It has always been my struggle to work under time pressure, the same thing as to formulate various interactive activities to increase student engagement and learning. Ever since I started to love the teaching profession, I continuously seek through online and printed means some effective ways of employing time management into every aspect of my lifestyle, especially in having my classes.
This SEA-Teacher experience really plunged me into the reality that time will always be limited. Given only 50 minutes for a one English period, I had to learn to be very conscious about how I spend every second, every minute, or even every hour. The struggle comes especially when the outcomes happen differently to what you planned. But I learned to become a quick-thinker and to become very flexible. In classes where I employed more of the lecture method, I usually spend two minutes for the giving of daily instructions and short monitoring (tardiness and absences), two minutes for the warm-up activity, 20 minutes for the lecture, 10 minutes for the assessment, ten minutes for the production, and the rest of what’s left, six minutes for the wrap-up and end instructions.
For my double-period classes which last one hour and 40 minutes, I give the initial five minutes to my students for their personal necessities and for them settle down. This is followed by a 10-minute review of the past lesson and introduction of the new one. Five minutes is spent for the warm-up activities. The discussion part is limited to 30 minutes only, but with more short activities in between some parts. Right after the discussion, we go directly to the group activities which are up to only 15 minutes, followed by some clarifications if necessary for five minutes. Assessment then follows which lasts for 10 minutes, then another 10 minutes for the production activity, and the rest of the time is utilized for the wrap up and giving of few reminders.
However, even if how much I planned for the structure of my class, still, the occurrence of some unexpected circumstances were inevitable. With this, I made some adjustments like lessening the number of items in the assessment, cancellation of the production activity and instead made it into a short question and answer portion, and turned the assessment into an assignment. In that way, even if the time structure was not really followed, the process of teaching was not disturbed and still the outcomes were achieved at the end.
In terms of organizing the classroom activities, I considered the capacity of the learners and the time allotted for the certain activity as well. Since they have a difficulty in dealing with English speakers like me, I tend to simplify the group activities for them to really follow and perform. There were several problems like misunderstanding and confusion yet I was able to cater all the concerns that were raised. Upon observation wherein I saw that only a little attention was poured into the students, I made it possible to really make use of individual and group activities to cater the differences of the students and instill a more meaningful and engaging discussion.