Visit VII: Defence International Training Centre: Laverton Base

The seventh school visit.

This time though, the school was of a slightly different nature when compared to the previous ones we have been to. The Defence International Training Centre in Laverton was actually a military school. However, the class we participated in consisted of teachers who were doing further studies or teachers-in-training just like us.

The usual practice for our school observations was that we would get a short introduction about the school and move on to observe a lesson or two. This time around, however, we were received as 'part of the class'. The first thing we did was an activity where we had to find someone we didn't know and get to know him/her. The teacher played a piece of music to indicate that we had to start looking. We rotated partners every few minutes. I think this is a great way to practise oral English for both the students in DITC and us. From what I could observe, the students were quite willing to talk to us strangers. Also, most of them spoke quite confidently too. I think that might be a result of having been in an English-speaking country for three months already. Since the students come from different places, their only common language is English, encouraging them to speak that language during their stay in Australia. Having spoken mostly English for that amount of time probably contributes to a boost in confidence.

Part two of our school observation was actually participating in a regular lesson as part of the class. The topic of the class was the teaching of vocabulary to students of an intermediate level. I found that the way in which us teachers-in-training were taught was quite similar to the way in which most of the students in our other visits were taught: the teacher first tried to activate our schemata and tap into our prior knowledge, contextualizing the lesson. This helped us understand the focus of the lesson and prepared us mentally for what was about to come. Also, the teacher always tried to extract answers and ideas from us instead of always giving them out herself. The teacher was always able to guide us to the answer or idea she was looking for with her questions and hints. After some teaching, we did some group work on how to teach vocabulary. As we discussed, the teacher constantly moved around to check on our progress, give us suggestions and saw if we needed any assistance. She was rarely stationary at any one spot for a prolonged period of time. This kept everybody focused on the task at hand because everybody knew what they were supposed to do and even if anyone ran into any difficulties, she was there to help.

Also, I was able to acquire some content knowledge myself. Before the visit, I had little idea of what concept-checking questions were and how to ask them. I also was not aware that there were so many factors to take into account when teaching vocabulary, for example the connotation.

It was a fruitful visit.