Teaching Adults

Recently I started volunteering at an organization called 'Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture'. The clients using this facility are from all over the world and have come from unfortunate circumstances. Many of them who have come to Toronto as refugees (running away from a terrible past) are becoming accustomed to Canadian culture and are becoming familiar with the area. Many of those clients are there to learn English.

As a volunteer, I have started to help out a client in order to prepare her for The International English Language Test (IELT). She wants to pursue her PhD, hence she wants to improve her English so that she can get admission to a university in Toronto. Using books and online sources, I ensure that she gets sufficient practice in all three areas: reading, writing, and conversing. I select magazine/newspaper articles or passages that are filled with vocabulary so that she can learn new words- learn the spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and how to utilize that word.

 As well, I also assist adult clients who are new to using computer programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word. Using these programs are so natural for daily users that I did not realize the difficulty of breaking down the instructions to use various basic tools and type. However using analogies such as changing the font style/size/colour is like going shopping for clothes and choosing between a huge variety of types, sizes, and colours.

Teaching how to use Microsoft Word

I was tutoring a grade 10 student in order to prepare him for his Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). This is a standardized test which all Ontario students are expected to excel in. Meeting him on a weekly basis for 2 hours was definitely a different experience than being his school teacher. It gave me less time to get to know  and assist the student. Yet, I felt that I learned how to organize my tutoring sessions so that it would be most beneficial for the student.

Researching was my first step as I collected examples, information, marking criteria, past and student (graded) examples. I went through through all the sheets of papers and planned out how I would tutor this student. I personally felt a step-by-step process worked best.

 For example, we worked on perfecting his News Report Writing:

1. Important Terms Activity: Defined all the terms in a news report (headline, byline, placeline, body, facts, and quotations)
2. Identification Activity: Looked at various newspaper articles - identified the sections listed above and filled them in a chart
3. Mix and Match Activity: Put together pieces of cut up news paper articles in a sequential manner
4. Comparison Activity: Read three types of news report written by past students who received different grades in order to understand the quality of an excellent news report
5. Do-it-Yourself Activity: Gave two types of New Reports topics (first which the student connected with, one which was not of the student's interest)

We also worked on essay writing by first working on how to come up with three major ideas to support your argument, followed by how to use the hamburger paragraph model, to finally writing a few essays. 

Le français

Teaching French to a Kindergarten class was great fun! It was their first exposure to French. It was  splendid to hear  the children run up to me and ask me, ‘are we going to learn French today?’ It was such a great feeling when the students were excited and were waiting to learn. I taught them French through simple themes, such as  les couleurs (colours), les numeros (numbers), les fruits et les légumes (fruits and vegetables). They learned through listening and repeating words, playing with different objects/toys laid around the classroom, working in pairs, and from colouring sheets.

For the theme “les couleurs”, there were multiple toys sorted by colours as well as colouring sheets for children to learn the names of colours in French. I also liked to display their work so that they could feel proud of their work and go back to it to revise what they learned. For the theme “les numeros", they used blocks, Lego, and play dough to experience counting in French. Also, they worked really hard on creating their own number booklets where they have learned numbers un à cinq  (1-5).  For the theme, "les fruits et les légumes", they got to play in the play-kitchen, make pretend meals, and play 'at the supermaket'.

They loved this one: La Chanson: J'aime les fruits! 

Along with these themes, the students enjoyed listening, singing along and dancing to French songs. With both the theme-based learning as well as songs, the objective of the French instruction was for them to become familiar and broaden their understanding of key words/vocabulary. More than anything, I wanted the students to explore French and build a genuine interest and passion to keep learning French in the future.

Letter of the Week!

Learning Wall: Letter of the Week   - "C"

Teaching Kindergarten was a pleasant experience as I got to see many of the children's first time grasping alphabets and numbers. I felt it took a lot more time to come up with ideas to ensure my teaching was engaging and were in a series of short lessons, keeping their attention span in mind. As this age group is very dependent in terms of having to rely on verbal instructions, pictures, and observations, it was important  to avoid using worksheets for a large part. 

Book of the Week: C for Caterpillar

I planned many literacy building activities such as "Letter of the Week" whereby the students learned an alphabet a week- how to recognize it, its phonetic pronunciation, and how to write it. As well through out the week I read books and we sang songs together that had words that highlighted the week's alphabet. At the end of the week, the students' "homework" was to bring an item from home which started with the letter of the week for Show and Tell. The students absolutely loved the activities as they had much to tell their parent(s) and it also gave a way for the parents to connect with their child's learning. 

'F' for Frankenstein- Show and Tell

Starting up a Club

More than simply teaching in a classroom, I learned that a teacher has to dedicate his/her strengths to help the school population build a community, develop their talents, and have a free environment away from marks and expectations to just have a good time at school. One way to do this is through school involvement through creating clubs. As I started the internship towards the end of the school year, I was asked to help out with the soccer club for grade 7/8s. Yes, it was a shock to me. I asked a close friend of mine for assistance as he was a soccer coach, and he drew up soccer drills and fun games to play in between with the soccer ball. Although I tried my best, I knew soccer was not my strength at all.

