010071 Professional Practice 2 Language Literacy and Numeracy

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

UTS: Education: Language Studies
Credit points: 6 cp

Subject level:

Undergraduate

Result type: Pass fail, no marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Handbook description

This subject extends the skills developed in Professional Practice 1, in the areas of lesson planning and implementation, and classroom management. The focus in this subject is on supervised classroom practice and the development of a reflective stance in teaching.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On completion of this subject you should be able to:

use theoretical knowledge to reflect on classroom practice
develop and implement a coherent sequence of teaching/learning activities
plan, implement and evaluate lessons with an experienced practitioner in the field
select materials and activities, which are appropriate to the needs of learners
outline your strengths and areas for improvement in your own teaching.

Teaching and learning strategies

Learning activities in this subject include:

Three Friday workshops: 9.00am – 5.00pm on 5th August, 16th September & 4th November if you are a BEd in Adult Ed (Aboriginal Studies) student, and three Saturday workshops: 9.00am-4.30pm on 13th August, 27th August & 15th October if you are in any of the other programs
Observation of teaching (a total of 3 hours during an 18-hour placement)
Supervised classroom teaching (a total of 15 hours in an 18-hour placement)
Planning and discussion of teaching with co-operating teacher and learning partners
Completion of Professional Practice Journal to be submitted one week after your supervision visit by a UTS member of staff or approved nominee

Content

Organising your Teaching Placement

Step 1: Decide whether you want to work individually or with a partner

In Professional Practice 1, you were strongly encouraged to work with a Professional Practice partner. In Professional Practice 2, you may choose whether you want to work individually or with a partner. Each has its advantages.

Having a Professional Practice partner generally provides a much richer experience of teaching practice. You have someone to discuss your planning and teaching with; and someone who will be able to give you feedback on your teaching. All your lessons will be team-taught and this requires time spent with your partner in discussion and co-planning. In addition, because you will be doing less individual teaching, you will need to do an extra section for your assignment (about 1000 words).

Working individually means that you will have to think things out for yourself more. You will also have to carry the whole 15 hours teaching on your own. However, if you don’t have the time to coordinate planning with another person and/or you particularly like working on your own, then this might be the option for you.

If you wish to work with a Professional Practice partner, please discuss this with the Professional Practice Coordinator. Ideally, you need to find your Professional Practice partner by the end of Workshop 1.

Step 2: Find a Placement

We encourage you to find your own Professional Practice placement (unless you are an international student, in which case we will help find a placement for you).

In general your placement should be at a college or institution that relates to your field (eg if you are a Literacy and Numeracy student then you should do an ABE/ Foundation Studies placement).

Once you have organized your placement, you will need to do the following:

Negotiate observation/teaching times with your cooperating teacher and with your Professional Practice Partner.
Fill in the “Placement Details” form and send/fax/email with all details to Practicum Administrator Guang Hong Zhang/hand it into the Academic Programs Office. Please do this promptly as it is important that we have details of your cooperating teacher and institution for payment and other purposes.

Step 3: Arrange a Supervision Visit

Towards the end of your placement, you will have a supervision visit from a UTS member of staff. You will need to plan and deliver a 1-hour teaching slot if you are working on your own, and a 2-hour slot if you are working with a partner. If you are working with a partner, these should be scheduled together, so that the UTS supervisor can observe both partners in one visit.

Feedback Focus

This visit is part of your assessment. In your supervised lesson and during the post-lesson discussion, you will need to demonstrate that you are able to do the following:

Develop and implement a series of coherent teaching and learning activities which fit within a program or curriculum
Select materials and activities which are appropriate to the needs of your learners
Communicate with learners in a responsive and empathic manner
Manage classroom dynamics sensitively and effectively
Evaluate your lessons and reflect on your classroom practice

In addition you will also need to demonstrate the following criteria, which you started to build on in Professional Practice 1:

a sensitivity to students’ particular areas of need and difficulty
an awareness of student levels and interests and an attempt to address these in the lesson in order to engage students
an understanding of the role of the teacher in an adult classroom and an awareness of the need to respond to students on an adult-to-adult level;
an awareness of the need to scaffold learning, for example, by progressing from simpler to more complex challenges, using models and examples
an understanding of how the lesson relates to both the wider program and the students’ needs

You are also expected to demonstrate the above in your Professional Practice Journal.

