User:Charles Jeffrey Danoff/CELTA log

HELP WANTED

This is an attempt to log my work, reflections and more as I make my way through my month long intensive CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course at Teaching House New York from November 29th – December 23rd, 2010.

please help

If you are so inclined, please improve this log by wikignoming the following pages, or leave feedback/questions on the |discussion pages.

Abbreviations
The following abbreviations will be used:
 * T = Teacher
 * Ss = Students
 * W = Week
 * D = Day
 * L = Lesson
 * TH = Teaching House NYC
 * HW = Home Work
 * TP = Teaching Practice
 * ICQ = Instruction Check Question
 * CCQ = Concept Check Question
 * TTT = Teacher Talking Time
 * STT = Student Talking Time

TP

 * Be less of a dancing bear like I was last Friday, and elicit from the students.
 * Use more ICQs and CCQs.

@ TH

 * Be attentive and engaged while I am watching my peers teach and as a student in the classroom.

HW

 * TP 4 lesson plan done by Tuesday.
 * Assignment 2 done by Wednesday.
 * Have lesson plan for week 3 monday, and assignment 3 done on Friday.

@ TH

 * Did a solid job of paying attention in the AM as my peers taught, then staying focused throughout the afternoon. Doing better with energy and general being on-task during class.

HW

 * Worked for a bit after school @ TH, then headed across the street to Kafe, where I finished up my lesson plan for tomorrow. Got everything done after 8:30, which implies it took around 4 hours to do, but I'd say there was at least an hour or so of chatting involved there. Tomorrow's lesson is focused on me being less of a dancing bear, and eliciting more, hopefully it'll work out. Downloaded the form for my second assignment, but nothing beyond that, and I did not start my upcoming lesson plan yet.

TP4
Felt like far less of a dancing bear, eliciting more from students. Still need to reduce my TTT + running commentary and discovered I use "or something" often when I ask questions, which I was not aware of at, all.

@ TH

 * Afternoon input sessions were engaging and I learned a lot from watching my peers teach, one of whom gave me an awesome introduction into the "passive", which I'll be teaching on Thursday, making my life easier.

Organization

 * In my binder instead of doing everything by date besides the coursebook files, I put all the TP parts together.
 * Perhaps next do an alternative table of contents w/everything I've written?

HW

 * Worked till around 6 on TP5, engaging with phonetics and grammar somewhat seriously for the first time in the course. Annoying and a little fun. Still didn't finish tonight, feeling drained around 6 and having plans to see a friend in town for the evening.

TP5
First grammar lesson. Started with a personal anecdote tying into the topic. Did an alright job explaining the grammar, but I spent too much time explaining what the grammatical form means, as opposed to what the example sentence meant. Lesson was easier, because a peer had already taught the same grammar point the lesson prior, so I was just reviewing.

@ TH
Afternoon input sessions were solid, kept my attention for most of the time.

HW
Evening began and I still hadn't finished my second assignment, so I spent some distracted time working on that till about 8:30, first by hand then typing. As I was about to leave I didn't save adequately, so I lost my typed work. Still had my hand notes, and spent about 3.5 hours re-doing the whole assignment by hand after dinner. Stupid mistake and stupid of me to put myself in a position where I was rushing. Positive is my assignment is way better than it would've been and I learned a lot more about how-to fill out grammar and vocabulary language analysis sheets. Overall I am only treading water in terms of assignments (as in finishing what's due the next day the night before) nowhere near my goals of ahead heading into the weekend. Partially because I chose to have some fun this week, I was less efficient, and the work has proven more challenging than I anticipated.

Week 1
See Week 1 entries (29 Nov 2010 - 03 Dec 2010)

Other Versions
Alternative versions of this log are available on:
 * Le Dive, my MediaWiki
 * Wikigogy