micro teaching presentation video

Video of micro-teaching presentation stage

My Thoughts:

I felt the students were ready to listen. The ratio of teacher talk time was appropriate for a presentation stage. Students didn't listen interactively enough, because it was a video. The should have had a chance to watch the video. Knowing there was a video but having it blocked was tormenting.

I found I am speaking more clearly than before. There is more teacher echo instead of evaluative feedback. I feel students answer so quietly, but I don't like telling them to speak up. I probably should. I am using less F-stops and trying to be more interactive with more complex questions than before.

The atmosphere was quite comfortable and students seemed interested in the content. For example even in a classroom full of adults pretending to be children, they were deeply interested in what they were missing out on by not having a chance to watch the video. Poor guys, you can borrow the CD if you really want. Obviously some of it was to clear up whether or not the story makes sense as it is hard to piece together without knowing the textbook in general or seeing the actions that take place.

I used the whiteboard exactly as planned because I was copying it from my whiteboard plan out of fear of missing something. Normally I am not this anal when it comes to using a whiteboard plan. No one can say they are completely comfortable doing micro-teachings.

I felt my MIC techniques were fine. I used repetition, recasting and gesturing a lot. One thing I felt is maybe I overused recasting and repetition. Either way, I could have had the students do this, too.

All the students had a chance to speak to each other or me on a few occasions. Although this is an improvement from how I used to do things, a lot more improvement can still occur.

I only spoke more than 2 sentences in a row when defining or setting a task. I could and should have made these parts more interactive to check comprehension and maybe even ask them if they had any ideas about what to do, or what they should do.
I did speak two sentences in a row quite a few times, but I think that's fine because I don't want to establish a norm where more than 1 sentences is unnecessary or unreasonable. Also  tend to keep my sentences short and simple while speaking in class.

I am getting better at using communicative t-talk. I have stopped using so much useless evaluative t-talk. Most of the time, there is no reason for it, specially if they students weren't really struggling or trying to produce the desired answer. I feel there is no need for it if the students are confident of their answers. Although unfortunately I did use it a few times when that was the case. It's hard to tell when micro-teaching, but the story was a little confusing. I certainly want to use more evaluative t-talk, but I am surprised that I am using it more than I thought. I guess change can come faster than I thought. I hope I keep it up.

As a teacher I feel that I focus too much on the task and not enough on the students. I suffer from a feeling that the curriculum and agenda control the class more than I do. I can only imagine how the students feel. They need more control of what is going on and I need to do a better job at listening to them.
I also realized I'm quite soft spoken while teaching because I'm too used to working with children. I hope this won't have a negative impact on their pronunciation or intonation. However when I watch video of my regular large classes with natural naughty children, I'm certainly not always soft spoken. It may just be a situation based thing.

I find as a teacher I'm better at the practice and production stage of teaching, so it will be interesting to see if how I feel is actually how I am. In the meantime, I will go with my instincts and continue to improve preview and presentation stages of my activities. If anything setting a better tone and building a better foundations at the beginning should help all the way through. It usually makes sense to start at the beginning bottom up (unless do a listening or reading activity, but that's something completely different).