Hi readers,
It was again a challenge this week because in my case I have never taught large classes.
In my opinion it is anti-pedagogic to teach groups of more than 25 students as it is a real challenge to try to reach all students. In large groups, you find all kinds of learners and it is not easy to sastify all of them.
Now after reading the material that was provided, I saw some ways to reach all my students but I still have some doubts about how successful it could be until I have the opportunity to be in that situation.(Maybe you can send me some of your own experiences)
I know that in our institute we do not plan to increase the number of students per class. On the contrary, we would like to reduce it to 20 which would be wonderful.
I just remember many years ago when I started teaching English for a National University here in Peru and I was in charge of the Grammar groups. I had to teach groups of up to 35 students in classrooms without any technology ( a portable radio- cassette player). Those classes were really boring and just a monologue. The classroom was so small that it was really impossible to have any interaction in groups, nor any kinds of real student-centered class. I was the only one talking and the students were listening to me.
Another problem was that workshops were scarce and of really poor quality. Just thinking about how I was teaching at that time, I feel shame.
Now that where I work we are fitted with a lot of technology in our classrooms, I see that slowly my dreams come true. The only thing we have to take into account is that not all teachers adapt quickly to technology and that we should organize workshops for them in order to ensure they can adapt and use the new technology properly.
This is our duty to share with our colleagues our new knowledge and help them.
Thanks for your comments.
Raphaël
Thursday, February 25, 2010
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About Me
- Raphaël
- I am an ex- master mariner. I worked for 12 years in the merchant marine. I quit in 1999 and started teaching French and English in Cusco (Peru) where I moved with my Peruvian wife. I have a lot of hobbies and interests. I love animals and plants I have presently 15 pets home and more than 400 plants.
Hi Raphaël,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about the number 25 as the maximum for a class, in a language class it should be even less, but the world population is growing very fast and even western developed educational systems can not cope with the huge number of students attending colleges each year so we must find ways to meet these students' needs.Education is a right for each individual.
Technology can help respond to their craving for quality education.
Making your students use technology in and out the classroom is the best thing you can do for them.
Hassina
Dear Raphael and Hassina,
ReplyDeleteI agree with both you about the number of students. As you know we teach small classes in my school and still we can't reach the needs and styles of learning and abilities of every student. Modern technology offers great possibilities of putting the student in the centre of the classroom process in order to benefit much more from every lesson.
I am thankful to the opportunity to participate in that course to learn about the new tools and techniques in making the educational process more effective and hope to activate the students in achieving higher results in their language acquisition.
My best wishes,
Zlatka