On June 3 I did my first hour of teaching for my 10-hour TESL practicum. I am teaching a level 4 advanced communication class. I am teaching the class virtually and splitting the work with a partner, Sally. In this class we had five students present, and all of the students were from China. We should have had six students, but one was absent. This first class consisted of icebreaker activities to get to know the students, as well as some expectations for the class moving forward.
Before the class began I was feeling quite nervous, but that is to be expected when trying something new. This was my very first time teaching in a classroom. My teaching experience has only been in sport, mainly in a speed skating club. I also temporarily worked in a school district elementary physical education program for a short time, so that gave me some experience teaching in school, but not in a classroom. I think getting started on my path to becoming an English teacher in the online setting is actually helping my nerves, even though it adds some uncertainty. I can be comfortable in my own home and hot have to worry quite as much about how I am presenting myself as the students can only see me from the shoulders up. I am able to hide some of my nervous body language.
When we got our class started, I was not really nervous anymore. Sally opened the lesson and I saw very quickly that she is a skilled teacher. My nerves were calmed knowing that a highly capable teammate had my back. By the time it was my turn to speak to the class I was comfortable.
Our introductory activity was the biggest success of the class, I felt. We asked the students to tell us their name and where they are from, as well as some other fun questions to break the ice. One of the questions we asked was to share something special about their hometowns. It seemed all of the students liked this question, as even the seemingly shyer students had quite a lot to say. Most of them talked about food. The activity showed me that most of the students enjoy talking about their hometowns and about food, so those could be topics we can use to prompt discussion activities in the future.
Our introductory activity also revealed some challenges. We asked all of the students to turn on their webcams to introduce themselves, but only the two male students complied, and the three female students left theirs off. The males were also more willing to speak, one of them in particular. I was very pleased with his willingness to participate, but it seemed to me that his contributions made the other students feel as though they did not need to speak. I think a challenge moving forward will be to find ways to even out the level of participation among all students. Sally and I set some student expectations in our lesson in anticipation of this challenge. We informed the students that we are expecting them to actively participate in all activities and to be prepared to use their cameras every class. Hopefully the students will take this seriously and be more prepared in the coming weeks. Sally and I also discussed what we could do if the issue persists, and we struggled with how much we should push the shyer students. I think it is really important for their learning for everyone to participate, and to use cameras to simulate face-to-face communication, but at the same time, I do not want to make anyone excessively uncomfortable. I know people who have severe anxiety with online communication, especially video calls. If this is the case for any of my students, I do not want to cause any emotional distress by pushing them too hard.
I am looking forward to getting into teaching actual lessons in the coming weeks. I am unsure of my teaching skills at this point, so I am going to use the first few weeks of my practicum to get a feel for how the students respond to my teaching and what they like and do not like. As I mentioned, I have quite a lot of teaching experience, but in a very different context. I know there will be plenty of slip-ups, miscalculations, mistakes, and misses as I come into my own as a teacher, but I am very excited to learn and grow. I have a great teaching partner and a great sponsor teacher to support me along the way, so I am not worried.