Effective Teaching and Learning Essays

Effective Teaching and Learning Essays Effective Teaching and Learning Essay Effective Teaching and Learning Essay EFFECTIVE TEACHING LEARNING Total word count : 1829 PGCE MFL French Assignment 1 Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin Written Summary Activity 1 During my first week of induction, I had the opportunity to observe and sometimes take part in a wide range of language lessons in no less than the 4 different languages my placement school offers to its pupils. Being in a classroom with experimented MFL teachers not only inspired me even more to start delivering lessons myself but it also enabled me to reflect on a great number of issues discussed previously during the university course. Notwithstanding the importance of this experience, the pupil shadowing session was an even more revealing activity to some extent as I could , for the first time since I was myself a secondary school student, experience a full school day from a pupils point of view. Beyond the curricular aspect, what struck me the most was the great variety of teaching styles a Year 9 pupil can encounter in only a days time. Indeed, the level of involvement and autonomy of the pupils, the pace, the amount of cultural references or the behavior management were completely different from one lesson to another. This led me to the conclusion that the teacher is the utmost important element for the transmission of knowledge in the classroom and that radically different teaching styles lead themselves to completely different expectations, targets, and very different results in terms of behaviour, concentration, interest in the subjects and thus, overall achievement. Exploring subject Pedagogy Activity 2 Most educators agree that children need to be in supportive, friendly environments. (Hitz Driscoll, 1989) When observing a lesson, the most obvious thing one can observe a teacher doing to achieve such a goal is using praise. Praise in the classroom is a vast concept, and it can come in many forms, aim at different goals depending on the size of the class, the pupils age, their ability, their behaviour, their motivation or precisely their very attitude in response to praise and positive feedback. The two main types of praise are ability feedback and effort feedback. According to some research on the subject (Marsh, 1990) ability feedback is the generally the most valued kind of praise by the students, but effort feedback is the most efficient in actually improving their performances. (Dweck, 1999) Most MFL teachers in my placement school , a specialist language college, share their forms with another colleague from the department and thus end up teaching to a lot of different classes. To ensure continuity, they implemented a common feedback system for KS3 pupils which consists of giving stamp marks on their copybooks for good answers, and rewards after a certain number of stamps. I observed however that, as Meyer (1979) points out, certain kinds of praise [such as this one] may set up even the most capable students for failure. No student can always be good or nice or smart. In order to avoid negative evaluations, students may tend not to take chances and attempt difficult tasks. Hence the necessity of adding collective praise in order to instill a sense of togetherness as well as a collaborative atmosphere in the classroom and make sure that no pupils feel left behind. One of the teacher I observed often ends up her language lessons by praising collectively her class just before doing the plenary using expressions such as were all making progress or everybody did their best so that everyone is complimented. The idea behind this is that, regardless of their actual success in achieving the goals, all the learners should be given the same opportunity to improve themselves. Planning, delivery and evaluation of a learning episode Activity 3 The first learning episode I had the opportunity to teach was a plenary for a french year 11 top set class. There are 13 pupils, theyve already passed their GCSE and most of them with an A or above grade. Many of them have ,thus, high level speaking skills and can cope with high level listening activities. I took these facts into account while planning my plenary, which was aimed at introducing the topic they were about to start to work on the week after :La publicite. I wanted them to engage them from the start so I asked them to form pairs and to guess the nature of the topic only with the clues I gave them, one at a time to build up suspense. The aim was to get them interested and create a collaborative atmosphere, in teaching and MFL teaching specifically, activities have to be seen as useful and challenging, and what is more useful in the short term to actually know what the next topic youve got to prepare to work on will be. Although, even if I had planned that most o f the plenary would be in the target language, the hardest part was to actually stick to this and not be tempted to switch back too rapidly to English whenever a sentence or a concept wasnt understood well. Challenging the learners and having high expectation of them is one of the most important aspect of language teaching indeed. 1 Written reflection and synthesis Collaboration and contextualisation in the classroom Thorp et al. (1994) cited research indicating that students spend approximately 15,000 hours in the classroom environment during primary and secondary schooling. It is therefore important for students to have good experiences at school(Burnett, 2002) In comparison to academic success and attainment of targets, what actually is a good classroom environment is really hard to define as it can hardly be compared with figures and data. It is, though, an essential part of the teachers job to create an environment where pupils are at ease so it can become, as a result, a motivating and effective place to learn. Indeed, research suggests that a positive student-teacher relationship is an important aspect of a positive classroom environment (Birch Ladd, 1997) Collaboration in the classroom is multidimensional. Teachers collaborate with pupils by being supportive, encouraging and listening to their questions and problems; while pupils can collaborate with each other in group activities and with the teacher by making suggestions showing what are their own personal needs. Collective praise (cf. Activity 2) is one of the important aspects for a good classroom climate based on mutual understanding. By including the pupils by talking and giving feedback using the pronoun we instead of you , teachers can create a sense of shared endeavour; and , as I was able to observe during my induction, it seems to have a positive impact on the learners involvement in many cases, especially with KS3 pupils. The informal use of the target language