Today’s lesson focused on IELTS Writing Task #1, specifically how to write a body paragraph. Unfortunately the technology challenges from earlier in the week continued. While Kathy and I were able to get into the classroom through MS Teams, we were not able to use the chat or raise hand functionality, which made it quite difficult to engage students in the lesson. As we were team teaching it was possible to divide the tasks up; Kathy led the lesson while I provided support by watching cameras and microphones to see if students had a question or wanted to participate by answering questions.
Breaking down the IELTS Writing Task #1 into separate lessons was well received by students. By providing them the opportunity to focus their writing on specific aspects of the assessment, students were able to integrate the feedback into their answers and improve their writing. This has become even more important in online teaching. While each class lasts 50 minutes, by the time students log-onto class, attendance is taken and we commence a lesson, approximately 10-15 minutes has already passed. This leaves approximately 35-40 minutes each class, thus requiring focused and concrete lessons on specific aspects of the English language. As we continue with our teaching reflecting on the structure of each lesson and how it will be received will be important.