Reflection 5

                                                   Working with Diverse Students

In this paper, I will reflect my ideas upon three articles: “Student- centered Teaching in Large Classes with Limited Resources”, “Teaching a Mixed Ability Class” and “Teaching English to Children with ADHD”.

            Firstly, talking about the first article, “Student- centered Teaching in Large Classes with Limited Resources” which has been written by Susan Renaud, Elizabeth Tannenbaum, and Phillip Stantial, I will start my reflection by saying that the things in the article give hope to me about and they are really beneficial suggestions for teaching in large classes like 50-80. In the article, it is stated that ‘large class’ notion is subjective since some  may think a class of more than 25 is large class while the others think a class of 60 students. Coming to my own view, actually, when I hear that somebody is teaching to a class of more than 25 students, ı will automatically ask how s/he achieve to teach such a large classroom because I have always dreamed to teach a 20, at most 25, students in a class at a time, and I have always prepared lesson plans in the department accordingly. I have always read articles, activities to teach those classes of 20-25 students. So now, when I come across with such an article which says that I can have a class of 50 students and shows the ways to teach in those large classrooms, I must accept that I am a bit intimidated and shocked simultaneously.

            Coming to the content of the article, writers state that some management problems, using pair and group works for cooperative learning, motivating the students in this heterogeneous class and dealing with teaching without adequate resources may be the main four categorical problems teachers face. In order to handle with these problems, actually we learn lots of things in the article such as setting classroom rules and procedures with students in order to manage discipline, teaching students to help each other, give feedback each other in their learning process because the teacher will not be able to be enough for all the students at the same time, grouping students so that one material can be used for more than one student and lastly, motivating them for their own learning by showing them the importance of teaching and learning. Indeed, these are the things, shining gold suggestions for those teachers who feel disappointed when they see inadequate/ poor opportunities/facilities in large classrooms. In addition to these, what I want to mention here is that, apart from those proposals writers put forward, I also very like two techniques mentioned in the article specifically. In the article, it is stated there that a teacher may ask the students to write their names a paper in order to put them their own desk for the purpose of calling them with their names and memorizing them, and then when the students get out of the classroom, they bring them to the teacher, the teacher keep these till next lesson, in the next lesson as each students go into the classroom, s/he takes her/his name and so the papers which are not taken the ones who are not in the classroom. Besides, another technique is that instead of conventional calling the role for seeing who is present or absent, the teacher can just give a paper the students to write their names as we do in our college classes and then s/he can ask the last student to bring it back so that s/he can draw a line just after the last name. By doing so, the teacher will be able to see who are latecomers because each and every name which is written after that line will be the latecomers’ names. I found this line tip very cunning and creative and I am thinking to use these lines and name paper tactics in my future classrooms hopefullyJ.

            Talking about the second article, written by Susan Brimner: “Teaching a Mixed Ability Class”, I really like that article because it covered all the things I learned about students in one reading passage and reminded me what we can do to cater for different students with different needs at different paces/levels. In the article, the very breathtaking and vital/crucial facts ,for me, which are stressed are that ‘Setting can lead stigmatization’ and ‘A mixed ability class can only be effectively taught if the teacher accepts that every lesson cannot be whole class teaching with lessons controlled from the front’. After reading these sentences, I nodded my head and remembered lots of things related to the teaching. Yes, according to what I have learned in the department till today, my own view towards mixed ability classes was already set and I have been thinking to teach a mixed ability class just because its fairness and advantages for lower achievers. However, till today, I have always thought that a teacher should be effective and adequate for each and every student in the classroom; each and every student should learn best in every activity. So, when I started to my internship both in METU Development Foundation Schools and in Atatürk High School, I disappointed a lot when I see that there were some students who did not attend an activity / engage in it actively, teacher seeing this but does not do anything. Now I understand and see that the teacher was not faulty there because it is bitter/ugly truth which also the sentence above prove that ‘A teacher must accept that every lesson cannot be a whole class teaching controlled by the teacher in the front’.

            So, actually, I want to say that as it is emphasized in the article, we should, firstly, internalize the learner autonomy aim for our students. What I mean here is that in the article, first of all, teachers are suggested to teach the students to be effective learners, to teach them to think for themselves, to be organized, about learning strategies, about pacing and of course setting goals. Actually, these are all serving to one aim: that we call learner autonomy. Indeed, when I become a teacher, I am firstly planning to teach my students how to learn, I want to teach them to discover themselves and act accordingly, try to learn accordingly in the classroom. By doing so, they will be conscious and responsible for their own learning, hopefully, because I will not be able to attend to each and every student, cater for all of them simultaneously all the time in the classroom as a one authority. I think that this learner autonomy is a key for mixed ability classes. After that, of course, I am planning to prepare various activities, lesson plans catering for all learning styles, intelligences; also, I hope I will have my students to cooperate, feed each other by mentoring each other (lower and upper level achievers helping, scaffolding each other) so that they can learn from each other when I cannot be enough for all of them at the same time. So, I hope I can teach my students to learn best, and then I can adjust my lessons in order to cater for all types of students.

            Regarding of the last article I read: “Teaching English to Children with ADHD” by Natalia Turketi, we are informed about children who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and we are given some suggestions about teaching to those students. Starting with, the interesting for me was that each and every classroom, we have one or two children with ADHD. This was surprising fact for me because I never thought that that many of people are around us in the world in terms of statistical proportion. Also, another thing that I learned in this article was that children with ADHD are interested in more than one thing at the same time so actually this causes focus problems. However, till now, I was thinking that they do not/ cannot pay attention even one thing in their surrounding; so I must accept that I was really shocked about this multi / attention thing in them.

            In the article, we are also informed about the characteristics of ADHD children. For example, we are said that ADHD children have low attention span; they are slow readers because of decoding problems, their learning styles are generally visual and kinesthetic so when we look at all these features from a general point of view, actually we are suggested to use explicit instructions, kinesthetic and visual engaging activities as well as many connections and stimulus, referring to our students personal lives so that we can have them feel special. In this sense, three main methods to language teaching are seen as beneficial and these are Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, and Task Based Methods. In this context, I want to say that in our methodology courses, while we were learning methods, techniques, we have learned that TPR is an efficient method for ADHD students so I am totally agree with the writer. However, I have never thought or heard that The Silent Way and Task Based methods are also useful for these children. Although I did not find Silent Way beneficial/efficient in communicative language classrooms, now after I read this article, I am also thinking to use some of the techniques from it in order to cater for my potential ADHD students. Another thing that I love about in the article is that we are given lots of example game/ activity to engage ADHD students: I copied them all for potential future use already J. Simon says game was the only one before reading this article.

            All in all, in these articles, I learned lots of things. I am now thinking to cater for/ address to each and every student by knowing them and making them to know themselves. I hope with all these techniques and tips argued in the articles and I mentioned above, I can achieve my goal in the classroom and foster my teaching fair enough for all students. Thanks.