itself during an MFL lesson can also be considered as a way of collaborating with pupils when greeting them or motivating so that they can do the same. On several occasions, I observed lessons where the teacher engaged themselves in an intellectual reflection with the pupils, fully involved themselves in the process and opened their lesson to pupils contributions and suggestions. In a top-set Year 9 German lesson, the teacher planned it with the goal of enabling the pupils to work on a new grammatical notion, the ultimate goal by the end of the lesson being to come to the conclusion of the existence of a clear pattern. During the whole lesson, the teacher wasnt in the role of the adult delivering its superior and wider knowledge to its classroom but more on the pupils side trying to team up with the whole class even if she obviously knew what was the outcome and had the knowledge of the notion. By doing this, she succeeded in creating a positive atmosphere and a certain sense of togetherness In a science lesson on genetics and cloning I attended during my pupil shadowing day, the teacher first introduced the topic and covered the subject from a scientific point of view during the first half hour and then involved the whole class in a debate over the ethical implications of cloning, while introducing new elements from the curriculum. The pupils really enjoyed exchanging their different point of view on this controversial topic and the teacher managed to challenge the pupils preconceptions by asking them why they came to such and such conclusion, how, and if it could be otherwise. (cf. Activity 1) She managed to fully engage the pupils while bringing a real-life context to her subject. Again, in MFL lessons, the use of the target language is a good way to bring a context to what is taught. Whether the learners are in the position of having to understand and respond to instructions in the target language, or when theyre involved in role-plays, they are implicitly putting their skills and knowledge in use and into context. The very presence of the target language in its written form in the classroom through displays, maps or revision posters is also very beneficial in immersing even more the learners in a language oriented environment. Some language lessons in my placement school are fully oriented towards cultural or historical topic. The promotion of and the understanding of other culture is indeed one of the most important aims of modern language studies. As an example, I observed a Chinese geography lesson aimed at revising some words and characters already learnt as well as learning more about Chinas cities and geographical features. Language assistants are especially helpful as well in that matter. Their very presence represents an amazing opportunity for pupils to practice the language and learn more about a foreign culture with a native speaker. There are 3 language assistants in my school and theyre indeed playing a very important role in adding meaning to learning. Exchanges and partnerships with foreign schools can also very beneficial as they enable even more pupils to have contacts with native speakers of their age and intercultural dialogue to take place. In my induction school, some Year 10 students hosted German pupils during and exchange weeks during which several activities were organised including a trip to York. This was a great opportunity for the German pupils to discover an historical city where they had never been before but also for the schools pupils to get an insight into their own culture and be able to make cross-cultural comparisons. The whole experience ,in fact, enabled them to develop a more objective view of their own local history but also their own customs and way of thinking. Beyond that, schools exchange whether its through correspondence or through actual travel to another country is a formidable way to get an insight in another countrys culture and way of life and , in many cases, the utmost source of motivation fo r learning a language which eventually is to be able to communicate and share with others. Whether it is through collaboration with the learners or proposing learning activities with the aim of developing cultural awareness, involvement in secondary education, and more specifically in language education, is a key to motivate learners to set themselves goals to attain. One of the role of a language teacher is to make sure that they seize any such occasion to challenge, fully engage their learners in the context of a relevant environment to eventually guide them toward success. Bibliography Meyer, W. Informational Value of Evaluative Behavior: Influences of Social Reinforcement on Achievement. JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 71(2) (1979): 259-268. Hitz, Randy Driscoll, Amy ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education Urbana IL. (1989) Marsh, H.W. (1990). The influences of internal and external factors of reference on the formation of English and math self-concepts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 107â€Å"116. Dweck, C.S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Meyer, W. Informational Value of Evaluative Behavior: Influences of Social Reinforcement on Achievement. JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 71(2) (1979): 259-268. Paul C. Burnett, Centre for Research and Graduate Training, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia Educational Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2002 Teacher Praise and Feedback and Studentsâ„ ¢ Perceptions of the Classroom Environment Thorp, H.S., Burden, R.L., Fraser, B.J. (1994). Assessing and improving classroom environment. School Science Review, 75, 107â€Å"113 Birch, S.H., Ladd, G.W. (1997). The teacher-child relationship and childrenâ„ ¢s early school adjustment. Journal of School Psychology, 35, 61â€Å"79. My key features for teaching School Larger than average size secondary school. The proportion of students known to be eligible for free school meals is well below average. The proportion of minority ethnic students is below average. The proportion of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities is well below average The proportion with a statement of special educational needs is broadly average. The school has a languages specialism. (OfSTED, 2010) Modern Foreign Languages : 13 teachers 3 language assistants 4 Modern foreign languages taught , + Latin Emphasis on and importance of grammar in the schemes of work A lot of resources available Language lab Exchanges with foreign schools French Available as a first or a second language First language in the school in terms of pupils learning it (Induction Block A school language classroom 03.10.2011) (Induction Block A school language classroom 03.10.2011) (Induction Block A school language classroom 03.10.2011)