TEFL San Antonio

I have learnt a lot of things throughout the course such as methods, techniques, evaluations, testing, basic lesson plan formats, etc. But I especially learned how class management is important and there are different ways depending on the occasion. Eye contact, gesture, and the voice are very basic but essntial. There are also grouping students, classroom management, giving individual attention, balance of teacher talking time and student talking time, giving instructions, boardwork, having a good rapport with students, and managing discipline. It is very important to plan lessons fun, interesting, and meaningful, but at the same time, establishing the best atmonphere of the class by dealing things above can be a part of the factor deciding the efficiency of students' learning. In the past, I did not think about the grouping a lot and have been deciding it by what kind of activities we would have. It is reasonable to think this way and I do not think this is wrong, but I have learnt that I should more think about appropriacity depending on the purpose of the activities, space avilability, students' characters, level differences between the students, confident level of the students and so on. About TTT and STT, I always thought that keeping STT as long as possible and reducing TTT is needed. But from this course, I have learnt that TTT has valuable meanings as well as STT. They are presenting,checking, and modeling of the language, providing language input, giving instructions, setting up activities, and establishing rapport. To make students able to learn and pactice the languge, we should keep STT. But I now think that we also have to keep our mind that everything we say and do in class is watched by the students and depending on the situation, but we could be the only natural/model sourse of the languge. Therefore, it is important to value TTT and use it wise and meaningfully. I am not saying that we should have longer TTT, but we, as teachers, we should recognize the importance of it more. As I have mentioned above, managing the class is very important and how the teacer finds and realises the depth of the meaning of each activity and action in class is also initial element of having/providing a good lesson. I would always try to keep this mind when planning and having lesson. I also would try to reflect my lessons to improve my teaching after each lesson.