You need to do the following preparation for your supervision visit:

Decide on the times that you would like to be observed. This should be decided in conjunction with your cooperating teacher and your professional practice partner.
Inform the Academic Programs Office of the dates that you would like to be visited. Please give two dates with time and it is important to give us at least two weeks notice.
Plan a one-hour session that best provides evidence of your abilities and skills as a teacher. The lesson should also relate to the students’ needs and comply with the curricular requirements of your placement institution.
When you receive details of your supervisor, contact him/her to confirm the date, location and time of the visit.
Three or four days before the visit, please provide your supervisor with a lesson plan.

4. Scheduling your Placement

Your placement should have duration of 18 hours and be spread over 6 – 9 weeks. You should aim at doing 2 - 3 hours of placement per week. You may not do more than 3 hours of your placement each week.

Ideally, your placement should be scheduled between Workshop 2 and the last week of UTS Semester 2, or TAFE Semester 4. However, it is good to start as soon as possible, since many classes have assessments, excursions and parties at the end of each term.

Have a look at the example schedule. This can be structured to fit in with the schedules of your cooperating teacher:

Session 1 - 3 hrs - observation
Session 2 - 3 hrs - teaching
Session 3 - 3 hrs - teaching
Session 4 - 3 hrs - teaching
Session 5 - 3 hrs - teaching
Session 6 - 3 hrs - teaching
TOTAL 18 hrs

5. Your Responsibilities as a Student Teacher

Your responsibilities as a student teacher are:

to turn up to classes on time, appropriately prepared and equipped
to be appropriately groomed ie neat, tidy and keeping in mind cultural sensitivities
if you cannot go to a lesson, phone your co-operating teacher, who may have prepared a special lesson, or who may need to prepare one

If you are observing:

To negotiate with your teacher whether you should participate or observe.
To write up your journal after each observation session.

If you are teaching:

To be flexible: sometimes your cooperating teacher will want you to teach a particular topic, other times you may be able to teach whatever you want.
To be sensitive to the context in which your teacher is working. The demands of assessment, syllabuses etc may limit what you can do in the classroom.
To discuss your lesson plan with your cooperating teacher and your learning partner before the lesson.
to prepare lesson plans for your teaching and choose the materials which you will use in class. In your journal you should put copies of your materials, but you do not need to submit all your lesson plans in your journal to be assessed.
To teach your lessons. There are several ways in which you may do this, including:

Team teaching with your cooperating teacher
Team teaching with your fellow student
Teaching alone
A combination of these

To seek feedback from your cooperating teacher after the lesson.

At the end of each teaching session:

to seek feedback on your teaching from your partner and your co-operating teacher
to make sure that you have a copy of the written feedback from your co-operating teacher. These should be submitted with your Professional Practice Journal.
to record your reflections on your lesson and on your teaching in your journal
to reassess and evaluate how well you are achieving the goals you established in the Professional Practice 2 Workshop 1

At the end of your placement:

Make sure that your teacher has signed the Professional Practice 2 Attendance Record (page 17)
Make sure that you and your cooperating teacher have completed, read and signed the Professional Practice 2 Placement Report. This should be submitted with your Professional Practice Journal

Please remember:

Most teachers wish they had more time to discuss their work. The conversations between you and your co-operating teacher may be professionally rewarding for both of you. However, your cooperating teacher may not have a great deal of free time so try not to take up too much of his/her time. If you are teaching with a partner, you should debrief together.

We really rely on the work that co-operating teacher do with students during the Professional Practice placements, so please be as sensitive and appreciative as you can.

6. Observing Learning and Teaching

When you observe lessons it is difficult to observe everything at once. You may prefer to approach the classroom with no pre-specified plan and simply notice what strikes your consciousness as you observe. On the other hand you may choose to focus your attention on particular aspects of the lesson. For each class you will be interested in observing a particular feature, such as the way the teacher caters for individual students, or the kinds of activities organised to allow students to practise what is being learnt. The list below provides some questions to direct your observations in particular areas. You do not have to use all the questions in each lesson.

