Teaching Practice Phase 1 : Day 2

I have started off this day with renewed energy and hope. I took two periods for 8E (one a substitution)  and two periods for 9F students. I could  manage the 9F class better than that of yesterday. I engaged an activity based class for them related to  Leonardo DeCaprio's speech which I completed the day before. The learners were instructed to make posters on the theme environmental conservation with any sub theme of their choice. They were first shown some model images of posters using powerpoint slides. They had to work in groups.  Drawing sheets and crayons were provided to them. They were alloted a time of 25 minutes to complete the task while I monitored their work. The learners were really enthusiastic about the task. They worked with great co-operation and vigour. After the task completion each group was given an opportunity to display their poster before the class. The task ensured learning through hands-on experience.  All the same, some students still were reluctant to actively take part in the poster-making task. I tried my level best to get them involved but they just showed superficial participation just for the sake of satisfying me. This task was followed in the next hour by another one involving writing script for inauguration ceremony of Science Exhibition . Though this too was a group activity the learners showed less enthusiasm probably because it offered more language immersion and the students were not so proficient in English language.  Their LSRW skills were very weak. I gave them necessary support to complete the task   Still since many did not have a strong base in the language,  I too find difficulty helping them out. I completed the activity based lesson plan within two periods and I did not rush as that of yesterday trying to complete each lesson plan within a period. It still requires more effort and planning from my part.  I had given them an assignment the previous day on preparing a notice for Science Exhibition at school. It was really disappointing that only four pupils out of 49 had done the work. I asked the rest of the learners to copy a model notice from a powerpoint slide and cleared their doubts regarding it. 

Classes in 8E were motivating to me as a teacher. Since they gave me adequate responses,  I could also give more inputs to them unlike that of 9F students. I completed the lesson 'Rosa Parks Sat Still' carefully leading the students through promoting questions on comprehension.  This was followed by group activities - slogan writing and completion of the dialogue writing task that was initiated in the last class. This was only possible since I got a substitution in their class today consecutive to the original period alloted to me. The learners came up with interesting slogans. Some were teemed with grammatical errors which were rectified. I collected back  the activity cards on which the learners had written slogans and read out all of them before the whole class. The learners completed the dialogue-writing activity too and handed over their answers. 

Overall I was greatly disappointed with the 9F students and with my inability to bring them to the track of learning . Even though I gave them many activities they were only responsive to the poster making one.