Name:

Momina Khattak

Date: 27th February, 2017

Reflective Memo on Practicum

I have been teaching in a private school in Dubai for 2.5 years now. None of my previous

6 years of teaching adults, in universities, colleges and language centers, had prepared me for

teaching a room full of students at the elementary level. Students, who are not only from a

diverse cultural back ground, a completely different age group and with an entirely different set

of needs. This has been the first time that I have been teaching English as an ELL (English

Language Learner) teacher where the primary purpose of language skills focuses around

academics first and then the functional aspect of English language. A major difference in these

students and my adult students is, content that is to be taught and the inclination to learn; in the

adult classes the latter was a given. I find that with my elementary students, readiness and

motivation is something that needs to be worked on.

I have been working towards my Masters in Education, from American University in

Dubai; one of the reasons why I opted for this course and not the other options, was the

practicum element offered in it. My school has a very rigorous system of walk-ins and lesson

observations where our supervisors and members of administration regularly come and observe

the teachers teach. We are given official and informal feedback over our teaching. The first

observation I had was disastrous to say the least; suffice it to say that I learnt not to have a

burning candle in my room with it full of grade 1 students and not to leave a bell within their
reach! I would like to think that I have come a long way since then but I know that I still have a

lot more ground to cover.

This course has helped me so far by making me reflect on my teaching practice. This

reflection has come through keeping the teaching log that is a requirement for it. It has made me

reevaluate the planning time that I put into my lessons. I am beginning to see how, just by

increasing my planning time a little more, I can get a lot more out of my lessons. The Danielson

Model for teaching, with its four domains, provides a comprehensive list of all the boxes that

need to be checked, to improve every teachers teaching input and learners learning output.

So far I have written two lesson plans for the observations. These lessons have enabled

me to think more about differentiating the process, content and product for each of my students.

A very valuable reflection, that has come out from the feedback I received for my first

observation was teacher burnout. My professor pointed out that the atmosphere of the

classroom was too relaxed and the students didnt seem motivated enough; I realized that she

may be right. I have been teaching the same content to the same students for almost three years

now. As much as I love what I do, maybe I have become too complacent in my teaching and

need to look at better ways of motivating myself first and then passing on that motivation to my

students.

In the second term of my school, I only have 10-15 students in the classroom. These are

students who have not been able to exit the ELL program, due to low scores in the summative

assessments. By this time, I feel that my students are a bit low in morale as the majority of the

ELLs have successfully exited. Most of them need 1-1 interaction and all have specific learning

styles and needs. I feel that I need more guidance on how to work with these students in a more

personalized way to have more success in bridging their achievement gaps. I am looking forward
to get feedback from my mentor professor and hopefully be able to apply it to my teaching.

Marzano says that the single-most influential component of an effective school is the individual

teachers within that school. My personal goal is to be one of those teachers.