Early into my contract, I was aware that I’d be co-teaching an open class on October 24. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what to prepare. I had never observed another native teacher’s class, hadn’t seen the video of last year’s teacher, and hadn’t "team-taught" with my co-teachers in a sustained way. When the Monday before the open class rolled around and I hadn’t heard anything more about it, I sent a note to my main co-teacher, asking what the plan was. No one had told her that our supervisor was gone for a month, and she’d have to plan the event.
Working with another co-teacher, she told me that we had to team-teach, but I was supposed to plan the entire lesson. I expected this answer, having had months of time to research the concept of open class, so I mainly had to find out specifics. I offered the topic of “bucket lists” that had been used by the teacher last year, and I would adapt the lesson to my style, focus, and students. She agreed with relief, but told me I should write it quickly! She sent me modifiable, scripted lesson templates. We re-arranged some classes so I could practice with my target class before we had the actual lesson. All 4 of my co-teachers bend over backwards trying to bring this together, covering classes for me so I could prepare the materials and the presentation room, helping with communication, offering feedback and encouragement, and explaining the process before and feedback after.
The Thursday before open classes, I found out I had to submit the entire, word-for-word script, the formal lesson plan, and all worksheets that day. Somehow I thought I would have had until Friday. The VP was going on a business trip, and he had to sign off on the materials before he left! Thursday was one of the most intense work days I’ve had since finishing my master’s paper in grad school. Every minute counted, and I had to be completely focused. Co-teachers covered classes, teachers near my desk sent me encouraging notes, my teacher English class was cancelled, but they wrote notes of encouragement on the inter-office messenger system. My face was bright red all day from the tension, and oh my, the awful headache I got that day… But I completed the work and sent it all off.
The practice went poorly. The projector refused to work, in addition to a host of other technological and logistical problems. Unfortunately I had the entire class of students in there ready to practice and we only got to talk about the subject matter for 15 minutes out of the 50. On a plus side, I was able to use the target phrase: "The projector kicked the bucket."
We weren’t sure how the team teaching would be, and I had only planned about 30% of the class to be run by my co-teacher: the main worksheet activity and the follow up small group and whole class discussions. Still, 70/30% is a more balanced ratio than usual, so I felt it would show team teaching a little. In retrospect, a little more practice would have helped (I especially wished that for my co-teacher’s sake when one observer came up before class on Monday and introduced himself as the Korean English teacher who had taught my co-teacher back when she was a middle school student)! With all the tech problems, we decided to move the class to a presentation room downstairs (neither are the normal rooms we use for class) for Monday.
All too quickly, Monday arrived. Appearance is of utmost importance in Korea, especially in formal or business settings, so I bought and used a flat iron for my hair (after all the compliments I got from my students, I've continued using that ^_^), put on more makeup than usual, bought high heels to wear to school, and wore my Thai-tailored suit. It's finally cool enough to wear the suit! Class was in 4th period, so I had time to fiddle around with the PowerPoint show before class began. I was satisfied with the final result, the initial version of which had come from Waygook.com, even though the topic idea was from the teacher here last year. My co-teacher’s other role was to change the slides, so I sent her the slideshow to review.
There was a flurry of activities in the office and in the room where the event was being set up. I’m not quite sure why, but some co-teachers were in trouble with some upper administrative people. Hm. Something to do with not enough Korean English teachers from my school attending, and they’d better come see the native teacher teach or else (?). Two native teachers from other school attended with their Korean co-teachers. They had 4 and 7 years of teaching experience in Korea.
Team-teaching!
The students were super energetic (VERY obviously hammy), but that’s somewhat standard for open class. Also, one of my students was the former student of a visiting foreign teacher, so he was determined to show off his “mad skillz” for his old middle school teacher. The students were lively, having had just enough exposure to the topic in practice that they didn’t feel too confused.
Some students in open class
At a few points during the lesson, the co-teacher and I consulted with each other about when to finish an activity, change a slide, etc. I forgot to review the previous lesson with the students, and that had been included in the observers' script. We progressed from catching students' interest to explaining the topic, gave examples of the new term, showed a music video related to the movie The Bucket List, and gave the students an activity or two. This activity included individual work, small group work, and whole class conversation. It went well. We had just enough time to complete the planned activities and wrap up when the bell rang. Great success!
Worksheet activities
The observers didn't entirely agree, which they mentioned in the critique session that followed. The visiting teachers said they could tell we were first-timers on open class since we seemed nervous, unsure, unrehearsed, our roles were undefined, and we looked like rookies at team-teaching. Ouch. They did like the subject matter, said we interacted well with students, and they liked the activity, though they thought we could have pushed students more. The 7-year veteran said I should have included the slides from the PPT in the visitors' packet. I smiled and nodded as cooperatively as possible, thinking, "Well, did you want the slides or did you want me to have this PPT you just complimented me on? Given the time frame I had to get stuff ready, you're asking me to violate the law of non-contradiction." Oh well.
Receiving Feedback (What an expression...)
Visitors were invited to stay for lunch in the cafeteria, and I finally got to eat too (though first I was whisked away for the school picture make-up session; apparently the school photographer had been waiting on me and no one had told me yet. At least they picked a good day to take my picture!). Open class was an experience, but it was good to get the feedback session with all my co-teachers present, and the students nearly universally enjoyed the lesson all that week. Since all the co-teachers had seen the lesson, they were all active in class too; they knew what to expect. If only we had time to prepare classes like that more often.
Open class 2011--finished!
Proud of you. Also, you look so professional in your new suit!
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