Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 29/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 29/08/2014

This was my first class presented to a grade 9 class at Edgemead High School. I was wary of the grade 9 class as I had sat in on Ms Gina’s class with them before and they seemed to be on a much higher level of proficiency than the grade 8 class. The class is also larger than the grade 8 class and are much more boisterous. Ms Gina does not seem to be bothered by their loud outbursts and constant talking and it appears that learning takes places despite the lack of apparent discipline. When I started the lesson I was surprised and horrified to learn that, unlike the grade 8 class, almost all of the learners in this class were from isiXhosa speaking households – so they would know if I made a slip-up. I opted to teach them a culture lesson instead of a grammar lesson. It turns out that these sorts of lessons are very interesting to them as they are not so au fait with the traditions of their grandparents and previous generations – they have a vague idea of some of the cultural memes but nothing of an academic level of understanding. As such the class found the lesson very entertaining and were very happy to engage and to ask questions, loudly, with me about the various cultural practices. It also struck me that it is possible for a class full of boisterous learners to be loud and busy without it necessarily interfering with learning. 

Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 28/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 28/08/2014

This was my fourth class presented to the learners at Edgemead High School. During this lesson the usual teacher who’s class it is was not present and I had to take the class ‘by myself’ (there was another teacher present for observation purposes). I decided to challenge the class, a group of fluent isiXhosa speakers, with a lesson on words that they were probably not familiar with as they do not often use them in their day-to-day interactions with their friends. The class was present and engaged as I was showing them new things and challenging their knowledge. I also had them learn about tenses with regards to these new words and this challenged them further. What I noted was that I expect the learners to keep up with me by writing down what I am showing them (which is relatively little, a word or two) and also to answer questions related to the content. It appears that this is asking too much of this young group of learners – they do not yet have the skills to write and listen at the same time.  In my next lesson I will take this into consideration.

Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 25/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 25/08/2014

This was my third class presented to the learners at Edgemead High School. In this lesson I addressed a cultural aspect of the Xhosa people – traditional healers and diviners. The learners were very interested by the content of the lesson as they have some rudimentary knowledge of these olden days’ practices but do not in their modern day lives encounter them any longer. I also did some vocabulary related to biology and physiology. This was a challenge for the learners as they are familiar with the every-day words for, for instance: arm, leg, neck. But not with the technically correct terms for spine, femur, calve muscle, etc.

This was an unusual lesson for the learners as they got almost none of the anatomy terms the first time around. I feel like they might have gained a little respect for their teacher for knowing words with which they are totally unfamiliar with. I ended the lesson with an assessment activity that kept them occupied for a good portion of the period and which they appeared to have enjoyed. I believe that the class learned something new and hopefully useful today and this gives me a sense of accomplishment, which is nice. 

Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 22/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 22/08/2014

This was my second class presented to the learners at Edgemead High School. At this particular school they do not offer isiXhosa 2^nd or 3^rd additional language, but rather, isiXhosa 1^st additional language. This lesson focused on some very basic (for these learners) greetings and vocabulary for when meeting new people in isiXhosa. I felt that the learners were a little bored at first as I was not asking or showing them anything new. However, later on in the lesson I seemed to have asked one or two things that they were not totally familiar with and this sparked their interest.

I created an assessment activity for the learners in the form of a ‘translate this phrase from English to isiXhosa’ activity. However, most of the learners did not seem to catch on to what they needed to do. I believe this was my fault for not giving them clear enough instructions. These are grade 8 learners and it would be reasonable for them to not intuitively know what to do with any assessment activity that they encounter. But, because they are so far ahead of me with the actual language and knew what was going on during the lesson with reference to the content and vocabulary, I made the mistaken assumption that they would also then find the assessment activity simple and obvious. I have encountered this sort of mistake before in my other subject and it is something that I need to be cognizant of. I suppose that once one is familiar with the class after teaching them for a few months one would know where they require assistance and where it is OK to assume they know what it going on.

Journal: Practicum Lesson Reflection for 20/08/2014

Subject: isiXhosa (3^rd Additional)
Class: Grade 8
Date 20/08/2014

This was my first class presented to the learners at Edgemead High School. At this particular school they do not offer isiXhosa 2^nd or 3^rd additional language, but rather, isiXhosa 1^st additional language. The educators, of which there are two, are native isiXhosa speakers and thus speak the language fluently. The Grade 8 isiXhosa class is made up of all the learners from the entire grade who wish to do isiXhosa as a 1^st additional language instead of Afrikaans; the outcome of this arrangement is that all the learners in the isiXhosa class are of African descent, speak an African language, and most of them can speak isiXhosa fluently or can at least hold a decent conversation.

However, the learners do not have an extensive vocabulary in isiXhosa and are not familiar with the codified rules of isiXhosa grammar and sentence construction; while most of them have an intuitive grasp of why something sounds right or wrong they, much like a young fluent speaker in any other language, are not familiar with the technical aspects of the language. This is a fortunate circumstance as otherwise I would not be of any use to this class of learners, they can speak the language far better than I.

This first class was very pleasant and easy to give. There are only about 10 learners in the class and they are not rowdy, rude, or disobedient. I get the idea from the learners that they are happy to have a non-native isiXhosa speaker (and White man) who is interested in an African language and are keen to learn anything new that I might be able to teach them. They progressed through the work I had prepared fairly quickly as they are familiar with most of the introductory vocabulary presented in the lesson.  A formal assessment will take place in my next lesson where I will present slightly more advanced work to see how familiar they are with the content. Overall I enjoyed the lesson and the cooperative and pleasant interaction with the class, I feel I could have challenged them more and I hope I have not set the tone for all my of lessons with this first lesson; we will see how the next lesson goes.

First Post

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela once said: