An international online practicum experience requires a great deal of flexibility and this week’s lessons were a good reminder of this. Hurricane Delta made landfall close to Cancun the week prior, impacting electricity and internet access for everyone in the area including students. With the storm impacting the area school was closed for a week and not all students were able to join lessons throughout the week. With this in mind I adjusted my lesson to provide time and space for students to check-in and share how they were doing prior to focusing on the IELTS listening activity.
While today’s lesson was focused on IELTS listening, I used the evolution of maps, from paper to google maps, as the overarching theme. To start the lesson I shared a personal experience of hiking to Everest Base Camp and showed students the paper map I used. This personal story seemed to land well with students as many commented in the chat and verbally that it would have been a “cool experience.” I then proceeded to introduce key map vocabulary combined with tips on completing IELTS task #1. The activity required students to listen attentively for key pieces of information from an audio description of an Olympic site. Students entered answers via google forms and I was able to immediately assess comprehension. I also called upon students to share answers while self-assessing their submissions. Most students received 100% and those who did not were able to identify where they made a mistake and how to correct it in the future.
Overall this lesson was a success as students were able to demonstrate comprehension of the lesson through completion of the google form. I was satisfied with the pace of the lesson as I was able to complete all activities within the time-frame I has identified.