englishoasis: Once Upon a Team-teaching

Wednesday, 23 May 2018

Once Upon a Team-teaching

May has been a busy month for me. Although I have only four classes I'm always hoping for more time. I'm always cooking up something 😅 😆 Well, in all that madness, two team-teaching sessions were arranged with Farid and Syamsul. It wasn't perfect but we learned a lot!

The lesson with Sam was on writing. His warmer was excellent to the extent that he got carried away a little and took my time. On my part, I was struggling a little to get the SS to understand how to do the gallery walk but the main thing is we achieved the objectives we collaborated on. Alhamdullillah...

Farid (the handsome newbie hahah), also got carried away with the warmer which was supposed to be mine! He went on and on and I was like "O.k. he can take the whole lesson now." 😆 From the outset we faced a technical glitch when the lappy and LCD that didn't want to synchronise so the lesson stretched to another 30 mins but team-teaching doesn't have to be perfect the first time right? What's crucial is what important lessons we took from it. Here are mine:

it was a rejuvenating process for me (after teaching for 31 years) to collaborate with young teachers after having taught for 31 years
my regret for not doing this more often
Sam and Farid have a lot of potential. However it is about POTENTIAL MEETS PREPARATION EQUALS QUALITY LESSON. Time must be given to think out a lesson properly. We face a lot of distractions yes but there must be that quiet time where we sit and plan our quality lessons.
the lesson planned need not be perfect because as teachers, we know that we need to make allowances for the unexpected in the classroom. A lesson plan is important of course but flexibility and resourcefulness on the part of the teacher and the ability to think on his or her feet to change a strategy/question phrasing/technique will help during these times. Alhamdulillah experience helps.