Week 9/10 - Team Teaching

After weeks of observation and engagement in instructed class duties, it was time for me to work with the lead teachers in planning and execution of the lessons.

I started team teaching with Miss McClelland and Miss Mkok, both in the secondary sections teaching Years 7 and 8 respectively.

At the time of my entry into the team-teaching phase, I had already done enough observation to know the requirements of a good teacher in an international school setting. However, there was a slight difference between my observation and the actual implementation of the act of teaching. Nevertheless, I took up the challenge gladly and started with a few minutes of the lesson.


My first lesson: Year 7

I had the pleasure to start my first teaching exercise with the year 7 students, covering a new topic- "Favourite Things". I had been instructed by the lead teacher to prepare an introduction of the topic and present it in class during the lesson.

I used the lesson plan prepared by Miss McClelland but edited a few sections in the introduction to suit my intended teaching strategy, which was to be an interactive discussion. Using slides, I stimulated the students minds to thinking of some of their favourite pastime activities as well as their favourite foods.

The main objective for my allocated 20 minutes of the lesson, was to enable learners to write effective notes about their favourite things. They were able to list down their favourite things and I requested them to write notes about the one thing they like the most. Note making was a bit complex for the learners because they did not understand how to make notes from their minds. I therefore, divided them into groups of twos and threes to exchange ideas of how they could write effective notes. I gave them an example of my favourite thing and how I made notes on it to guide their thoughts.
At the end of the first 20 minutes, they had made great strides and were able to make notes.

I considered my part of the lesson a success. Afterward, Miss McClelland took over and I resorted to assisting individual learners who got stuck during the lesson.

At the end of the lesson, Miss McClelland noted that I stimulated the learners well!