As I have mentioned, I had an open class last month for one of my 3rd grade classes. What that means is that several parents and administrators sat in to observe one of my class. It went really well during the class, however had some interesting events before and after the camera was turned on and off that are definitely worth mentioning.
Fortunately I was able to choose which grade, class and lesson I wanted to use for the open class a few weeks ahead of time. I chose my 3rd graders because they are not only very well behaved and surprisingly high level for first year English students, they are also very enthusiastic students. I picked class 3-1 because they are the second class of the day (the second, third and/or fourth classes always go smoother than the first), and they are 2 time winners of the song competitions! The day before the competition I was informed that the 1st period class' homeroom teacher wanted to move their class to my lunch hour the day of the open class. There is nothing I could do other than say okay, but what a lose-lose for me! No opportunity to run through the lesson before the open class, and I got to take my lunch an hour later than normal. The homeroom teacher did feel bad, and gave me a gift the next day to make up for it (which I will discuss in my next list/account of cultural differences).
The morning of the open class was fine, and I had a free first period to make sure everything was prepared. I like to treat classes like this normally, as I did for important observations during student teaching at the University of Toledo. However just as my co-teachers did in college, my school did everything they could to put pressure on this 'performance.' I feel like my classes almost always go well, and they are always well structured (as they should be). But there is this notion that you have to put on a show for the administrators and parents, like if they see a normal lesson they'll be disappointed. I really disagree with that, because I am proud of every lesson I do, and they should see what kind of instruction the students are normally exposed to. Anyways I am a young teacher, and I have to cooperate with the school's expectations (especially while having a co-teacher). Even so, this class was still very similar to my other classes, but there are a few small aspects that seem to be dramatized for this class.
As the students filed in for class they were more energetic, loud and rambunctious than I'd ever seen them. GREAT. As the students were beginning to settle, and the parents were filing in, there seemed to be a lot of confusion, and Mr. Park was scrambling to settle something. I had no idea what was going on, but I grew slightly concerned as the students filed OUT of my classroom, and Mr. Park ran to call someone on the phone. Finally he hung up the phone, I looked at the puzzled parents, then back at Mr. Park with the "what in the world is going on" look. He explained that the wrong parents were had been invited! It was class 3-1's class time, but class 3-2's parents had come to observe my open class. Right after he explained, and I tried to make sense of the situation, class 3-2 began entering my classroom. About five minutes had passed since the bell had rang, so all I want to do at this point wass to get started. The camera man gave me the signal to start, we began the class, and 10 seconds later, they informed us that the camera was NOT running. So we started AGAIN. I think I did a very good job hiding my frustration at this point, and we had a great class (albeit, a little shorter than normal).
The footage of class is only 33 minutes (as opposed to 40), but it is all good stuff, so I will put it up in 4 parts. The 'song' portion, the 'textbook' portion, the 'Hi World' videos and the 'game' portion:
During this part of the class we showed the winner for Scooby Doo, and introduced the new song, which was The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I had planned on having 3-1 for the open class, which was the winner of the Scooby Doo competition, and I am so happy that I didn't accidentally congratulate the wrong class in front of their parents! You will notice with these low level students that I sometimes ask questions and get nothing but crickets. We're actually pretty good at minimizing that in class, but there were a few instances of that during this lesson.
This is a routine textbook portion of a lesson. I ask the students what they heard, then I ask a few comprehension questions, and then usually have them listen and repeat.
Hi, World! Is a fun segment of the textbook, and for this class we were able to elaborate on it with several You Tube videos. You'll notice me pointing at the far right of the classroom quite a bit during this segment. I am using a laser pointer on a world map to show where various locations are around the world.
We concluded the class with a PPT game, which is good for reviewing terms, and the students love playing them. Since the class started 5 minutes late we just got through one round of the game, but we usually do two or three.
After it was finished there were no problems, just went on to teach the next 3 classes in a strange order. The 4th period however ended up being a surprise open class! The parents for that class were already there to observe Mr. Jeung's open class, and they decided to stick around for mine, along with several other teachers in my school. This time it wasn't recorded, but had even more observers than the first one and it went swimmingly.
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