I had my very first teaching session today. I have never taught a group of real students before, but I am still alive! The double lesson went really fast. I was quite nervous for a few days before this session, but nothing catastrophic happened. I also managed to switch on the overheard dvd projector and the document camera, which I have never used before.
During the summer I have been writing the Core Plan and I just handed it in few days ago. I will split my teaching practice between Russian and English classes, and I was really looking forward to teach Russian. I will teach Russian in Septermber and October, on session per week, each 2-3 hours. I already know the supporting teacher from last spring, when I observed the lessons. She is a native Russian speaker who has lived in Finland for a long time. I like her as a person and appreciate her as a teacher, so it is great that I am able to continue the cooperation with her.
I arrived early in the classroom, so I had time to figure out how the overhead dvd projector and document camera worked. Luckily there were instructions, so I got them working. I wanted to greet all students as they entered the classroom. Some of them were surprised to see a new teacher, so they were even dubious whether they had entered the right classroom. Some students of this age don't look at others or greet, but that's ok. I must have been like that at this age, too. However, I will encourage interaction as we are learning a language, and relationships are everything in Russia.
My Russian class is 22 students, and 20 were present today. Two of them were guys, and the rest were girls. I met some of them during the observation period in April, so it is good to know some students. The group come from four different Business student groups. I asked then in the beginning, why they chose Russian language and how does it feel. Some said the picked it, because it will, or it has been useful for work. Several students work part-time and are able to use Russian at work with Russian clients. They had realized that many Russians don't speak any other language. Some students were interested in learning a new language, and especially Russian, one had a Russian partner, and one student's mother was Russian. Others said they needed the credits, and one said they had been promised a trip to St.Petersburg with the class, but the trip had been cancelled.
Today's topic was accusative case, living and non-living, as well as free/occupied inflection in cases. We read a lot of exercises out loud, and there was several pair exercises. I also had the students rotate from one person to another, when exercising living accusative.
The students were quite active, when they did pair exercises. When I asked them something, first everyone was quiet, but finally someone replied. I interacted quite a lot with the group to find out what they already knew. Towards the end of the exercises the students got quite noisy, while waiting for the others to complete the exercises, but as soon as I spoke, especially the grammar, they were quiet. They completed the exercises quite quickly, but some students had to be waited quite a while. I got the impression that some students are quite beginners, but when someone was struggling with pronunciation or a word, I approached the student to help her.
I want to teach the students the culture and Russian life as much as I am able, so whenever there is a change, I illuminate some aspect of the culture or Russia to them. Today I told them about two famous Russian authors, Alexandra Marinina and Mihail Bulgakov. I also told them about the Hermitage in St.Petersburg.
To evaluate my teaching, I think it went quite well. I did many things the way I have observed my supporting teacher Olga do, like have the students repeat the words and sentences after me. I try to emphasize oral interaction and communication. I had the students tell each other the grammatical content I had just taught them to emphasize learning. My speaking voice is not quite loud, I I need to pay attention to that. I was very attentive to what students were saying to each other, for example the words that they did not understand or any other missing information or miscommunication, and I responded to those. I asked the students two times during the class, did they understand the grammar. The first time they did not, so I continued teaching, and the second time I asked, they had understood it. Also the exercises we did proved that they had figured it out. They also asked me, if part of my teaching was in Moodle, and I told them I will have it added.
I had made a very detailed, written lesson plan with exact timing for each activity and exercise. This was very helpful, when the students were busy with an exercise, I checked what is next, and I also checked the management of time. We managed to get everything done, about 10 exercises and grammar.
Towards the end of the session, 4 minutes before the ending time the students started stirring and becoming restless. I asked if they had more classes and if they were busy, so I let them go. Actually it took those few minutes to check the students' attendance, so when everyone had left, the time was up.
I will continue keeping the time, because it was helpful. The next time I will rotate around the students more and listen to their pronunciation and to help them with the exercises. I forgot to mention one piece of homework, but they are optional. I will have the next teaching session on Monday, but I don't have the material yet.
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