Competency-based Teaching Practices and Lesson Planning Strategies

Sharing competency-based teaching practices and lesson planning strategies with pre-service teachers, complete with a video call to create an English environment

It always makes my heart sing when I'm able to do what I love most, which is sharing my teaching practices in English at workshops, and inspire participants to give it a try in their own English class. I received positive feedback and got another invitation though, but what made my day was that I think I can do more to help them with teaching demonstrations and interviews.

The workshop started off with everybody's English self-introduction. The purpose was to set the tone and create an atmosphere that we're going to speak lots of English today. I then proceeded with a KWL activity to elicit their prior knowledge and experience related to today's topic. Following that, with my teaching practices, including making a milkshake, Steve Jobs' presentation style, Taiwan's Jane Goodall, Let's Go Camping, War on Drugs, and VR English campusguided tour, we did a think-pair-share activity by assigning each pair with a lesson plan and shared their ideas in terms of authenticity of a meaningful context, application of international awareness, and interdisciplinary  collaboration.

The second half of my presentation focused on my lesson planning framework. The five key elements, including objectives, activities, assessment, scaffolding, and teacher's role, will ensure a good teaching demonstration. Backward Design, on the other hand, helps students achieve the end result. A little practice of using the ABCD mode to state observable and measurable learning objectives went well with a Skype session with Jessica.

The participants were more engaged in an English environment with her interaction with each of them. They spoke English very fluently at the end of the workshop. To wrap up the three-hour long workshop, I told them I would be more than glad to help with their English teaching demonstrations and job interviews for the notoriously competitive teacher recruiting selection.