2.6 – Preparing For Your Cross-Language Microteaching
In preparation for the Cross-Language Microteaching episode you will teach to your assigned peer(s) between June 20-June 22, we’ll devote some time to learning more about the process itself. If you haven’t already, you should review and begin preparing your microteaching episode using the following resources:
- the Synchronous Activity Guide (Links to an external site.), which provides details on your cross-language microteaching assignment.
- The Think Aloud Procedure Guide (Links to an external site.), which will help you plan, develop, test, record, and publish your 5-10 minute Think Aloud reflection on your microteaching experience. The heart of this experience is your Think Aloud. When we talk out loud about our teaching experiences, it helps us to reflect critically on our teaching practices, and the results of those practices. Your recorded Think Aloud will help you to do this.
- The Screencast-O-Matic Guide (Links to an external site.), which explains how to use this technology for recording your Think Aloud.
Reviewing these three guides now will give you enough time to ask any questions you may have prior to preparing for and conducting your cross-language microteaching in week 2 of our course. These guides are also in the Cross-Language Microteaching Resources of the Course Resources section of our course.
You should begin work on creating your learning episode this weekend. If you haven’t yet practiced using Google Hangouts, you should do this now, too. As a reminder, any technical questions should be posted to our Technical Assistance Forum and any other questions to our General Questions Forum.
This is the order in which you will complete these activities:
- Determine the date and time for your cross-language microteaching activity.
You and your assigned peer(s) will teach your learning episodes to each other during our second week together. Together, you should determine a time and date when you can meet to demonstrate your respective teaching episodes. - Schedule one session, not multiple sessions.
Each of you will teach a 10-minute episode, so you’ll want to devote the requisite amount of time for all of you to teach with some built-in time of approximately 5-10 minutes between teaching sessions for each of you playing the role of students to provide feedback to teacher. We suggest you schedule one meeting time rather than several. - Make arrangements by contacting your cross-language partner(s).
You should have received an email from CLASSRoad introducing you to your cross-language partner(s). Please use the email addresses of your partner(s) in this email to begin your initial communication with each other.
Cross-Language Teaching Process
During this cross-language microteaching experience each of you will teach a learning episode of approximately ten minutes in duration to your peer(s), who will be acting as your “student(s)”. As a student you will also be providing your “teacher” feedback on the teaching using the Comprehensible Input Feedback Form (Links to an external site.). You will find detailed information on this activity in the Synchronous Activity Guide (Links to an external site.) found in our Course Resources at the top of our course home page.
You must conduct your cross-language microteaching sessions between June 20 and June 22. Your written peer feedback is due June 24. Your Think Aloud Reflection on your cross-language microteaching experience is due June 25, so it is important that you conduct your cross-language microteaching session no later than June 22 and share your peer feedback on June 24. This will ensure you have enough time to incorporate the peer feedback in your reflection.
To give you a better sense of how to construct your Think Aloud, please watch this Think Aloud from Ryan Lower, a teacher of Chinese, who was a member of our 2014 CLASSRoad Startalk cohort. As you watch his reflective Think Aloud, note where he has placed his webcam and his content so that he doesn’t cover his materials with his image. See how he has all his materials readily available so that his Think Aloud flows well. Notice also how Ryan uses his Think Aloud to explain why he chose specific content for his lesson, how he reflects on his synchronous teaching experience and how he incorporates his “students'” feedback in his reflection. Consider: While Ryan’s Think Aloud exceeds the 10-minute guideline, we strongly urge you to keep your Think Aloud to 10 minutes or less.