What's in Your Pencil Case, Theara?
This article is part of a series of interviews with selected teachers in which I explore the relationship between last-minute relief teaching and the principle of teaching with minimal resources. I wanted to find out more about their approaches to teaching unexpectedly and with limited class preparation time.
#26. Theara Chea, Sydney.
Theara Chea is an ELICOS teacher based in Sydney and currently pursuing his Master of Research in Educational Studies at Macquarie University before embarking on his doctoral study. He has extensive experience in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to different groups of students, both younger and adult learners, in Cambodia and Australia. In addition, he has taught English for specific purposes for hotel and hospitality workers, and for military personnel. These experiences have helped him develop a strong interest in autonomous learning styles. His research interests include Reflective Practices and Independent learning. He completed his MA in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University, Wellington on a Jack Richards scholarship.Question 1: You have been asked to deliver an academic (EAP) class that starts in 20 minutes' time. What’s on your desk or in your bag or pencil case that you can grab to use in class?
I use Google Classroom as the main tool for discussion and collaboration for the class.
Question 2: What will you do with this item?
Let’s say that I am about to start the class, I can set up Google Classroom first and assign a text for the students. They have to sign into their respective Google Classroom accounts. Then I provide the students with a task, such as some comprehension questions, and to identify, for example, pronouns in the text. One user can highlight as many pronouns as possible, and the other can make comments or post questions regarding the task or text.
Google Classroom can be a very powerful tool because the students can collaborate with each other towards one piece of work and exchange their ideas through it, in real time.
Google Classroom is…
like a resource centre for my class. I put the class notes or other materials in a file and the students can access what I share with them. The main idea of using Google Classroom when I started using it was to let the students access the resources when they do self-study. Nowadays, I pre-design some tasks, drawing from the materials I have access to, for different groups of students. So when I need a lesson at short notice, I can go to it at any time.
Read Theara’s full interview here.
