a first attempt, and I am eager to try again and to implement the newly
acquired knowledge Ive gained from this program.
2. Were the lesson objectives met by all students by the end of the lesson? How do you
know? Did some student achieve the objectives more fully than others?
I believe that the students achieved a great deal of the lesson objectives, I believe that there is
always something else for the students to learn, but in retrospect, I believe that their effort
that was put forth demonstrated their desire to accomplish things and to sincerely learn the
material that we were learning. The students would ask questions, and in my last lesson the
girls felt comfortable enough to say that they did not understand. From that perspective I
believe that the girls have not only achieve the objectives that were in place from the lesson,
but I feel that the girls understood the ultimate goal that I had hoped would slowly spread and
allow the girls to understand that its okay to make mistakes. I think that the girls who asked
questions, and would double check the words or sentences that they were not sure about, with
me in Korean to really ensure they understood. In addition, they would show such hard effort
being put forth to make correct pronunciations and to make use full sentences when sharing
their ideas with the class. While many students were asking how to say different phrases in
English, or asking how to say different words in English there were many students who
struggled to reach the lessons objective. The students that had more difficulty to understand,
it was completely understandable, and I think that I tried to combat their confusion and solve
any major issues that they were having with the objectives, to the best of my ability. Despite
this, and regardless of how much effort I offer the student, there were many students who felt
unmotivated because in the past they had been told that they are not good at English. I think
that I did my best to encourage them, and to attempt to bring light to their situation, by
showing them that they were not struggling, but they were more in doubt of their own

abilities. After I encouraged the girls and tried to assist in any way possible, I noticed that the
second week that those who were previously discouraged and having trouble, were more
open to asking questions in front of the class, and openly making more mistakes, and learning
to laugh about them.
3. What kinds of errors were they making? How did you treat those errors? Was your
treatment effective in improving their use of that particular language form?
The students were making a lot of pronunciation errors, and I treated these errors with a
mindset that I was not trying to ridicule them, and I made sure that the students understood
this as well. In the past, when I would help some of my friends get better pronunciation it
came off as I was ridiculing them, or teasing them because of how they pronounced words.
From that I established that it was better to flat out say that, and then help them by including
some of my errors Ive made with Korean pronunciation in the past. I think that in between
the girls laughing about my silly mistakes and my repetition of the phrase mistakes are okay,
you learn from them and the way that I would have them make silly sounds I think really
helped. I think that the girls were more comfortable because, while I was being silly and
getting them to make the sounds of particular letters, they were doing it with me therefore, it
seemed less embarrassing and less daunting than doing it by themselves. I think that I found
the approach of simply, making a fool out of myself, it made the review of the words less
intimidating because I tried to make it as positive and rewarding as possible. I would use
examples in Korean where if you pronounced something incorrectly, no one would
understand, and the girls would laugh and say ohh yeahh, and I would connect those ideas
with English. I think that by connecting it to Korean it allowed them to see that, I do it, and a
lot of other people do it, therefore its not something that they should really be frustrated
over, just understanding that it will most likely happen again in the future.
4. What did you hope would take place during the pair work/group work activity/ activities?
How did you decide on this particular activity? Was it interesting for them? Did they use
authentic language?
During the games and activities we had for the students, my expectations were low, because I
wanted them to take a moment and relax. I realize that there is not a lot of time for a break in
the Korean school system, but I wanted to make the games be a moment where they could try
to not worry about other things and focus on something that was exciting while being able to
practice their English skills. As a group, Annette, Emily, Kassandra and I would try to find
ways that would make them practice certain phrases, while keeping the mood light and
upbeat. With these two keys in mind, we decided on a multiple number of activities that were
changed after each class to make them the best that they could possibly be. We played have
you ever, the travel edition, we played a travel version of go-fish, we had them describe
animals to one person who would try to guess, and we had them talk to their friends about the
different topics that were discussed in class. Additionally, they were not using authentic
language, it was scripted, but I feel it was a way that would allow for future language use that
would be more authentic after learning it. Ideally, I would have liked to allow them to create
their own sentences based off of our examples, but the students would get stressed about
trying to make everything perfect. Thus, I believe that the scripted language after playing the
game became authentic. Because the girls were speaking with confidence and they presented
a sense of understanding that they achieved from playing the game.
5. Was this lesson that you selected easy or difficult for your students? What part of the
lesson was new for them? What part did they already know? How did you attempt to provide

them with i+1?

