Reflection paper

The major point of this activity was to present new vocabulary on classroom objects to
young learners. I worked with a group of five seven-year-olds. It’s needless to say that they are
beginner level, but nevertheless they were quite quick-witted when it comes to guessing the
meanining of the words. I provided the students with material sheets which contained little
sketches of those classroom objects and, of course, their names. On the other side of the sheet
there was an exercise related to the same topic, that was meant to review what the students had
learned earlier. The teaching method I used in this activity was the deductive approach, and I was
pleasantly surprised by how the students managed the lesson. Aside from that, the center of my
lesson were the students, and thus I have chosen a student-centered approach, giving them as
much time they needed to speak. My aim was to elicit the meaning of the words from them.

Even though this was their first encounter with this matetiral, the students were able to
manage it quite well. I believe that the strongest point of this activity was the students’ direct
involvement in the task. My main goal was their enjoyment, as well as the overall satisfaction for
their engagement in this activity. I started off the lesson by telling them to try to think of some
classroom objects in Serbian and if someone knows how they are called in English as well.
Instead of doing that in pairs, they chose to do it out loud. After they were warmed up and
engaged in the activity, I handed the sheets out to the students. This exercise was formulated in
such a way that the students were guided by me. I were to read the words in English, they
repeated after me, and then I gave them time to think about the meaning of the words. The
pictures provided were very much helpful, but when they were not quite sure about the meaning,
I used mime to help them. I realized that this kind of hinting was very interesting to the students
and therefore it was successful with them.

When it comes to the weaknesses of my plan, I think that guessing the meaining of the
words was very time-consuming. That time could probably have been used on some other
additional activity, but nevertheless I consider that it was not wasted, since the students seemed
to have fun while doing the activity. Beside that, one of the flaws of my plan was probably the
lack of colours.
 On the other hand, my greatest asset as a teacher is the fact that I gave them the
opportunity to speak their mind deliberately. Not only is that good for the mere sake of learning
new vocabulary, but it is also good for their self-confidence. It is of the utmost importance to
learn to speak their mind freely at such an early age.

The last part of this lesson was the exercise called ’’Crazy words’’. Even though the
students didn’t have any problems with solving the exercise, we went a little bit overtime due to
my miscalculations. However, I was quite pleased with the fact that they were able to accoplish
the task without difficulties. The rest of the examples were to be done for homework.

According to the observer’s feedback, I may freely say that the activity was quite
lucrative. The students received the activities as a game and therefore were amused, but also
were able to learn more promptly. I think that the only major point at issue was the time, but
generaly speaking the lesson was very well received with the students, so I would leave
everything else in place.

Ivana Milutinović, 2014/0697