Day 2 and my first lesson at CELTA

Day 2 was more than I could expect because I was not only among the teachers who had to deliver the lesson today, but also the very first one - A. Although my teaching experience counts 9 years, it was still hard to realise this.

Therefore, I prepared a plan beforehand, wrote down practically everything, all the instructions I would give the students and decided to calm myself down and think about all the other problems in my life which made all this CELTA experience suddenly seem really inferior compared to them.

The first session was dedicated to classroom management and Manana gave us handouts of different colors. First we just discussed the concepts of classroom management, running commentary, pair work, classroom interaction etc in pairs, and then we got the answers to do some matching. After having matched the phrases with their definitions, we had to mix them up and try the same task in a different way, turn the papers one by one and try to match them again based on our memory. After this, we started discussing how to give instructions before starting an activity. These already included stepping back, using a gesture, eye contact, demonstration etc. We discussed them in pairs and then shared our views with another team. In addition, we had to mention some of the problems which arises during the process of instructing students, they include usage of L1, Echoing, seeking attention etc, basically the things that a good teacher should not be doing.

In the second session, we already had to deal with lesson planning itself. Nick took over this one and first asked us to compare a lesson to either a film, football match, symphony or a good meal. I chose film and wrote:

• A good lesson is like a film, because it has its own lead-in, development, climax and conclusion

Nick seemed to enjoy this idea, the other teachers had some interesting versions as well, though.

Afterwards, Nick drew a map on the board. For about 5 minutes we had to prompt him different cities to put down on this map starting from Tbilisi, finishing with Cambridge. After that, he told us a situation when we had to go to Cambridge using any transport except a plane. First, he limited the time to two weeks, but then he minimised it to 1 week. We, the pairs came up with the plan of travelling to our destination and then compared it with another team. After finishing the discussion, it appeared that what we had done was actually a model for lesson planning with the main aim, starting point, stages, stage aims, and subsidiary aims.

We also thought about anticipated problems and solutions. 

As I mentioned, after the lunch break the time for my 40-minute lesson came and I was thrilled, a bit shocked, stiff but trying to calm myself down. Then again, when I stood in front of the class, every single person including the teachers and trainer seemed to be students to me and after 5 minutes I became more confident. Everything went well. I did a reading lesson, I received my assessment at the feedback session and I felt even more relieved. Although there are some things to work on, still Nick wrote that was a very good start to the course (I hope I do not spoil it later on)

During the feedback session, we had to analyse the good and bad points of the lesson , like pair and group work, STT, instructions, time, board work etc. We were given the next material to work on and I still did not do anything, will start having a panic attack tomorrow late at night, when there are a few hours left before the deadline.