Observation checklist

1. Focus on teaching skills and strategies

(i) How does the teacher (T) start the lesson?

(ii) How and when does the T use the whiteboard or visual aids?

(iii) What kind of questions does T ask? How are they asked? (round the class, to individuals, to class in general?)

(iv) How long does T wait for answers? What happens if students (S) can't answer?

(v) Do Ss ask the T any questions? What kind? How does the T answer?

(vi) What kind of instructions does the T give the Ss? How does the T check that these have been understood?

(vii) What kind of feedback does the T give the students-positive or negative? to groups or individuals?

(viii) How does the T encourage learners to participate?

(ix) How does the T explain concepts, ideas to students?

(x) How does the T establish and maintain rapport with the class?

2. Focus on classroom management

(i) How is the room organised?

(ii) How does the T get the Ss' attention?

(iii) How often do the following occur:

Ss work alone silently, T circulates
Ss work in pairs, T circulates
Ss work in groups, T circulates
Ss and T circulate
T talks to whole class, Ss listen
S talks to class, T listens
Ss work in groups outside classroom.

3. Focus on lesson content

(i) Who has chosen the content? (T alone?, T and Ss using needs analysis, and/or negotiation. Is there a set syllabus, or course book?)

(ii) What is the content? a theme, topic, or situation? a text or text type? a language or mathematical problem? How is it related to the learners' needs or life experience? Is it culturally appropriate?

(iii) Is there a particular focus for the lesson? ([TESOL] an aspect of grammar or discourse? vocabulary? pronunciation? spelling? [ABE] an aspect of reading?, writing?, a mathematical concept or algorithm?)

(iv) [TESOL] Does the teacher provide a model for learners? ( in the language s/he uses, in models of texts or grammatical features)

(v) How is the content organised during the lesson? Are new items recycled during the lesson?

(vi) What materials are used? Are they commercial? Teacher-made? Authentic? [For numeracy] concrete or manipulative materials?

4. Focus on lesson planning

(i) How does the lesson relate to what has gone before? to what comes after?

(ii) Is there a concentration on one skill area: [TESOL/literacy] listening, speaking, reading or writing? [Numeracy] measurement, number, data, space, problem solving? What is the balance between skills? Does one skill relate to another eg talk followed by writing?

(iii) Which aspects of communicative competence seem to be emphasised? (grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence)

(v) [ABE] Is there a specific focus on reading, writing or numeracy, or are they integrated in some way?

(vi) What stages are there to the lesson? Is there evidence of sequencing to develop skills?

(vii) What different kinds of activities are used?

(viii) What are the objectives of the lesson?

(ix) Is there any assessment? How and when is it done?

(x) Is there any teaching/practice of learning strategies that could be used outside the classroom?

5. Evaluation of resources in the centre/college

(i) Details of author, date, publisher, etc.

(ii) Format: book, audio, visual, concrete materials, software, hardware

(iii) Level/audience

(iv) Organisation of the content (topics, texts, a story, grammatical structures)

(v) What is the balance between resources relating to different skills? (Reading, writing, speaking, listening; self directed learning; numeracy)

(vi) Suitability for adults, migrants, EFL learners

(vii) Cultural appropriateness, information about Australia, stereotyping (

viii) Overall evaluation

7. Self-Evaluation and Feedback

Self-Evaluation

When you have taught your lesson, spend twenty minutes or so reflecting on how it went. One way to do this is to write your immediate (general) reactions to your teaching for five to ten minutes, then focus on particular aspects of your teaching. You can use the questions below to help you.

Reflecting after teaching a lesson

(i) How do I feel now? How did I feel during the lesson?

(ii) How did the students respond to the lesson? To me? To each other?

(iii) What did I do well?

(iv) What needed improving?

The warm up?
The instructions?
The amount of teacher talk?
The speed of teacher talk?
The difficulty level of the language?
The difficulty level of the lesson?
My assumptions about what the class knew
The pacing of the lesson? (too slow, too fast)
The number of activities? (too many? too few?)
The whiteboard/visual support?

