Case Study

Case Study- An Event During My Placement

For three days in December, the 11^th-13^th, Lizzie, one of the English teachers at Gloucester College, was off from work with an illness and subsequently had no one to cover her lessons for the duration of these days. I was asked to take the lessons up until she would be better to come back to work.

In the past I had taken one lesson for Lizzie while she was away and I had also covered for one of the Maths teachers so I had already gained a small amount of experience being in this situation, however, these were for small classes. I knew that Lizzie had large classes that had around 20 or so students that I would have to sit in on alone; I felt scared and nervous.

The lessons I was given were simple and easy- I would merely need to give them independent work to do and sit with them while they got on with it, helping and assisting whenever needed. Their work was to either write a short story entitled ‘The Gift’ or to continue planning and writing a story called ‘My Greatest Fear’ that they had be set to do the week before. These were to help the students in preparation for the creative writing aspect of their mock exams that were coming up. I would be there to make sure they got on with their work, sign them in and help them where possible. Although it was a simple job I was required to do, I was still nervous, aware of the fact that being only 20, I am only a few years older than these students. At first I thought that this would severely hinder my ability to get these students to work.

After a few lessons during the first day, I realised that my fears were unnecessary and in fact and I was able to work well with these classes for the most part. However, although I came to realise that my fears were not necessary, I did indeed struggle with a few things, more so with certain classes than others. For example, as I was not their usual teacher and was only acting as a substitute for their lessons that week, many students used this as an opportunity to mess around more so than they would have done during their usual lessons. It became difficult to get them to calm down and do the work I had set them and many would simply ignore me whenever I would tell them to get on with their work. It wasn’t until I told them that they would only be able to go if they completed their work that many of them settled down and got some things done. While this was not the case for all students, it happened regularly and these select students ended up disrupting the rest of the class, hindering their focus to get their own work done.

On the other hand, even though I had my struggles, I did enjoy working in these classes alone and I found that none of the students took any notice of my age nor my inexperience of working in a college setting despite my worries on the matter. During these lessons, I liked being able to work independently with classes and was able to develop and gain new skills that otherwise would not have been available to me outside of this workplace. I was able to work effectively with the students and could help and assist them with their work as well as being able to talk to them in both a laid back and professional manner.

One of my concerns before taking on this task of leading these lessons alone was that the students would ask me questions in regards to their work and English course that I would not be able to answer or would struggle to answer. However, these lessons were creative writing based- a topic I am quite strong and confident on. I proved to be useful in helping the students with whatever issues they had such as settings, dialogue, characters and starting their short stories. As the topic was based on something I myself am passionate about and good at, I could enjoy the lessons and the students found my help useful. This allowed the students to feel comfortable working with me, being that I was able to provide help and support on the topic.

I chose to have these lessons be more laid back and relaxed, deciding that students would do work and be better behaved if I allowed them to talk amongst themselves than if I attempted to be stricter and made them work in silence. I also played Christmas music for them when they all asked, seeing that it was a few weeks before Christmas, and I decided this would add to the laid back and relaxed feel to the lessons. This approach to the lessons seemed to work and most students got a lot of work done for whichever task they were doing.

During these lessons, I gained and developed a series of skills such as my own ability to speak in front of a crowd and give instructions and assistance to a variety of individuals with differing strengths and weaknesses. These skills were some that I used to have personal worries about in the past, often struggling to do some forms of public speaking, however, working at my placement has allowed me to build on these skills effectively, allowing me to transfer them to my University work in the future.

Through these lessons, not only was I able to gain and develop my skills at public speaking, but I have also been able to gain personal and independent experience that I would never have had available to me outside of a work placement, allowing me to discover my own strengths and what I enjoy about this type of career and work place.

 

I learnt throughout this event and tasks that I enjoy working with large classes of students and I have been able to use this experience to build and develop on my skills in public speaking. I was able to learn that I am able to talk to and work with students confidently and well, allowing me to help and assist them whenever they need support. Although I did enjoy this experience, I feel that in comparison to working one-on-one with individual students, I prefer the latter, finding it easier myself to provide those specific students with the help I can provide. These few lessons alone gave me the opportunity to explore different aspects of working within a college or school setting and thus I have been able to discover what I prefer. Throughout the duration of the remainder of my placement, I will no doubt be given more opportunities to work independently with students either independently or in larger groups giving me further experience and ideas about whether or not I would want to continue to pursue this after University has ended.