Feedback from the Russian lesson

After my last Russian lesson, I had a feedback discussion with my supervising teacher. First she asked me to comment on the lesson and my teaching from my own perspective. I said that the timing worked well. We had a work test in the beginning of the class. I introduced the topics to give all students time to arrive. My supervisor said that I could start the exam as soon as the lesson starts, and it’s the students’ ”own fault” if they show up late. We discussed the pros and cons or being strict or lenient, and whether we should take the student-originated approach or follow the rules of the work place of arriving punctually in time.

I found it distracting that she pointed out some things during the class, such as a misspelled word, that after the word test the words are not repeated, and that I should circulate more in class and listen to and comment on students’ pronunciation and grammar.

The positive comments were made about the peaceful and calm atmosphere in the class. The downside is that the calmness may turn into timidity or being careful, and I need to work on that. I have gotten praise for creating interactive and creative tasks for the students. My supervisor said that she is just a boring teacher who has not done anything extra with the students since the first years of teaching, so my efforts were appreciated.

I got some hints of giving negative feedback or correcting the students. I could say, for example: “I might not say that in such a way”. I can encourage the quick students to repeat the exercise, if they have already finished it, rather than allowing them to chat in Finnish: ”It doesn’t matter, if you go through the dialogue again.”

My supervisor is very skilled at using appropriate comments for positive and negative feedback, while maintaining a positive atmosphere.

There were some points of development, which I considered important to hear, because I am a rookie teacher. First, I could be a bit bolder when speaking and teaching. Secondly, I can give the students more credit, for example praise them for working hard and tell in the end that now we have a little treat, such as a cultural video. I should, or could use as much Russian as I can during the class, especially when saying things like: “OK, ready, well done, let’s see, thank you, please”, and so on.

One of the main points that I need to pay attention is introducing the new tasks and giving clear instructions, in order to give the task a good rhythm. I need to wait that the class is quiet before I start talking. I need to give one point at the time, if there are several stages in a given task. For example, I will ask he students to first write down a four-course menu. When they have completed this, I will give further instructions to order from the menu in pairs, such as: ”Now you may continue with…”. Otherwise the students may forget or get confused what they were supposed to do, and this is what happened. Also, there is no point giving instructions when the task has already been given, if only one or two students are listening.

My supervisor gave me nice feedback, and I was digging for more points for development. She was afraid that she had already been too strict with me, but she had not. I hold her in high esteem and am very happy that I was able to follow her teaching and attend her lessons.

One thing that happened during the class was that I gave a bit misleading instructions for one pair exercise. I had asked them to have a dialogue in restaurant, using plural forms. I had taught the plural forms, but the students had not learned them in a negative context, when the inflection changes from accusative to genitive case. The supporting teacher commented the forms shortly for the students during the exercise. I got the advice that if I say something that I later realize is totally wrong or somewhat different, I need to correct myself, and maybe apologize, saying something like: “Now I just taught you nonsense. I will repeat what I meant and we can continue.”

Sometimes I can also give the students a crash course by telling them to close the textbooks and help me spell the numbers on a blackboard, because they are difficult, to make the students think hard.

We also discussed generally that teaching is hard work, and that preparation takes a lot of time, which I noticed. I prepared for the classes 1-4 hours per a double class. The supporting teacher said that most teachers prefer to spend their free time on their own, because during the school day they are in contact with other people so much.

I was very content with the first phase of my teaching practice. Next I will observe a couple more English lessons in few weeks time, and start teaching again in November.