The level that we created these lessons at were meant to be hard enough that the students
would need to listen to us, but easy enough to understand. The lesson I did for the 2nd grade
A level, I believed it was a good continuation of the travel lesson from the week before, but I
also thought that we should be doing a different topic because travel was covered the week
before. The students were in tune with a majority of the material that was being taught, but
we wanted it to be an easy topic for them to understand what was happening and not struggle
on the small details of this lesson. I attempted to present the students with the i+1 by building
off the previous lessons, such as the topic remaining the same, and presenting more ways of
desire to go somewhere, or a desire in something. While the material in the lessons were
essentially the same, but we changed grammar points from the previous lesson to help
provide more ways of expressing things that one would like to do.
6. In general, what have been your greatest successes in teaching this group? What do you
think you need to know how to do better?
I think that my greatest success in teaching the EB high school students was not directly
related to the lesson plan itself. I think that my greatest success here has been giving them a
piece of mind, because I think that the Korean school system is very rough, and is unfriendly
towards mistakes. I think that I wanted to provide the students with the confidence and the
understanding that making mistakes does not change ones ability or make them any less
smart. Because, making mistakes is hard to do, especially admitting that one has been made, I
think that I focused more on trying to get them to talk to me, and trying to allow them to gain
a better sense of confidence in themselves and in their past knowledge. In addition to this, I
am confident in the idea that I provided them with not only a better idea of how to be
confident and to be comfortable with the mistakes that they have made but, I think that I
made some form of impact on the way that the girls pronounce certain letters. I emphasized
good pronunciation over having perfect sentences. Personally, I believe that grammar can be
learned from anyone, foreign or native, but I feel that there is not a lot of stress that is placed
upon adjusting their pronunciations and the intonation that is used with certain words. For me
personally, I would like to think that Ive done well teaching the girls more confidence, and to
make mistakes because its okay to, and to adjust problem letters and words that the girls had
problems with. I think that I have more knowledge on how to better assist the students now,
because I think that despite my goal to give them a better sense of confidence in themselves,
accepting that mistakes are okay and that you learn from them, and stressing pronunciation, I
think that I know how to better intertwine these things now. I have realized that when
mistakes are made, I started to make comparisons with sentences in Korean, and
demonstrating how they are not right in Korean. Then connecting these ideas back into
English and showing how some words show up constantly are actually very important in
certain sentences. I would like to improve that aspect because I think it helped the students
more than trying to explain it only in English. I found that first explaining it in English then
in Korean and then once again in English really ensured that the students were understanding
and actually did understand. I would also like to work on better ways to give students better
ways to say letters in English, by using example words in Korean that illustrate the letter
better, and then giving them another example of a word in English to give them an example
in their L1 and one to ensure they understood that was in their L2, which maybe easier to
understand for some.
7. I am interested to know what language teaching approach you ascribe to and how you

articulated this philosophy in this particular lesson.

My teaching philosophy, I believe, is simplistic because I wish to teach students about the
things that a lot of other teachers do not deeply emphasize. Additionally, I wish to give my
students a sense of what it means to be confident in themselves and to allow them to
understand that making mistakes should not be an embarrassment or a judge of how smart
someone is. I believe that confidence is important in learning a different language because
everyone wants to be perfect, everyone wants to make everything correct. But, in reality,
learning a new language is difficult because mistakes are inevitable, be use no one is perfect.
I told my students to ask questions and to make mistakes because I am a firm believer that
being comfortable making mistakes will allow the students to feel more comfortable around
me, and dealing with the material that is at hand. Thus, I articulated these values into the
classroom, because I felt as if the girls were able to be comfortable making mistakes around
me, I thought it would make their learning process easier, and their confidence would
hopefully gain more as they continued on through their English education career.