UPDATED VERSION

Jeremy Palmer
SLAT 596b Personal Teaching Critique - Arabic 102
Length of footage: 45 minutes (10:15-11:00)
No. of students on roll: 17
No. of students on this day: 15 (I think. They are not all visible in the footage)

Note: In this updated version I will not update the lesson plan since I am not its author.
This critique is in a chronological narrative form including comments upon activities as they take place in the footage. At the end of the narrative I provide a general assessment and comments about the lesson plan and the classroom arrangements.
Critique
I see immediately that I am not dynamic enough during the opening of this class. The reason I feel that I am no dynamic enough is that my voice is quieter than usual and my face seems more stoic. I look unsure. Wow, I don’t like watching myself!

I open the class with a few questions about how the students are doing and then about the coming exam. I ask students how they can succeed in the exam and have them work in groups of 3 to discuss their ideas about this. I believe the students benefited from this activity from the comments they made about how to succeed and what they will do to study. I believe this will have helped other students think more explicitly about studying for the exam also. After a few minutes I ask the students to “return and report” what they discussed. I should have told them before putting them in the groups exactly how long they would have and that I expected to hear from them afterwards. In my defense, I do these types of activities often so the students know that I will probably ask them questions – nevertheless, I should have set up the activity better. I could have given a more exact timeframe and told students what I would like to hear, generally, from them at the end of the activity.

I next do a general speaking activity in which I write on the board the following questions: What do you want to do in the future/What do you want to work as in the future, Where do you want to live in the future, Whom do you want to become in the future. I tell students we are going to discuss these topics in groups, but first I ask for some general answers. After some general answers I ask students to work in groups of 3 but with new students this time. This time I told them we would do the activity for 5 minutes, but I did not tell them they would need to return and report. I walk around to some of the groups and help answer questions as well as listen to responses. The activity goes longer than 5 minutes. The activity is about 8 minutes long. Some students are speaking English and I’m not really doing anything about it. Students next report to me.
I next announce that in about 30 minutes there is a group of Saudi students coming to visit class to set up speaking partner appointments.
A student asked me a question irrelevant to class so I asked to discuss it during the break. I’m glad I at least know to do this.
We next move on to drill 15 from the 11th lesson in our textbook. Students were supposed to spend an hour on this drill before coming to class. This was a drill because the answers were predictable. The goal of the activity was to reinforce students reading and text comprehension after they had already spent some time on the drill at home. I review some of the new vocabulary in context with students – except I do this with translation. I think I could help the students review the vocabulary without using translation activities. I ask students to work in pairs or with 3 students to read and discuss this drill. I tell the students that they have 10 minutes for the activity. During this activity I roam the classroom visiting groups to help. Unfortunately, during this time my supervisor calls on the phone about the test situation – students have an exam for chapter 11 the following class period, though they have not yet received their exams for chapter 10. Students were concerned about this so I called the supervisor who then returned my call during the filming. About five minutes into the activity I put up a transparency of the drill to review a few difficult vocabulary words that students seem to be getting stuck on. I do one good thing during this activity, which is that I help students figure out an unusual plural - based upon their knowledge of another noun that looks the same. Students begin to work on the drill and I walk around to help students. This time I am speaking too much English with the small groups. The activity was about 10 minutes long, if you take out a minute or two for the pause in the middle of the drill. We all turn to the transparency and go through the first half of the drill for comprehension. I should have checked comprehension at the beginning of the activity to see what we might focus more on during the class time.
General Assessment and Lesson Plan

As for the learning that did or did not take place in my class, I will first comment on language use. My Arabic to English ratio for this footage is about 85% Arabic to 15% English. I think this is appropriate for the 102 level of instruction. Students do have opportunities to provide input and ask questions, but generally speaking, the class is teacher fronted. I, the teacher, am in control of the type and length (in general) of learning activities. The footage shows that my classroom is teacher centered as far as control of content and activities, though students do get plenty of time to work together in small groups. The group activities, in which the outcome is not predictable, allow for more autonomy and linguistic creativity from the students themselves.
Regarding the classroom arrangement: the lighting is fine in the classroom. The seating arrangement, however, it is not ideal for a teacher-centered class. I used to ask the students to form two rows of a semi-circle. I need to renew this effort to have everyone sitting closer to the front of the room in a semi circle so that I can see what they are doing and encourage them to pay attention.

The lesson plan is quite detailed regarding activity type and length. Arabic language GATs for first year Arabic are not allowed to make their own lesson plans. The language coordinator makes these and distributes them to us. The supervisor knew about my plans to be filmed as a part of this class assignment and asked if I would like to make the lesson plan for that particular day. I declined due to feelings of apprehension and awkwardness. I had mentioned several times in the past that I felt that the GATs should be allowed more autonomy – and have not yet received a positive response. I did not want to make lesson plan that could potentially be fodder for future criticism. Unfortunately, there is a lack of trust between us. This lack of trust and autonomy has made it most difficult to be a confident teacher – and I felt this way as I was being filmed. You will notice that the first few activities in the footage were not on the lesson plan. This is because I like to include a few short warm-up exercises and communicative speaking activities at the beginning of each lesson.
Viewing the footage of myself teaching has been a useful and eye-opening experience. I have already consciously planned to try and be more confident in class by inviting students to return to our previous seating arrangement, raising my voice to get the students’ attention when opening the class, and moving around the front of the room (ands aisles) more.