Mini Lesson Report
My Arrangement in the Mini Lesson
In order to apply our knowledge of education in actual practice, a mini lesson has been held on September 20, 2001, in which each classmate had his/her turn to tell a story to others who acted as primary school students. I have chosen a story about friendship, which is called "The Bear and the Two Travellers".
The Purpose of the Mini Lesson
The purpose of this activity is to give each of us an opportunity to practise and assess our presentation skills, since good presentation skills are part and parcel of good teaching, though teacher talk should not be the only mode of teaching.
The Task
1. Go to the following website, and select a short story which you would read aloud to an upper primary class. You may need to simplify the language a little bit to make it more suitable for listening to. But you need not worry about pitching the language at the primary school level. Also, think about what kind of story might appeal to children. http://www.inspirationstories.com/
2. The story, when read aloud, should be between one minute and two minutes in length.
3. Prepare three to four pre-reading questions, ie. questions that you would ask the class before you start reading. These questions may serve to motivate interest, activate prior knowledge, or focus attention.
4. Prepare three to four post-reading questions, ie, questions that you would ask the class after the reading, to check their understanding, elicit their response, or stimulate thinking.
5. Practise the above sequence at home.
6. Teach this mini lesson on September 20 in the tutorial meeting. The whole lesson should not last more than eight minutes.
Evaluation
There will be two stages of evaluation, a tutor-evaluation and a self-evaluation. For the self-evaluation, please bring a video-cassette to the mini lesson and have your lesson taped. Afterwards watch the video recording and evaluate your own performance. More details about the self-evaluation will be provided in due course.
Focus of Evaluation
Non-verbal skills: eye-contact, gestures, posture
Overall image: self-confidence, friendliness vs firmness
Contribution to Course Assessment
The mini-lesson will be worth 30% of the first tutorial grade (DEP5123). Ideas in your self-evaluation will also contribute to Part Three of your Portfolio.
My Arrangement in the Mini Lesson
Before I started reading the story, I had asked them three questions to warm them up:
2. What kind of person your friend should be?
3. What would you do for your friend? These questions mainly led them to think of the good qualities of a friend and focused on the use of "should" and "would" in general.
The Bear and the Two Travellers
Two men were travelling together, when a bear suddenly met them on their path. One of them climbed up quickly into a tree and hid himself in the branches. The other, seeing that he must be attacked, fell flat on the ground, and when the bear came up and felt him with his snout, and smelt him all over, he held his breath, and pretended to be dead as much as he could. The bear soon left him, for it is said that a bear would not touch a dead body. When he was quite gone, the other traveller descended from the tree, and asked his friend what it was that the Bear had whispered in his ear. "He gave me this advice," his companion replied. "Never travel with a friend who deserts you at the approach of danger."
2. If you were the one who can climb trees, what would you do for the other traveller?
3. What have you learnt from the story? Question 2 was made to introduce the use of subjunctive mood by using "would" or "should" to them. If this lesson was a true one, I would have talked about the use of subjunctive mood after this story telling lesson.
After reading the story to them, I had also asked three questions:
My Reflection on My Performance in the Mini Lesson
In the aspect of speech work, my speed of reading was slow enough for the listening level of primary school students, such speed also allowed me to speak clearly. However, I find that I was too nervous to teach in front of my classmates and, most scaring, the camera! That was why I always slipped and even twisted my tongue when I spoke up. Moreover, when I watched my performance through the video tape, I almost could not hear what I was talking at that time too! Therefore, when I teach students in the future, I must make sure that my voice is projected to all corners of the classroom, so that every student can hear me.
Apart from my speech work, I also notice that I tried to look at all pupils in the room, I really appreciate that, as whether I have looked at a student is very important for him/her, and looking at the same student all the time may suggest teacher��s bias towards that student in children��s mind. Besides eye contact, I also used gestures from time to time. I think my use of gestures were good and appropriate to bring out my ideas. I find, however, that I moved forward and backward unintentionally throughout the whole lesson, which was quite awkward and strange. I am sure that such posture is resulted from uncomfort and lack of confidence during the lesson. I hope that I can be more accustomed to teaching in front of the whole class, so that I can tackle my nervousness easily, and in turn get rid of this strange posture next time.
Though I was not confident during the lesson, I find that I was quite friendly towards my students when I asked them questions and told them stories, which I think is good to create a harmonious atmosphere that is good for story telling lessons.
All in all, I really like to have mini lessons like this one, because I can learn more about myself as a pre-service teacher. Through this mock lesson, I understand my strengths and weaknesses well, which is useful for me to improve my skills of teaching. I long to see my new performance in the micro-teaching lesson as soon as possible!