AR cycle 2 – Speaking skills lessons

Day 30-32, 9-11 May

It took slightly more time on day one because I needed to introduce the activity in the class and also the material that I had prepared for students. Everything went according to the plan except for the fact that a few students were not taking much interest in interviewing their peers as they didn’t want to evaluate their peer’s performance. I tried to motivate them by telling them that their peers will do the same the following day as there will be role reversal. Also, I managed to monitor students’ on-task behavior as I sat with different groups several times, but it was tiring. Although I was quiet satisfied with the way things went on the first and second day of the lesson. However, I do feel that implementing this kind of a plan needs close monitoring from the teacher’s end because in a way I had to monitor not only students’ on-task behavior, but had to encourage them to carefully mark the evaluation form as it will benefit their peers in improving their skills of appearing in interviews.

On the third day of the lesson, I asked the SS to review their reports on voluntary basis. With a little hesitation in the beginning, a few pairs raised their hands and shared their positive points. Since the classroom has no audio aid and I really wanted other SS to benefit from individual feedback, I decided to use the blackboard to see the positives and negatives of their classmates. Even the SS agreed to the idea so I made two columns on the board one each for positive and negative feedback. I kept writing the positives and negatives that the SS shared with the class and tried answering their queries based on the negative point each SS shared. Due to the time constraint some SS didn’t get a chance to share their feedback in the class so I asked them to see me after the class. Of course, these were only a few students. But I really enjoyed putting everything on board as it not only summed up the two-day lesson, but particularly helped the students sitting at the back. Unlike the previous cycle, the individual feedback in this cycle promoted whole class uptake of feedback.

My AR cycles end with today’s class. I’m left with just two more classes before the examinations begin after one week.