Wrap up:
- Learnt how to incorporate learning strategies for students for both grammar and vocabulary. Discovered how the two are linked and their important roles in learning English. As a strategy I liked the use of student vocabulary journals in which they are taking an active part of their learning process.
- Learnt repetition and practice is key to automisation but lesson plans should be taught in context and not to teach grammar points in isolation. Appreciated the lesson plan checklist, helped with keeping a communicative approach to teaching grammar. Learnt that it is during the focused practice phase that you can interrupt students and correct them for accuracy and to keep the communicative phase fluid.
- Surprised me that explicitly teaching grammar rules speeds up the learning acquisition and that accuracy when using a language is also very important to being intelligible during communication.
- Surprised when creating a "schemata" for a single word on how it branched out to so many meanings and associations of that one word. It put into perspective the complexity of teaching vocabulary.
- Struggling with the inductive approach to teaching grammar and putting it into practice. Need more work on how to provide opportunities for meaningful communication through which students can discover the rule.
- I am still struggling with the grammar itself and not being comfortable with the contents of the material.
