Teachers’ manner and style of running one’s own classroom varies greatly from one another. These differences come into existence for the reason that teachers are influenced by several factors such as one’s own vision, background, experiences, education, origin, faith, and purpose. Regardless of such variations, teachers come altogether for the purpose of bringing the learners into the portals of transformative education. Thus, the employment of a specific set of teaching procedures is an essential consideration in order to provide the students with the practice and reinforcement that they actually need.
Before I started conducting my very own formal classes, Mr. Sungrung had a brief yet a very comprehensive discussion about the procedures of teaching following the Thai way. He introduced the procedure which they gave the acronym 2W3P which stands for warm-up, presentation, practice, production, and wrap up. Detail by detail, he explained each step of the procedure and gave me some advice as to what strategies and activities can I use in order to incorporate these appropriately all throughout the teaching process. I took down notes during the discussion and started crafting my lesson plan right after the conversation. As advised, I made use of the lesson plan following one of the formats used by the educational institutions in Thailand. Looking on the sample given, the lesson plan is way more easier to do compared to the ones we were accustomed to back in my country. However, considering the fact that language barrier is present between me and my students, I had to be more careful in constructing such for I was aiming for understanding to come across during the class. Afterwards, I made the PowerPoint presentation and prepared all the other things that I needed.
During the conduct of my first class, I really made use of the procedure that was taught. My lesson during that time was about Comparative and Superlative Degrees of Comparison. I began by formally introducing myself and stating some of my expectations for the rest of my stay. I spoke as slowly and as clearly as I can. Even if I was feeling too nervous at that moment, I tried to compose myself to clear my mind from any negativity. Before revealing the lesson of the day, I made it clear that I have some basic rules for them to follow. As I was giving them the instructions, I was also trying to incorporate gestures and exaggerate my facial expressions. After setting the desired mood for the class, I immediately had the warm-up activity. I let two students stand in front and asked the rest about their observations between the two. Fortunately, a number of students were raising their hands, giving me their answers. I wrote every answer on the board and as soon as I gathered enough number of responses, I asked them to take a look into the words and we checked altogether whether the given answers were right or wrong. I started to ask questions for them to exercise their critical thinking skills as well as their communicative skills. By the time I got them hooked, I already had my discussion about the lesson. Since I know nothing about them still, I just made use of lecture method with some simple activities in between to determine the level of the capacity of the learners and identify what strategies fit best to them. After every example, call students randomly to give more examples and answer short exercises on the board. Every time I noticed someone whose face looks a little bit confused or puzzled, I give more examples and let the student come in front and answer some exercises for he/she to further understand. As we finished the discussion, I gave them their answer sheets to assess whether or not they understood the presented lesson. When everyone’s already done, I gave them a very short activity wherein there was an application of their experiences in the real world. For example, I let them list down the things that they see in the television which can be compared to that of another by writing the comparative and superlative degrees of comparison. Before the class ends, several students stand and say something about what has been presented as a means of wrapping up the entire lesson.
Upon completion of the regular teaching days, all I have to do was to bring everything I learned into a more comprehensive discussion which happened during my final demonstration. Beforehand, I went to see my VRU mentors, Aj. Oranuch Somprasit and Aj. Poonpatchara Thassana for the checking of my lesson plan and final preparations for my final demonstration teaching. Few changes were made for my mentors gave me better suggestions to make my final demonstration teaching a very good one. Taking down everything that they said, I left and went back to the dormitory with a positive feeling that every single detail will work the way we want it to be.