Final lesson: Cultural heritage

I had my final lesson of teaching practice today. The topic was cultural heritage and heritage tourism. On few lessons several students had not completed the homework, so I had mentally prepared to give them some feedback on shaping up. This time everyone had done the homework, and the students were active and responded well to my interaction, so no rebuking was needed.

I had to correct some details that I mentioned the previous time, such as different types of conditionals and one certain phrase in an exercise, to which I had said that both answers are correct. I had not had the correct answers key with me and I had written my own answers to the task, and when one student had chosen the other alternative, and I had said that both options can be used, because I was unsure of the answer (If I would do this project again/If I will do this project again).

The students had the task of searching the definition for Cultural Heritage or Heritage tourism and in groups of three make a small introductory presentation of heritage tourism in a country chosen by them, and then present them for the others. The chosen countries were interesting: Italy, Spain, Great Britain, India, Indonesia. I was positively surprised by the effort and the level which they managed to put into the 3-minute presentations. The students asked if they had to do a PowerPoint presentation, and I told them they didn’t have to, but two groups had done them in PPT format, and they were great. The Spain group talked about the pilgrimage route of Santiago de Compostela, and they had a great picture of the route. Another group, presenting Italy, had included a beautiful picture of Venice. The group on Indonesia had chosen three sites that they presented and they even mentioned that the next year is Visit Indonesia year. I was very pleased and impressed by the students’ work and praised them for that. One thing that I did not emphasize enough was the fact that the students should have come up with a definition of what is heritage tourism.

We also started another reading and rephrasing exercise on fossils, but that will be continued the next week with the regular teacher. I thanked the group for great work and told them that I had really enjoyed teaching them, and gave them some chocolate for farewell. I asked the students to submit comments at Answergarden: http://answergarden.ch/76207