First lesson reflection:

First teaching lesson always nervous teachers especially for trainees. In fact, I amazed
myself because I did not feel nervous or scared at all, I taught my students like I know
them for years. To be honest, this strong starting motivated me a lot for my next
teaching lessons because teaching foreign learners is not hard as I expected. At the
beginning of the lesson, I used K-W-L chart for Cinderboy story to give students who
read it a chance to remember, and for others to predict. According to Crawford and
his group (2011), the K-W-L process helps teachers to build a better starting for
learning, and students become more engaged in reading when they share the results of
their learning. However, I adopted read aloud approach for teaching fairytales
settings. Even though in the beginning I was not sure it would be an appropriate
strategy for year five foreign learners, but I recognized that it was very effective when
I use it. According to Hayes (1991), read aloud method is appropriate for all ages, and
students enjoy being read to by their teacher especially if it was about their interests.
Therefore, I chose Cinderboy story because when I interviewed children about their
interest inventory, most of them preferred sports theme. Moreover, in the last
semester I taught grade five and they liked when I read the story aloud, so I wanted to
try it for foreign language learners as well. The result was not the same, in this class I
recognized that foreign learners were more excited because I developed my abilities
while reading like intonation and questioning methods. To be more specific, teachers
can convey learners' enthusiasm by using effective tones because it brings characters
to life, and questioning could be teachers tool to check students' interest and to
monitor their learning (Crawford, Freppon, Ogle, & Temple, 2011; Entwislte, Judge,
Murdouch & Procter, 1995). In addition, for post-reading, I used individual work to
make students reflect what each child learned so far. Harmer (2001), stated that
individualized learning promotes learner autonomy and develop abilities of self-
reliance over teacher-dependence. On the other hand, each class teacher faces some
challenges that need to be solved positively. In my lesson, I did not give students clear
instructions about the post-reading activity and what I'm expecting from them. As a
result, billion questions flied around the classroom, and I got tired of explaining it all
the time. I learned that teachers have to give clear, short and necessary instructions for
activities, and demonstrate them to check if all students understand what to do
(Scrivener, 2005).
Next time, I will try to give clear instructions for activities and model them as well to
ensure all students know what to do.

References:

Crawford, A. Freppon, P. Olge, D. & Temple, C. (2011). All Children Read: Teaching
for Literacy in Today's Diverse Classrooms. United States Of America: Pearson
Education.

Entwislte, M. Judge, B. Murdouch, S. & Procter, A. (1995). Learning to Teach in the

Primary Classroom. New York: Routledge.

Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. London: Longman.

Hayes, L. (1991). Effective Strategies for Teaching Reading. London: Allyn and
Bacon.

Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language

Teaching. UK: Macmillan Education.