Reflective Teaching Statement Lesson Two My concerns about this lesson are exactly opposite those that I held

d before I taught my first lesson. At this point in the semester, I feel like I have a strong relationship with the non-native speaker (NNS) guest students, as well as with my peers and teaching colleagues in the class. I have heard a lot of feedback about what types of activities they enjoy and appreciate, what is not working for them, and what they would like to experience from our lessons. That being said, after Tara and I initially decided to do a topic which we could find in a textbook, I asked Kristie (knowing she would be my second teaching partner) if she would like to tag-team interview skills and resume writing techniques. We were excited for this topic, and I was actually quite wellprepared to teach a lesson on it. I began working on my lesson plans for this second teaching opportunity over Spring Break. However, after the change in professor and the feedback we elicited from students and Nhat about what type of materials and what topics they really wanted to work with, Kristie and I determined that interview skills and resume writing was not a good lesson topic. While I can readily acknowledge that nixing this topic was a good decision on our parts, it did present a bit of an issue, and caused some stress. We inevitably spent the week and a half after Spring Break trying to come up with a different and better topic. We began lessons related to health care and health literacy, routines and hobbies, and finally, extreme sports. We landed on extreme sports because we determined that we truly wanted to focus on writing structures Kristie on comparison/contrast forms, and me on persuasive techniques. Extreme sports fit well as far as providing examples for use with both types of structures. However, the fact that

we bounced around so much meant that we were scrambling at the last minute to put together strong lesson plans! I was glad we had a week to revise and perfect our lessons after they were initially due, but as per almost every bit of feedback I got, it was disappointing that I hadnt included more of my supplemental materials for peer review and lesson coach feedback. Still, I was pleased with our lesson plans, and excited to see how students would react. I think the largest benefit to Kristie and I working so closely with one another was the fact that our lessons tied together very naturally and constructively. We got a lot of feedback about how well they worked together, and I think that fact promoted student engagement and learning. This was a really exceptional opportunity for collaboration, and I felt that Kristie and I used it to our advantage, rather than letting it hold either of us back. After the discussion that we had as a class, I recognized that I still am using too much teacher-talk; lecturing too long and not allowing students to produce the majority of the communication in the lesson. That being said, I think the lesson was very interesting, engaging, and effective. Students enjoyed talking about extreme sports, and I know I had a good balance of writing/producing activities, as well as ample opportunities for discussion and interaction between NSs and NNSs. I could really see growth in my own performance between the first and second lessons, and I think this class is really helping me improve my practice as a teacher.