Feedback

Post-lesson discussions provide a great source of feedback for your teaching. Your cooperating teacher will give you feedback about what you did well and areas where you could make some improvements. Although this can be quite challenging, make the most of it. Most qualified teachers who are out there working don’t have the time or opportunity to be observed and given feedback on their teaching. Many student teachers say that this is one of the most valuable parts of the course, since the feedback is so individualised.

You can also talk through your lesson with your professional practice partner. This is another great source of feedback. If you have watched your partner teaching, spend some time giving them feedback. In this post-lesson discussion with your professional experience partner, use positive language to say what you think. Start with the things that went well and move on to the areas to improve (up to three areas to improve are enough). If you are teaching, you could ask your partner to focus on particular areas of practice: instructions, or eliciting, or content, for example.

8. Keeping your Professional Practice Journal

As you progress through the practical subjects in this course, you will be required to complete journals of your observations and reflections. Keeping a journal can be useful in several ways:

It develops your skills as an observer in classrooms and as a reflective teacher.
The act of describing and reflecting in a journal can help you to clarify your own attitudes and perceptions, and to link theory to practice.
Reflecting on teaching can develop the skills you need to creatively deal with real-life classroom problems.
Your journal can provide a record of your teaching and help you with planning of future activities.

Your journal may be typed or hand written, but it must be legible. You may include copies of worksheets, students' work and other material if necessary. Your journal will be marked by your lecturer or advisor and will be part of the assessment for your Professional Practice subject.

Assessment

Assessment Item 1: Professional Practice 2 Journal

Objective(s):

1 - 5

Criteria:

Context and Learner Groups

Has the context of the class been described?

Is there a description of the learner group: their characteristics and needs?

Reflections on feedback

Has the feedback from the teacher been interpreted?

Has feedback been reflected upon in a close and considered manner?

Description of a critical incident

Has an incident been described?

Has it been anaylised, with reference to scholarly readings assigned by the lecturer as a reference?

Has it been discussed with a lesson observer?

Does it meet word length requirement?

Description and analysis of two lessons (one successful and on less successfull)

Have lesson objectives been given?

Have stages of the lesson been described?

Have circumstances, materials and resources been described?

Is there anaylsis of effectiveness (or not) of the lesson with reference to theories from scholarly sources?

Are there suggestions for further action or improvements?

Does it meet the word length requirement?

Additional sections for students working with a partner

Has an additional 3 hour lesson been planned?

Is there s description, rationale and critique of this lesson, with reference to scholarly readings?

Presentation and submission

Is the Journal complete, organised and presented professionally?

Is the Journal carefully proofread and edited for spelling and grammatical accuracy?

Are all sources referenced accurately and correctly using the Harvard (UTS) referencing convention?

Minimum requirements

Assessment will be based on three activities:

Full attendance and participation in the scheduled workshops. Attendance at these workshops is compulsory. You will need to do make up tasks and include them in your Professional Practice Journal and give reasons for your absence if you have to miss a workshop. Please contact the Professional Practice Coordinator Dr Keiko Yasukawa if you are absent from any workshop.
A satisfactory supervision visit report from a UTS lecturer (or nominee) and feedback from your co-operating teacher
Satisfactory completion of a Professional Practice Journal

Required texts

Harmner, J. 2007, How to Teach English, new edition, Pearson Longman, Essex, UK. (TESOL students)

Highes, N & Schwab, I 2010, Teaching Adult Literacy, Open University Press, Maidenhead Berkshire, UK (BEd, ANT & AL&NT students)

Additional readings will be made available as e-readings.

References

Crookes, G, 2003, A Practicum in TESOL: professional development through Teaching Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Harmer, J., 2007, How to Teach English, Pearson Longman: Edinburgh

Harmer, J., 2007, The Practice of English Language Teaching, 4th Edition, Pearson Longman, Edinburgh.

Hillier, Y. 2005, Reflective Teaching in Further and Adult Education, 2nd Edition, Continuum, London.

Hughes, N. & Schwab, I. (Eds) 2010, Teaching Adult Literacy: Principles and Practice, Open University Press, Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Scrivener, J., 2005, Learning Teaching, Macmillan, Oxford.

Steward, A. 2009, Continuing your Professional Development in Lifelong Learning, Continuum, London.

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