Opening the Door

(Sep 14th 18th 2014)

Teaching adults was a challenge to myself because I have been used to
teaching younger students. However, I have found it doable especially
after my first time to teach adults for 50 minutes with supervision.
Thus, nothing is impossible and trying is the challenge to decide
whether to continue or apply new strategies.
After doing different observations last semester, I felt that it is time for
me to apply what I have observed and identify what I need to develop
in my teaching strategies and skills. From my point of view, standing at
the back to observe is different from standing in front of students to
teach because the responsibilities have been changed. To be specific, I
prepared different activities to teach level 1 foundation students and
the target of the lesson was grammar and writing. After introducing the
lesson and applying the activities, I have discovered my weaknesses
and strengths within the lesson. As an example, I have found that I had
to less the number of activities because learners needed more time to
finish them. Whereas, I was able to differentiate the activities
according to different interaction patterns.
Besides, delivering feedback from my mentor on the lesson was
fundamental as I was able to see it from a different point of view. My
mentor commented that I am trying to build good rapport with learners
and this is one of my top goals for this year.
In addition, attending the reading meeting with other experienced
teachers gave me an insight into different aspects regarding teaching
reading. In fact, we have discussed the way of putting exams. For
example, they discussed the type of questions, such as multiple choice
or filling in the gaps. Also, they negotiated which iPad applications are
appropriate for the different activities as they agreed on using

HCT/FWC

Mentor: Tracy Munteanu

socrative. In fact, thinking about creating different exams enhanced

the importance of assessment in the learning and teaching process.

Rasha Alzaabi

2014/2015