My Teaching Experience from Student to Professional with Lesson Plans

I’m sooo tired. I’m soo tired. I’m sooooooooooooo tired. I am so tired because I don’t get enough sleep, which is partially my fault, partially my lack of attention’s fault, and I am mentally fatigued from all the critical thinking and lesson planning and yawn yawn. Boy. I better go sleep. Wake up early early to finish the grading.

Something nice my supervisor pointed out- you don’t always have to collect their homework. I made them hold it up in the larger period to make sure they did it and I am not regretting that tonight!

This is the most tired I’ve ever been for this long of a period. Oh boy. Sleep. Professionalism. Planning. And sleep.

With something as dry as learning verb conjugation, students can only do so much in-class repetition, so incorporating games is a good way to help them learn and remember them.

I like the dice idea that a fellow student teacher suggested: students are in pairs and they each have a die (wooden block). You can either get dice or make some with larger wooden blocks and put six subject pronouns (je, me, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, elles/ils) on the sides and have the students pair up and roll the dice. Whatever subject they get they have to do that conjugation of the given verb. If you are practicing specific verbs you could put those on a second die and have the students roll both dice.

I didn’t make those dice yet (need to save money to buy blocks ) and I had trouble thinking up how to explain the rationale of learning verb conjugations and the irregular vs. regular ones besides that you just have to know and memorize them to be able to correctly use the language.

Hence my search for more fun activities. Perhaps I could use sheets of paper or something, but rolling dice is more fun. I can have them do some word games or crosswords or word searches for homework to practice.

But students can only take so many conjugations. I guess this is a classic planning issue. Grammar concepts like this need to be covered and understood before students can move forward in a language. So, yes, it is important for students to know how to conjugate a verb correctly and to pronounce the different forms (at least to try and make them not sound like the infinitive).

When I looked online for more ideas I found a student teacher who said that she read them a paragraph and gave it to them that used all of the different forms of the verb aller. Her idea, and using the verb conjugations in sentences, is an ideal way to help contextualize the learning of such a tedious thing as verb conjugations. I know the boot idea helped me for a lot of verbs, but I guess I’m still waiting on the Smartboard so I can use a powerpoint or show them something online.

I told my teacher about my French website and she was enthusiastic and said it would be okay if I assigned them something to do online (as long as I asked if students have a computer and accommodated by making it due in a few days so they would have a chance to use the library computers if needed).

After doing some research, I feel like I have a better idea of what to do to make conjugating verbs more exciting, but I could still use some more ideas. Anyone have any time-tested techniques?

1) Teachers should be paid more. Much more. Not only do they work about a 40 hour work at school, but they also spend at least 15-20 if not 30 extra hours planning and grading and creating.

2) If we paid teachers more, they could be better teachers- and the future of our children is basically in the hands of teachers!

3)Planning has gotten a little bit easier and less time-consuming (that means it takes three/four hours instead of five/six each night), but it is still a ton of work.

4) I either have to take a nap in the afternoon or be tired all evening and yet, because of planning I don’t ever get to bed early (okay, maybe it has to do with the procrastination as well)

5) I really don’t know if I want to teach anymore, and the experience is actually pretty good, but it seems like way too much work and then there are the politics. I know it will get easier when I’m more efficient (and motivated by payment), but I just don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t know if I’m even willing to try.

6) When the kids have fun, get it, or seem to enjoy learning, it is worth it.

This school is a Catholic school and it was “Catholic Schools Week” so they had several assemblies. When there is an assembly the classes run on a 33 minute schedule. I find it hard enough to get substantial grammar and vocabulary with practice into a 45 minute period, and you can probably guess what happens during 33 minute periods.
I noticed moreso today than the other day when there was a religious assembly that the students were both wilder and under the impression that we were not going to do anything in class. It also happened to be called “Student Appreciation Day” which my teacher played off nicely by saying “I appreciate you every day just the same” and, of course, they did not seem to find that as acceptable a response as I did.

The teacher did manage to get through some material, even if they did try and sidetrack her by asking to play the “7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game (which they did end up playing a round of).

It reminded me of the teaching bell-to-bell idea, and it also made me reflect on teachers getting distracted and off-topic. I had a few teachers who would get really side-tracked, and although it was fun sometimes because it meant we didn’t have “learn”- how boring- and I didn’t necessarily have to pay as much attention. But it also could get annoying, especially if it happened often.

