When I began this past school year, I never expected to have a teaching workload of seven sections: six English and one technology course. But when the English teaching staff decided not to return in August and we were only able to hire one teacher, it was decided that I take on all of the 11th and 12th grade students. Later, the situation would get more complicated when the new teacher went on maternity leave.
How did I manage? I had no choice but to adjust my objectives and goals. The evaluation plans remained with the same criteria:
- Assessments
- Listening and Speaking
- Evaluations (what I refer to as exams and quizzes)
- Reading and Writing
Regarding the evaluations, these were very limited (one or two per trimester). Most students like the fact that I do NOT administer exams or quizzes. When I do, these are light. I prefer “assessing” their knowledge in other ways. One of my frequent methods is what I call the “question model.” Students create critical-thinking questions based on the current topic. The questions indicate one of two things: what they understand or what they would like to discover.
All groups received the same content. The difference between the different levels was the amount. If I were to assign a written work, the advanced level group might be required to submit 5 paragraphs, the regular level 3 paragraphs and the Pionero group one or two paragraphs.
How did I deliver the content? Through the following:
- Visual aids (videos, illustrations, photos)
- Short texts
- Audios
- Discussions
How did the students respond to the content? Through the following:
- Presentations using various tech formats
- Reflections through audios, videos, illustrations
Much of the content was delivered through this blog as well as the Google platform site for each grade level. To provide variety and get the students to browse and comment on other content, I used my other public social sites as follows:
The 12-grade advanced level group had created their blogs in the 11th grade and continued to work on them during the year. The blogs were used to document all the assignments. They can keep their blogs and adjust them for future use.
Working with larger groups had its challenges especially with the shy students who didn’t like speaking English in front of their classmates in class. This is when I required the students to submit audios on the topics discussed in class. For this I relied on my podcast. They would listen to episodes and comment on the related content. This took time but it gave me a sense of what they understood on the topic.
Since this year was so unusual, I decided to ask the students to evaluate what they did in the class. In a way, it was an evaluation of my teaching strategies. Most of them mentioned that I offered them a variety of ways to show what they learned. This made me feel that it was a worthwhile effort on my behalf.
I sincerely hope that whatever I did this past year reflected my passion for this profession.
Students, what do you think? ~~LMMolina
P.S.
I’m planning on reposting this on my Teaching Tidbits blog.
