by Ms. Kausar Aziz
Micro-teaching is a technique through which a teacher can enhance or improve his or her teaching skills. One of the best definitions I came across is as follows:
“Micro-teaching is a teaching method whereby the teacher reviews a videotape of the lesson after each session, in order to conduct a ‘post-mortem. Teachers find out what methods have worked, which aspects have fallen short, and what needs to be done in order to enhance their teaching technique. Invented in the mid-1960, at Stanford University by Dr. Dwight Allen, micro-teaching has been used with success for several decades now, as a way to help teachers acquire and hone new skills. In the original process, a teacher was asked to prepare a short lesson (usually 20 minutes) for a small group of learners who may not have been her own students. This was videotaped using VHS. After the lesson, the teacher, teaching colleagues, a master teacher and the students viewed the videotape together and, commented on what they saw happening, referencing the teacher’s learning objectives. Seeing the video and receiving comments provided teachers with an often intense ‘under the microscope’ view of their teaching.”” (Source wikipedia)
In Pakistan, the practices for micro-teaching are a bit different. Here the teachers usually plan a lesson for other teachers and deliver it in front of them. It helps the teachers find out their mistakes and ways to improve their teaching. After delivering the lesson all teachers comment on the lesson and give ideas for different activities.
Microteaching helps a teacher to:
- Build confidence
- Become lively
- Build strong relationships with students and other colleagues
- Be creative
- Be expressive
- Manage time
- Give variation in lessons
- Accept mistakes
- Accept others ideas
- Understand the needs of students
- To become a good teacher
In the Hira Foundation School we have introduced micro-teaching with Pre-school teachers and it has been a fruitful experience on the whole and we hope to continue it in the future as well. Following are few lessons.
1st lesson was conducted by Ms. Nazia Yousufi, it was about the sounds of alphabets, she delivered how to make sounds of all alphabets, after the lesson we all practiced that . We all gave the comments about the lesson. What is correct sound for each letter?
2nd lesson was delivered by Ms.Maryam on the topic of fruits .She delivered that lesson through the poem
Mango , banana, pineapple
Orange, orange, fruit salad
Watermelon, apple, pear
Chikoo, Chikoo
Fruit Salad
She delivered it with actions and flash cards. And then she read 2nd poem
Allah, Allah you have made all these fruits you have made,
Apple, mango, banana, orange,
Watermelon, apple, pear
Pineapple watermelon you have made.
She showed original fruits or toy fruits for recognition. We all gave the comments how to integrate it with other lessons.
3rd lesson was delivered by Ms. Saba Mumtaz .In this lesson she delivered a sight reading activity of the reader “Tortoise” she showed some flip cards and give us and then she read a word and asked who has this word? It was a really nice activity for sight reading at an early age. Here we gave comments regarding reading and listening activities what should what are the needs of reading exercise.
4th lesson was delivered by Ms.Mahreen syed it was an Urdu lesson in which she gave “Alif ka tarruf” for this she brought a handmade big book “Abbu Bazar sey KIA laey? “ Here she asked Abu Bazar sey kia laey? Then we gave the answer with the help of the pictures in the book. In this session we enjoyed a lot because Mr.Aamir and Ms.Farhana (Academic coordinators) were there and ask many questions.
5th lesson was delivered by Ms.Qurratulain, it was an art lesson, How to make a caterpillar and a lady bird she integrated circle shape and red color. We gave comment how we can integrate it with English lesson.
6th lesson was delivered by Ms.Salma Tabassum, it was also a reading lesson plan for higher two grades of preschool. She gave some sentence structure by using moveable charts. It was a quite interesting lesson from her. Here we got some ideas how to prepare moveable charts for reading activities.
7th lesson was delivered by Ms. Kausar Aziz (myself), it was a storytelling period in which I told a story “Owl babies “there were the repetition of dialogues, I involved all the students for repeated sentences. I was just asking what the Bill said. They were replying “I want my Mommy” it helped to enhance their speaking skills. Then I showed them a video of Owl Babies. In the last I did one activity for identifying Bill by his size. We enjoyed this lesson because Ms.Yusra (Administrator) also observed this lesson and gave comments.
We are planning to continue microteaching in our school hope we will find the best way to improve our teaching skills Isha Allah