I know this is a behavior management issue, and that keeping the students engaged will help prevent distractions, but not eliminate the possibility of them. I also think that planning and sticking to the plan is very important.

Additionally, a teacher should answer student’s relevant questions or entertain their interests. There is a difference between getting distracted and completely off-topic, and getting into some supplementary topics or further delving into an aspect of culture or the given topic that day.

Answering students’ questions is an important part of respectful interaction- so if they are asking something relatively appropriate, tell them either to ask you again at the end of class, or deal with it and move on. A student asked about why the rainforests are so luscious and have so much growth and she told them to ask their science teacher and report back the next day. They came back and said the teacher yelled at them about asking an off-topic question.

If a student has an academically appropriate interest I think it’s very important for a teacher to respect their interest in a way that can keep the class flowing. Another appropriate example I can think of is if they ask about experience like “Have you eaten frog’s legs?”. It encourages real-life application and the example of the rainforest would have been a great cross-content learning experience, had the teacher just answered the question.

There is a time and place for games and they should be language related. Random questions and instances where students are trying to get off-topic should not be entertained during class.

I hope to retain a balance between these two. And I know that kids are going to be more rowdy on some days than others (Fridays or exciting assembly or game days), and that I should make sure a lesson has some engaging activities and some solid content.

The key to successful student teaching is to devote at least 85% of your overall time to lesson and activity and assessment planning. I am happy to say that parts of it are coming more easily to me, and I can work more efficiently to do a good job planning in less than five/six hours a night (and manage to get in a few hours of sleep depending on how much eating food or talking to friends I do).

A large component of planning is efficiently and meticulously laying out each part of a day’s lesson- including directions, really thinking through an activity and the goal for the time-frame, and being prepared for alternate activities, having to shorten a lesson and choose what to leave out, or having something to do if there is extra time at the end.

I have been doing a lot of planning with many different practices, but I became concerned after Monday’s meeting that I am not using enough of the “best practices for foreign language instruction”. There are a bunch I am getting, and a few I am not, and there are some I need work on improving.

Here are some focuses I’d like to incorporate more:

-Using more French and helping them use more French

-Have more student activity (some lessons I am doing most of the “work” and instruction is mostly me talking- we’re going for student-centered here!)

-Use more authentic activities that relate to real-life and connect them throughout a day’s lesson as a theme

-Incorporate more culture and assess them in French on this material

-More speaking!

Speaking is crucial and is something I know I did not get enough of in high school French, and it is indeed a challenge, but there are ways to ensure that everyone is speaking French- varying group-work and dialogs, or having part of a test be a private short conversation with the teacher in French.

My goal for the end of the week and next week is to look at these practices while planning instruction and make sure I am varying them and getting to the ones I have not yet gotten to.

Planning the technical things like time-frames, instructions, and transitions is equally important- otherwise you won’t have time to present the material and have them practice it.

             Again I am reminded that student teaching is a learning process and not a hit-or-miss one time shot at a future in teaching. It was reassuring to hear about other people’s experiences and to realize that for better or for worse I am on a similar page overall.

There were a couple of people with cooperating teachers that were so control-freak-esque that they had just been teaching the teacher’s lesson plans up until this point. I consider myself very lucky because my teacher is so flexible and open to me being in her classroom and allowing me to create a lot of stuff with some guidance from her.

 My to-do list after check-in:

            -Ask my teacher for more help with the details of lesson planning concerning appropriate activities and assessments, as well as the prior knowledge of the students!

            -Use “sponge activities” in the beginning of class to get things started.

            -More directions in French- introduce a new direction-based phrase every day.

            -Start brainstorming ~2-week unit ideas and which class I want to do it with.

-Continue to use more and more French by scaffolding and accompanying that French with visuals and gestures- very important- I’m a French teacher, not an English teacher.

 -Plan more. Also either plan more efficiently, or be prepared to sacrifice even more sleep as I take on more classes. I don’t have enough time for all the planning I need to/want to/should be doing.

These were some thoughts I was having. There were many more, but I’m too busy to remember them right now.