I wanted to use my ability rather than simply supervising students while they played soccer, hence I started up an Art Club. It turned out to be better than I expected as there was a big turn out. I did come across lots of small challenges which I now have kept in mind for the future such as how to manage 20 students while needing to administer the glue gun and how to ensure the class was completely clean (remember Art can be VERY messy with kids) before the lunch hour was over. However, I learned that I didn't need to be in control all the time, or I wouldn't be able to guide the students in their arts or crafts. I rather gave lots of student volunteers the responsibility to clean up, give announcements on the PA system of the club time/location in the morning, and help out their friends. 

They were an incredible bunch and their imagination and creativity showed. I got a chance to display their talent and creativity to the rest of the school and community. More than that, I saw a lot of new friendships being formed as students from different grades and classes came. As well, I saw a lot of great interaction between the older students and the younger students, as they got a chance to help out and become a role model!

 

Going beyond the Textbook

I had a great opportunity to teach a combined class (grade 3 and 4) during my internship. The students were wonderful. There was a great spectrum of learning levels and a mix of learning styles. When teaching Science, I wanted the students to get experience of learning beyond their textbooks. As well as I thought of ways to touch upon the vast learning styles (visual, auditory, linguistic, kinesthetic, logical, interpersonal, and interpersonal). 

For science, I was teaching the class "Types of Forces" (Buoyancy, Electricity, Static Electricity, Magnetic Energy, Friction, Gravity, and Natural Forces). After explaining the concept and allowing students to predict/explain the concept in their own words, a combination of hands-on activities, games, and visuals helped the students learn the types of forces in a fun and interactive way. Here are some examples:

 

(1) BUOYANCY: I divided the class in small groups and gave them a bunch of objects in the classroom. As a group they had to predict whether the objects would sink or float and record their findings. After discussing the materials that made the objects and why they sank/floated, the students saw what Buoyancy was for themselves. Plus without them knowing, they were accountable for their own recordings. This really helped students who learned especially through working with people (interpersonal learners), looking at the objects floating and sinking (visual learners), and/or working with their hands and learning through the sense of touch (kinesthetic learners). 

(2) NATURAL FORCES: I first began to explain the force of wind and water through erosion and the immense wind blowing during a snow storm. But to visually see the immense force of nature itself I projected bits and parts of the videos of a tornado, hurricane, and mudslide which the students watched wide-eyed. Of course, I ensured that we learned Science with an ethical understanding, by discussing how dangerous these natural forces can be to people and that its important to not look at  these videos as "woah that's awesome", but rather consider those who might have be impacted.

• Tornado
• Hurricane
• Mudslide

(3) FRICTION: I was able to use an online game to show the students what friction was. It showed a visual of a car going over different types of surfaces (which made the car go either slow or fast). That inspired me to bring in all types of different mini surfaces such as: wooden planks, tiles, a plastic table cloth, carpet pieces, etc along with Hot Wheels and small race cars for the students to test out friction for themselves. This made them great at predicting and understanding why the cars rolled faster on some surfaces, while slower on others. This catered to various learning styles.

Tables Turned: Marking

It's still news to me that tables have turned. All the way till the end of my B.Ed, I've always been anxious to know how much I got on my papers, assignments, and tests. I've always cared about the marks I received as I would reflect back on the amount of effort I had put forth in completing the task. During this practicum, I realized that this time I would not be the one waiting for a mark, but rather giving a mark to all the students.

Since I taught two units - Math (Cylinders) and Language (Poetry) in a grade 8 class, I got a lot of practice in creating different types of assessment measures as well as giving a numerical value. I used both formative and summative forms of assessments. I observed the students level of participation, how productive/on-task students were during work periods, and group participation, as well as developed quizzes, certain worksheets, a final unit test or final culminating task.

MATH: I felt it was much easier and less time-consuming to grade Math because it was less subjective and most of the time there was only one answer to each question.

POETRY: I felt it was more time-consuming to grade language because there were varied answers/responses. Additionally, although I placed more emphasis on fulfilling the requirements (length, number of poems, structure, etc), there was still a level of subjectivity (clarity and creativity) which I had to be very careful so that I would grade fairly and appropriately.

For the majority, both the grade 8 classes did wonderful. One of my most exciting moment was when a boy who struggled in Math throughout the year ended up with a 100% in my unit! It was remarkable to see (and he was definitely moved too as he instantly took a picture of his final grade and texted it to his mom) [Nope, I did not take the phone away from him!]

While grading though, I did not forget the anxiety and anticipation I've had during my whole schooling life, hence I made sure I'd fulfill what I wanted to see in my own teachers:

• graded it as soon as possible
• level of expectations were fair and clear
• provided descriptive feedback
• gave out stickers (yup, they students still love them)/ remarks (Well done!)
• gave opportunities for improvement
• met with students that struggled and ensured they corrected their mistakes (next time)