‘To The End’: part 1

‘Well, it looks like we might have made it
Yes, it looks like we've made it to the end.’

(Blur, ‘To the End’)

Monday 12^th December

I started preparing for the final presentation today. The first thing I did was read through all my blog posts. It was interesting to be reminded of the various ups and downs that have occurred over the past 15 weeks or so. My early blog posts are definitely those of someone suffering a crisis of confidence – they are full of despairing questions about why classes failed and are pretty representative of the deep insecurity I feel (felt?) about being a teacher. Happily, as the blog progresses notes of confidence and increasing self-awareness begin to creep in. When I look at the teacher who began the course all those weeks ago (it seems longer ago than it was) and the teacher I am now I have to conclude there has been some ‘growth’.

The blog reveals a growing confidence that is completely tied to the new ideas and techniques I have been introduced to. As I have become aware of and experimented with MIC and schema and the affective filter and CI I have definitely become more comfortable and confident in the role of teacher. I can honestly say I am looking forward to the future now that I have proven to myself I can grow and develop in the role. Previously, I was terrified of the future. This is a fundamentally good shift in perspective for which I am genuinely grateful.

Nevertheless, the blogs do highlight that I really did not have any idea what I was doing to begin with. Reading the early posts again was excruciating. They also highlight some recurring issues; my relationship with a problematic co-teacher; on-going and unresolved issues with the timing aspect of lesson planning; the negative affect of the school timetable and lesson sequence on the quality of my lessons; the difficulty of motivating ultra-passive students; and the vagaries involved in dealing with five different co-teachers.

I am grateful to the blog for the opportunity it has afforded me to see these things in a wider perspective. Often on a week to week or day by day basis you just deal with problems as you are confronted by them. So, it is informative to have a record to reflect on them as they happened over 15 weeks.

After I read the blogs I read my methodology assignments. I think I will try and use them as a model for the final presentation. To this end I have given myself a broad ‘question’ to address – ‘How have you developed as a teacher over the course duration?’ - which I will apply the assignment format to. Like in the assignments I will choose some transcripts (or videos in this case) and analyze them with regards to my teaching practice and pedagogic goals. I will also discuss the concepts and theories which inform and underpin these goals. This seems like a good model to apply.

The next task I set myself was selecting some videos to use. The assignment notes state that we should use two or three with about a month or so separating them. Conveniently, I have two batches of videos. I made several recordings at the end of September and several more in mid to late November. The problem I had here was time. I have 24 different video recordings of me giving a class. About 15 of these are 30 minutes long. There was no way I could watch them all so I spent a large part of the afternoon skimming through the videos trying to find representative clips from both the September and November selections. In the end I narrowed it down to four or 5 clips from which I will choose 2 or 3. Along the way however I made some observations, the most galling of which concerned the lack of visible difference between the early recordings and the later ones. I had hoped to find clips that showed a marked contrast, where an obvious, discernible difference was apparent. There are differences; in the early clips I use Korean a lot and wait for my co-teachers to translate; I don’t set up activities very well; and generally don’t really use any techniques that effectively motivate or engage the students. So whilst improvements are apparent in the later recordings it is not as if I am an entirely different person – it’s still me standing at the front of a classroom waving my hands about. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe some kind of miraculous transformation, like I’m Robin Williams in ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ and the students are just hanging on my every word. I think I need to manage my own expectations.

My next task(s) is going to be to read through all my notes for each of the three classes (Methodology, SLA and ICC), then my answers to the Methodology week to week questions we used to do and then my SLA dialogue journals and assignments. I will reflect on this in tomorrow blog.