Micro-teaching: a

practical approach
METHODOLOGY AND DIDACTICS OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
MINOR IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Definition
Micro-teaching is a teacher training and faculty
development technique whereby
the teacher reviews a recording of
a teaching session, in order to get constructive
feedback from peers and/or students about what
has worked and what improvements can be made
to their teaching technique. Micro-teaching was
invented in the mid-1960s at Stanford University
by Dwight W. Allen and has subsequently been
Definition
used to develop educators in all forms of
education.
Activities

• Why do you think it is useful?

• How can you apply it to your third
internship?
• How can micro-teachings help you
develop your teachings skills? Have a
look at the competences of your
degree and reflect on that topic.
http://www.uco.es/organiza/centros/
educacion/es/grados/gr-educacion-
primaria#competencias
 PART DESCRIPTION

This part of the session should be devoted to introducing the new forms (structures) or

Presentation vocabulary to students. You should make the new forms or vocabulary familiar to
students.

Once students have got used to the new forms/vocabulary, they have to practise. You

Practice have to provide them with opportunities to practice by making use of mechanical drills.

Eventually, once they are familiar enough to the new structures/vocabulary they should

Production be given opportunities to produce. Roll-playing, debates, etc. are examples of activities
that can be carried out during this phase.
Communicative acts
• A communicative act by which people
communicate with each other: making
statements, asking questions, giving directives
with the aim of getting the hearer to carry out
some action, making an offer or promise,
thanking or expressing an exclamation. It always
takes place in a social context. Language
expresses anything happening through situations
and state of affairs. It refers to the speaker
conceptualization and it does not refer to the
extralinguistic reality. The clause then could be
define as the basic unit that embodies our
construal of representational, interpersonal, and
textual meaning.
 Personal Interpersonal Directive Referential Imaginative

- Clarifying - Greetings - Accepting a direction - Creating questions - Discussing a

ideas - Leave-takings - Refusing a direction - Scanning or skimming poem, tv
- Expressing - Introducing - Requesting information information show, etc.
thoughts - Identifying oneself to - Solving
and others mysteries
feelings - Creating
rhymes

Examples of functions
 PART A (PREVIOUS PLANNING)

Name of the activity Choose a creative and original name for your activity

Age of your students Write the age of your students and adapt your activity to their
developmental stage and skills

Aim(s) Make clear the goals of your session

Part A: Communicative function Choose a communicative function you want to work with

Previous Stage Write the stage of the lesson you are going to deliver (presentation/ main

planning activity / production stage). This is more than important because it will
condition the activity. For example, you cannot do mechanical drills in the
introduction stage.

Aids Make a list of the resources you are going to use and use them
effectively. Resources are important but they have to help students
achieve the goal, otherwise they would be a waste of time.

Time Stick to the time proposed by your teachers. It will help you develop time-
management skills.
 FORMS: It is the external aspect of words with regards to their
inflections, pronunciation and spelling. You have to analyse the
structure thoroughly before teaching it because if you teach
something wrong, it will be very difficult for students to learn it
Part B: properly latter. An example might shed some light on this issue.
Planning (I)
 MEANING
• In this section you have to choose between two kind of meanings:
pragmatic meaning and semantic meaning.
• Semantics is concerned with sentence meaning and pragmatics with
speaker meaning. This suggests that words and sentences have a
meaning independently of any particular use, which meaning is then
incorporated by a speaker into the particular meaning she wants to
convey at any one time (context). The basic idea is that semantics deals
with conventional meaning, that is to say, with those aspects of meaning
Part B: which do not vary much from context to context, while pragmatics deals
Planning (II) with aspects of individual usage and context-dependent meaning. We
can say there are certain overlapping between Semantics and
pragmatics. Pragmatics as the study of the speaker's/hearer's
interpretation of language, as suggested by Rudolph Carnap. If we
abstract from the user of the language and analyse only the expressions,
we are in the field of semantics.
• As a hint, beginners are likely to focus on semantic meaning because
they will have a better understanding of different contexts as they get
older. So you should choose semantic meaning and explain the meaning
of the sentences without bearing any context in mind.
 USE
• Take into account that usage and use are different
concepts. To write the use you have to adapt the
communicative function to your activity.
USAGE The ability to produce correct
sentences, or manifestations of
Part B: the linguistic system.
Planning (III) USE The ability to use the kowledge
of the rules for effective
communication.
 You are encouraged to write a transcription of what

Part C: you are going to say so that you can rehearse as

many times as you need before the practical session
Transcript and it will help you to plan your sessions during your
Practicum.
Rehearse as much as need.
Previous Planning Planning Transcript
Name of the activity Form Transcript
Age Meaning
Aims(s) Use
Communicative function Sequence
Stage
Aids
Time
Skills
Components
 Micro-teaching: a
practical approach
METHODOLOGY AND DIDACTICS OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
MINOR IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES