Small Scale Action Research
June 12, 2007 — shiuyo★ Why you chose the task?
When I knew that I have to do the microteaching at the class, I had started to think about how to do it for a long time. At first I considered about the time limit; because in the microteaching we only got twenty minutes to present the lesson and it has to cover the beginning, the process, and the ending. Then after observing six groups’ presentation, I think it would be easier for me to teach “reading” in my microteaching. I think I would have more confidence on finishing a complete teaching session of reading. That’s the reason I finally chose the reading lesson to be my teaching topic, while I was asked to choose the task.
★ How you implemented it?
First, I used a homemade picture of the main character to draw forth students’ attention. Second, I gave them the worksheet, made them to read it carefully, and finished the work on it. Third, after a short time, I gave them the answer to help them correct their work. Then I asked one student from each group to read out their part; and repeat this session and lead all of them to finish reading the whole story together. Final, I gave the assignment to them and dismissed the class.
★ What you feel you and your participants got out of it?
Comments from my participants：
1. They thought I should make teacher to get involved more during the class.
2. They felt four paragraphs of the work are too long to finish.
3. Since some students didn’t speak the answer loud enough, I should repeat again.
4. Some of my participants thought my work would be more successful if there were enough time more than twenty minutes.
5. My voice is quite loud that could make every student hear what I said.
6. Vivid visual aids, clear instruction, and effective grouping. First I caught everyone’s attention; second I made everyone realize what happened in the story; and third the handout I gave could help them to refresh their memory about what they learned in the class while doing it.
My own comments：
1. I was surprised that my participants were so cool during the class, so the atmosphere was a little bad.
2. I thought I should try to be involved more and give them more instructions while students were doing their work.
3. I was too nervous during the teaching so that I made some oral mistakes in my lecture.
4. I tried to repeat and summarize the story after every group read it out; I thought this would help them to comprehend the story.
★ What improvement you would like to make?
Preparation：
1. According to the comments, I think while I cut down the paragraphs, I should also put a short summary of every paragraph on it; this could help them to have more clues to do the work.
2. Or I think I could condense four paragraphs into two paragraphs, this would give students more time to achieve the work.
Warm-up：
1. I should display the giant’s picture more to catch students’ attention and make it more interesting to make the atmosphere getting better.
2. I think next time I would try to ask students to guess the story context in advance.
In the process：
1. I should put more instructions of the arrangement worksheet to make students feel easier to finish the work.
2. When I found that students did not work together, I should encourage more discussions among them, in that way, maybe they would feel easier to do the work.
