English Teacher Training

TEAM A IN ACTION

I think that your lesson was solid from start to finish. Below I will go into more detail:

Good Points ★

• I really liked the sequencing: You started with a warm-up, you reviewed what Mr. Abdoreim studied last time, you introduced the new material in an inductive way, you practiced the new material, and lastly you had a writing activity to consolidate everything that you had studied for the day. I think your lesson had a good mix of writing, listening and speaking.
• During your introduction of the new material your English was clear and very easy to understand and the visuals you used throughout your lesson were great!
• You also seemed to have a lot of energy and your enthusiam made us enthusiastic!
• Lastly, Mr. Abdoreim understood the difference between "This" and "That" and was able to use both words in a sentence.

Sugestions for an even Better Lesson ★

• In the junior high school textbook they introduce a functional use for "This is" and "That is". In the textbook, students use "This is" and "That is" when they show Ms. Green their school. For example "This is our library" and "This is our classroom" etc. In the textbooks, "This is" is also used to introduce other people. For example "This is Ms. Green." "Oh, hello, Ms. Green. Nice to meet you." With Mr. Abdoreim, you mostly used sentences like "This is an eraser"., "This is a dog" etc. I think next time you should consider teaching some functional uses of "This is" like giving a tour of your school or introducing someone else.
• When you called on a row of students to practice this is and that is, you had students say "That is ..." for any object on the back wall of the classroom and students say "This is" for any object on the front wall irrespective of their actual distance to the wall. This made the difference between "this is" and "that is" a little confusing. Here is an idea you can use next time. Hold a ball and say "This is a ball". Throw the ball to a student and point to the ball and say "That is a ball." Have the student say "This is a ball" and throw the ball to another student saying aftwards "That is a ball". This is one possible way to practice the pronunciation of "This" and "That" while learning the difference.
• I think you had a lot of good practice but it would have been nice to have more real communication activies. One possible communication activity is to have the students describe the contents of the knapsacks "This is my pen" "This is my Michael Jackson picture" etc. Another possible activity is to have students introduce their friends to other students.
• Lastly, Mr. Abdoreim thought that This is ~ meant "kore ha" rather that "kore ha ~ desu." Perhaps a brief grammatical explanation after your introduction of the new material might have helped him realize the meaning.

Well, I enjoyed your lesson very much and I think we all learned a lot from it!