I decided to offer the students who did poorly on the quiz a worksheet on direct object pronouns that they are got to do in class, by themselves in silence. The students seemed happy about this, and were grateful because I said I would give them up to three of the points they missed if they got the entire worksheet correct. For the students who did fine on that section and overall I found a fun clothing crossword puzzle.

I only offered this worksheet to second period. In sixth period, as I said, most of the scores were very good. I also only intend to do something like this once. I didn’t tell them that, which maybe I should have, but I will address it later if it comes up.

When I was going around the room monitoring their work I was surprised to see so many of them still having trouble, even with ones where there was a clear example provided. So I did my best at balancing giving them a little help, with letting them try to figure it out and me figuring that if they didn’t know it by now, it is somewhat their fault for not paying more attention.

That might sound like a bad attitude to have, but there aren’t many more ways I can give examples or get them to practice. Some of them didn’t do the homework at first and some of them were sick a few times.

In the end I was glad that I didn’t have to give a failing grade to the one student.

My teacher also showed me a book that accompanies the text that has a ton of sample quizzes and tests- and they were much easier than what I had given. They were easier because they had a lot more multiple choice, which I don’t think is a really good way to test student’s learning. I think I will use that as a guide and adapt some of the exercises, but I’m glad I challenged the students and most of them rose to the challenge.

I gave a quiz over the concepts we had been learning (which were not anywhere near as contextualized as I would have liked) and some students did really poorly on the direct object pronoun section. It made me wonder if I hadn’t taught it enough, or well enough (even though I had incorporated it into clothing and I had been talking about it pretty much since I started teaching them). I had also given homework and feedback on it so they would hopefully understand.

My teacher made a good point about it being hard for them to understand the grammar concepts in English, so I think I will continue to go over direct and indirect object pronouns and give concrete, understandable examples (some in English, even though that’s what I’m trying to move away from)

I had a good time making my first quiz, and drew on what we had gone over in class. I also used my past two decades of schooling and assessments I’ve undergone for reference and finally passed it by my cooperating teacher. She said it looked good and would be appropriate for them based on what they observed.

I thought it was fine until I saw how many kids didn’t do so well on the one section. After talking with my teacher, she defended me and the instruction I’d been giving them. She said that they either weren’t trying hard enough, or were being lazy about paying attention and looking at the generous corrections I’d made on their homework.

In the end I guess it was a decently appropriate assessment because 6^th period did fine, and only one person in 2^nd period failed.

When I was in all of the Graduate Education classes, I had no idea how to know what to propose students would learn (when making a lesson plan or unit plan for example), so I would always choose level 3/4 so I could do something advanced, but not reading whole books in French. I would search for guidelines online, but I never found too much.

Now that I am in a high school, and have been observing a variety of foreign language classes at different levels. And it is starting to become more clear to me.

Though the technology at the school is quite lacking (there is only one tech person who isn’t in all the times and you fill out a paper form if you have a problem), the textbooks for French 1-3 are at least pretty new.

They have an overview in the beginning of each book about what they will learn and what they learned in the previous book/year (except for French 1 obviously).

And then I found a couple of websites:

Outline of Foreign Language Guidelines

Some New Jersey French Standards

(and a few more I hope to add later)

And I have started to see patterns. Now I can apply that to the classes I’m teaching and see how the classes vary in levels and if they are close to being on track or not.

Yay for putting the theory and research to work in real academic situations in a real school that has its share of random technical and situational difficulties.

I’ve been doing a little research, and here’s some more advice I’ve found for new student teachers.

• Plan well. If you plan well at first, it will get easier later, and whether or not you do everything you plan, it will help you feel less nervous and you’ll have something to fall back on.
• Don’t be embarrassed to admit you don’t know something. Especially when teaching foreign languages- use a dictionary to show that just like in English, you don’t know every word, and it helps them to start utilizing a dictionary in language learning.
• Humor, when used effectively, can be a good classroom management technique.
• Always have something for students to do- start building up your time-filling activities, have books to read, or learning centers.
• Use the objectives to guide your lesson and to help the overall aims to be relevant and coherent. Let students know overall what you want them to get from the lesson for the day, the unit, or even the whole semester.

I’ll add more of these as I come across them. Check back for blogs about tips from little conversations or “interviews” I have had with the teachers I’m interacting with.