George teaches the "Story Board" lesson



Using my lesson on Story Boards as his model, George taught this same lesson to another group of students.





After having given the students the instructions for the Story Board, George passed out shetts of paper on which the students could develop their story.



Folding the paper to make the eight part Story Board.






The Story Board instructional strategy is a fun way for students to brainstorm a story, learn sequencing, and all the while using all three learning style modalities. 



George had students "share out" their Story Boards with each other, so in the process, each student told their story at least twice and listened to two other stories too.



 

Lesson completed..... time to talk about what happened through some reflective questions.




 

The real thing within an artificial setting

Following my demonstration with a 10th grade English class at Meynaa School, Anil taught the next class - using the same instructional strategies I'd just taught.

Following the two weeks of professional development workshops I conducted, the school's administration asked me to conduct a series of demonstration lessons that would then give the expat Indian English teachers, an opportunity to actually practice, in a classroom setting,  the strategies I'd taught them.

Writing demonstration lesson and follow-up teaching

First I demonstrated the entire lesson for the expat English teachers to observe.

Here, after explaining the writing brainstorming process, I had pairs of students come to the board to work togther to brainstorm ideas on a topic.

Here was one group's brainstorming on three types of animals.

Another group's brainstorming on rivers.

Having students work in pairs at the board, has proven a successful strategy for teaching this part of the writing process. 

The next class, Anil took over and taught the lesson, based on the demonstration lesson he'd just observed me present.

The third class of the day, Rabin taught the lesson, based on my demonstration, with Anil co-teaching with him.

Another day, another demonstration lesson

Class begins with my greeting the students as they enter the classroom..... getting a pulse on what might lay in store for the next 45 minutes.

Objectives are written on the board.

Students are on task, engaged in the assignment.



For this listening activity, students first listened only as I described a scene.... only after I finished my description, could they pick up a pencil and start to draw..... Here's what I described to them......

There's a house in the middle of the paper.
Two trees on the left of the house and one on the right.
Five mountains behind the house.
The house has one door and two windows.
Six clouds in the sky.
Four birds in the sky.
The sun is on the left hand side.
A river begins in the first mountain on the right,
It flows down in front of the house.
There are three fish in the river.
A cat sits in front of the house.



After the lesson, I met with the teachers to reflect. 

Mr. T's Demonstration lesson with Co-Teaching mixed throughout

After reviewing the lesson objective of this demonstration lesson, it was time to move to the next activity.

The starter activity (bellwork) for today was a series of sentences containing errors, which students were to correct. 

As students worked on the assignment, I moved throughout the classroom checking for understanding.

Randomly calling on students, I asked them to identify the mistakes and how to correct them.

After having demonstrated this Starter Activity in the first period class, I had the expat English teacher, Anil, co-teach this part of the lesson with me in the second and third period classes.

Co-teaching with Chinchu, one of the expat secondary English teachers, the introduction to the reading comprehension part of the lesson.

Reading comprehension.... first the students numbered the paragraphs, then drew a double box around the title, I had the students identify vocabulary words they did not understand, so front loaded them with the meaning of these words, before I slowly read the story to them.

By my reading the story to the students, I help them work on their reading comprehension as well as reading fluency skills.

Again, after my demonstrating this lesson during the first period class, I co-taught it with Aravindan the second and third periods.

Before reading the story, I'd written on the board the who, what, when, where, how, and why questions.  I noted to students that these were the questions I wanted them to think about as I read the story to them.

Each class did a great job with this assignment.

A couple weeks of demonstration or model lessons by Mr. T



Following the two weeks of professional development workshops I provided the teachers at Meynaa School, the administration asked if I would conduct some model classes.  The idea being for me demonstrate, in a classroom environment, the instructional strategies I'd taught and for the teachers to observe me teaching.



After providing new information through direct instruction, students, in pairs, participate in the "Think-Pair-Share" activity where they reteach each other the lesson I just taught. 

While students are busy teaching each other, I can move around the classroom and check for understanding to see if they got what I taught.



Sometimes, a little proximity by the teacher helps keeps students focused and on task.




As I taught the model lesson, the English teachers (back far left) observed my teaching.  Then after each model lesson, we'd meet and reflect on the lesson.