Thursday, April 5, 2012

Celta Teaching Practice #2

Teaching practice #2 (out of 8) is done!   And another above standard :)  I hope the trend continues.  Anyway, I had to do a reading lesson and found the "Celta way" quite helpful in making an interesting kind of lesson.  Here's what I did:

1. Context.  My article was about waiting in airports, so I introduced the lesson by talking about Incheon and how, although I'm usually impatient I like waiting at Incheon because it's so nice.  Then, the students talked for a couple minutes and thought of 5 things people do in airports while waiting.

2. Pre-Reading Task.  The article was about this guy who stayed in Charles De Gaulle airport for 17 years because he initially had visa/refugee issues but then he liked it so he just stayed.  I gave the students very minimal information (a guy stayed in Paris' airport for 17 years) and asked them to think about some possible reasons why.

3. Skim-Reading Task.  They had a very short time and had to figure out which of their predictions was correct.

4. Main-Reading Task.  They read the article carefully and answered some T/F questions, as well as talked with their partner about 3 good and 3 bad things about this guy's life.

5. Post-Reading Task.  They had to pretend that they could meet the guy in person and come up with some interesting questions they could ask him.  Then, one person pretended to be the guy in the airport and the other one was a newspaper reporter who had to interview him. 

Overall, it went really well and I think I'll definitely use this style of lesson plan for any reading/listening lessons that I do.

3 comments:

Neill said...

An interesting and cohesive lesson plan. I would definitely agree about providing a context the students can identify with as it the topic will become more interesting and possibly give them some ownership of the subject in question.

On a side note, I am a relatively experienced English teacher and and getting towards the end of my Masters in TEFL. I am contemplating doing the CELTA to improve my practical teaching abilities. Would you say that the course has aided you significantly and is it worth the cost?

Great blog. I am a long time reader but first time commenter.

Jackie Bolen said...

If you want to improve your practical teaching skills, then yes, do it. But, if you already have a Masters in Tefl then it probably won't improve your job prospects.

M. Aurelius Higgs said...

(5 year mixed level Korean hogwon teacher here) I just finished my CELTA in Thailand two days ago and I just came across your blog.

@Neill, like Jackie said, it wouldn't do anything for your resume, but it would help with practical teaching. If you have the time and money, highly recommended.

@Jackie, kudos and keep it up. I love in your post reading task how you brought the attention back to the text, and you maintained the context through out the lesson.

I see you already know, but it's worth mention, all effective language learning happens in context. After you build and maintain that, keep it student centered, and make sure the task are communicative goals (real reasons they would need to communicate).

Cheers again, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about your experience.