First post!

Good news! Phase 1 is complete, I've passed all my assignments and observations and been signed off. Time for phase 2 to begin which is also a good starting point for this blog. Looking back on phase 1 I've decided that to help me to develop professionally and to assist with writing my assignments it's important to keep a reflective journal.

Yesterday was a tiring day on placement. I met the two classes I would be working with after half term. I think the Entry 2 class are going to be a challenge, they are quite a lively bunch of teenagers but they also seem like good fun. They were keen to introduce themselves and I was impressed by their levels of spoken English. I'm not sure what I was expecting but having only ever taught Levels 1 and 2 I had no idea what E2 would be like. I did however notice a marked difference in their levels when we were discussing the past tense.

As for the Level 1 afternoon class my main issues here are there seemed to be a lack of motivation in some learners which I will certainly need to take into consideration.

I had a meeting with my mentor at the end of the day. Her feedback was really helpful. My lessons are always well planned with clear aims and objectives and I have a very good rapport and manner with the students. Action points which I want to consider are:

1. Correction strategies - I need to develop these further and use different methods. I always find it difficult to know at which point to interrupt. I'll definitely be turning to my David Riddell book for assistance. He has a great chapter on correction.

2. Differentiation - I need to write more differentiation strategies into my lesson plans for weaker learners (I think this will be a little more easier now I have identified who the weaker learners are) I also need to consider extention activities for my stronger learners.

3. Teaching strategies for vocabulary and pronunciation - I'm looking at different ways to teach key lexis including word match games and the use of dictionaries. For pronunciation I need to take more care to correct this (particularly for the target language).