Reflective Journal 1

Running head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 1 1
Reflective Journal 1
Ayaka Kisu
The University of Hawaii at Hilo
ENG 422: Teaching Practicum
Dr. Francis Dumanig

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 1 2
Abstract
This paper is a reflection journal written by a TESOL seeking student who presented a grammar
lesson on March 3rd, 2020 in ENG 422, and describes how the class was conducted. By
analyzing the teaching practice, the student can find what was good and what needs to be
improved. There are four sections in the lesson: warm-up, presentation, practice, evaluation, so
this report also has those sections so that it is clear to understand what happened during each
section and what the student thought for each part of the class. The conclusion section explains
the summary of the lesson and the overall reflection throughout the class.
Reflective Journal 1
This class was offered in-person with six students in the classroom. The students were
TESOL seeking students, so they acted as ESL students. The lesson objective was to be able to
talk about their weekend activities using past tense verbs. Students were supposed to learn how
to distinguish verb tenses in the previous lesson, and this class focused on past tense verbs
including regular and irregular conjugation.
Warm-Up
As a review from the previous lesson, the students were asked to answer the conjugation
of be verbs and when to use past, present, and future tense. This introduction was a little bit short
to remember the contents of the last lesson, so it could be longer. It would be effective if the
teacher draws a timeline on the board to explain each tense.
Presentation
First, the teacher introduced the topic for this class by saying “today we are going to talk
about what we did on the weekend.” Then, cards with illustrations for each verb were shown to
the students. The teacher showed one card at a time asking ‘what’s this,’ and had the students
answer what is the right verb to explain the picture. As they answered, the teacher wrote the
answer on the whiteboard making sure to write regular verbs on one side and irregular verbs on
the other side. After asking answers for all the verbs, the teacher introduced the past tense form
of each verb by saying it and writing on the board at the same time. Once the students know the
conjugation, the teacher explained the rules for past tense conjugation and showed that there are
regular and irregular verbs in English. This explanation could be more detailed because it is the
most important part of this lesson. After they understood the basic rules, the teacher introduced
three ways to pronounce ending ed of past tense verbs and the rules for each pronunciation. To
review the past tense conjugation, the students were asked to make a sentence using a past tense
verb that is shown in a card that the teacher picked. This exercise was not too difficult for the
students because they were fluent English speakers, but it might be too hard for ESL students.
In the next part of the presentation, the teacher asked the students how to make a question
sentence to know what someone did on the weekend. When one of the students answered, the
teacher wrote the question on the board. If this lesson were offered for real ESL students, this
process can be different because they might not know how to make a question sentences and
need more explanation about it. Then the teacher asked “what did you do on the weekend?” to
each student and showed one card at a time. In this practice, the students were supposed to
answer the question by making a sentence with a past tense verb that is written on the card. To
make it enjoyable, the students were asked to stand up and sit down after they answered two
questions, which worked very well even for adult learners. After they get used to answering the
question with the cards, they practiced doing the same activity without the cards. Then, they
were asked to make pairs to practice saying the question and answering it several times.
Practice
Before practicing conversation, the students reviewed the verbs and the conjugation for
each one by looking at the board and repeating the teacher’s pronunciation. Then they made pairs
and practiced conversation about what they did on the weekend using the past tense verbs they
learned in this class. They also included greetings at the beginning and the end of the
conversation to make it natural. This activity is useful for the students because the conversation
is very similar to a daily conversation by native English speakers. While they were practicing,
the teacher monitored them and checked their conversation so that if the teacher can fix some
mistakes. Since the students for this practice teaching were fluent English speakers, they did not
have much trouble making their original sentences using past tense verbs. However, if they were
ESL students, there may be some difficulties creating sentences and use them in a real
conversation.
Evaluation
In this evaluation section, each pair of students were asked to come to the front of the
classroom and show the conversation they practiced to their classmates. While other students
were presenting, the audience took notes about what kind of past tense verbs did the presenters
used in their conversation. In this way, all students could participate in the class even when some
of them were waiting for their turns. The direction for this activity was not clear, so the teacher
had to be careful and make sure all students understand the rules clearly.
Conclusion
In this class, the students learned past tense conjugation of regular and irregular verbs and
how to use them in their real-life conversation. The class was conducted smoothly because the
students were native English speakers, but if they were ESL students, the situation might change
due to the level of their English skills. Therefore, when teaching ESL students, the teacher has to
make sure they understand the contents of the class every time introducing new content or going
to the next section.

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Running head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL 1 1

The University of Hawaii at Hilo

ENG 422: Teaching Practicum

Dr. Francis Dumanig

including regular and irregular conjugation.

teacher draws a timeline on the board to explain each tense.

to the next section.

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