Reflection on the lesson 2

Place: Szkola Podstawowa w Dąbrówce
Setting: classroom with a space to study (desks) and to relax (carpet zone)
Students age: first or second grade
Topic: Christmas/miracle time
Other: the revised vocabulary: colors, numbers, animals
Link to the lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1kGeSKXiVo&t=299s

After watching this lesson, I have mixed feelings. In the further review I will try to explain what and why I
like and what I would do differently.
To begin with, I noticed that the teacher looks expirienced, confident and strict. Even when she makes
students laugh I see how, at the same time, she keeps an eye on the discipline in the class. She does not
let children to disrupt the lesson. Whenever the students distruct each other with talking she calls them by
names, letting them know it is not okay. Such positioning might look slightly authoritarian, but in my opinion
it is a must when working with a big group of students (and here it's more than 20 children). Whether to use
the commands and a stern voice is up to the theacher. But the discipline provides more studying time, which
is the key to a successful lesson with a bunch of interesting activities. So, I appreciate the teacher's manner.
As I have already mentioned, she made students laugh. She did it by drawing a sad face on the spider
picture and stirring emotions by giving very quickly the commands "sit down/stand up". In addition, students
seemed to enjoy a small part of TPR activity on the carpet when the teacher would ask "jump, turn around,
point to the door/window". I think it is a good one for their age.
I like the method of organizing students and making them move from one area to another or divide into
groups. Here I mean the "apples/bananas" and "Who has something (color) go sit down" activities. It involves
revising vocabulary and is more interesting for students compared with the teacher giving direct orders, for
example.
One of the things that made me puzzled about the lesson is when the teacher was drawing on the blackboard
she would stop in the middle and would ask "Who is this?". But the students could not recognize the animal
from a small piece of the picture, so they kept giving wrong answers. It took me a while to realize the teacher
might do it on purpose. It may be a way to revise the vocabulary. If that is how she implied it, it is worth of doing.
As for negative aspects of the lesson, I did not understand the goal of asking each and every child "How are
you today?". One boy replied with "bored" and, honestly, I burst out laughing, because by that time, I got to
that point too. Maybe it would be better to throw the toy asking a different question, for instance, "What color
do you have?". And it would be logical because the teacher used colors to make students go to the carpet, but
the students did not name the colors, so it could be a way of eliciting words.
Another thing that did not look reasonable to me is the question whether the witch is good or bad. Students
did not understand the concept of witch being changed from "bad" to "good". In the slavic cultures, and probably
universally, "witch" is a word with a negative connotation. Children learn what is "good" and "bad"
very early and after that they are not flexible about those things. One might think that the book choice was wrong
and students did not comprehend the story. It may be so, but I would not tackle such concepts anyway, at least,
at this age. Later on in their lives they will be able to comprehend the context of the stories.
Besides, the end of the lesson seemed poorly organized, because the teacher started a new activity with the
numbers, but when she realized the time would not be enough she took the numbers back from students. It leaves
me wondering what was the goal of spending so much time to assign the numbers and leave students with
nothing. It is a great demonstration that, as teachers, we should not forget to track time during the lesson.