I liked the MCM readings this week. The section of Guidelines for Language Classroom Instruction gives a nice outline of ideas to keep in mind when prepping a class. It’s easy to get set on a style of teaching (type of activity) to keep using, because it fits how we think as teachers. However, since people have a variety of learning styles it helps to remember different activities that reach the same goal. It’s also good to remember that sometimes a million activities are less effective than direct instruction (and the reverse). We tend to focus on leaving the “old lecture” style behind that we ignore it’s uses.
The most useful part of the ESP section, for me, was the one on preparing the curriculum and how to assess the needs of the learners. Again it helps to have a list of things to keep in mind when working on classes.
The lesson planning section was the same as in any other class.
I liked having a list of things to look for in text books. I’ve actually avoided textbooks. I just pick and choose the materials I want from a variety of texts to teach my classes. But it would be nice to have much of what I want to use in one source.
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2 comments:
I agree about keeping the "old methods" around. I prepared a lecture for my class last week because there was a lot of material I wanted to skim over, just so they knew where to find it if they needed it in the future. I was amazed at the attentiveness of my students. They seemed to realize what I had to say was really important because I was lecturing about it, and that's what professors do, right?
In my opinion a teacher should a good collector of methods if s/he has a great archive of methods and techniques then s/he can pick up whatever s/he needs to use according to students need.
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