Teaching Journal

Class: 40 students of 1-1 in HSHS
Date: November 4th, 2005
Textbook: Brushup your English grammar p/b CHART INSTITUTE
Allotment: pp.58-62

Lesson objectives

1. To review participal construction
2. To introduce two types of attendant circumstance construction (付帯状況）

Teaching objectives

1. To focus on various types of interaction: interaction through handouts, Teacher-to-student interaction, Teacher-to-class interaction
2. To speak softly and tenderly with gentle smile

Outline of the procedure

1. First 5-minute test on returning participal construction to normal sentences. (5min)
2. Checking the answers of the test (5min).
3. Second 5-minute test (5min)
4. Checking the answers of the test (5min).
5. Review participal construction with a handout (10min)

6. Introduce two types of attendant circumstance construction with the following sentences (10min)
a) 太郎は、『君を愛している』といいながら、花子にキスをした。
Taro kissed Hanako, saying, "I love you."
b) 花子は、手を振りながら、太郎にサヨナラを言った。
Hanako said good-bye to Taro, waving her hand.
c) 太郎は目をつぶったままで、花子にキスをした。
Taro kissed Hanako, with her eyes closed.
d) 花子は目に涙を浮かべて、太郎にサヨナラを言った。
Hanako said good-bye to Taro, with tears in her eyes.

7. Checking the answers for the rest of the exercises (5min)

Post-class reflections

I prepared two handouts for this lesson; one is a test paper, and the other is a summary sheet, both of which I believed to be quite useful for Ss. In the previous lesson, I took the questionnaire about my lesson, and many Ss wanted these handouts. Broadly speaking, this can be called an interaction.
The test in this lesson proved quite successful, because most Ss took it eagerly and checking the answers worked quite well. Testing and checking the answers can be also called another type of interaction. The reasons are as follows.

(1) T gives Ss a test to show them what to study.
(2) Ss answer a test to show T their level of understanding.
(3) T checks Ss' result to know the effectiveness of his/her teaching.

When I see every action in a lesson from the interactive point of view, everything seems to be a kind of interaction, which is quite confusing to me. Probably I need a narrower definition of interaction, but I do not know what it is so far.