[MUSIC] Come on Toto we need to find somewhere else to go. Well hello, how long have you been there? Have you looked outside recently? It's really windy and stormy and the sky has a nasty green color. Looks like tornado weather. Toto and I were just looking for a safe place to stay during this bad weather, but I guess as long as you're there we can talk for a minute. So I actually thought you'd be busy still working on the Capstone projects. I guess this means that you're just about finished the Capstone course. Seriously? You must have been working really hard. Great work, you should really be proud of yourself. I know that this course has required a lot more work from you than any of the previous courses. But, well that's the purpose of the Capstone courses, to challenge you to show your understanding of the topic. In this case teaching English. As teachers we try not to give our students busy work, but rather ask our students to produce meaningful work as mentioned in course three. The same holds true for for this capstone course. Our purpose was not only to challenge you to apply all of the information you've learned throughout the first three courses, but also for you to start compiling files for teaching portfolio, which you'll most likely have to submit when applying for teaching positions in the future. I actually needed to submit these items [LAUGH] and more. For my interview here at Arizona State University. So let's take a moment to review what you've done throughout this course. In the first module you worked on writing your teaching philosophy step by step. You first wrote your teaching purpose, then you explained your teaching style, and finally you had a chance to describe your teaching techniques. Let me emphasize again just how important this document is. A strong teaching philosophy will introduce you to future employers and help you get an interview, which ultimately will help you get that dream dream job that you're applying for. Your philosophy illustrates your personality and other aspects of you that are not necessarily reflected in your resume or CV. In the second and third modules you wrote another 50 to 60 minute lesson plan similar to the lesson plan that you wrote in course three. The lesson plan included a warm-up, objective discussion, presentation, model, guided practice, independent practice, and assessment. Each lesson plan you create should include a each of these steps. If you're new to lesson planning, this might take you more time to complete. But as you continue to write lesson plans and grow as a teacher, you will be kicking them out in no time flat. When I wrote my first lesson plan, it took me a painful hours upon hours to write. And believe me, I was not a fan of this task. But the longer that I teach, the less and less time it takes me to create lesson plans. And honestly, they really help guide me and all teachers so much through both my daily, weekly and monthly lessons. Speaking of weekly lessons, that brings us to your third assignment. Formulating a weekly lesson plan. This was an assignment that we never really discussed in the previous courses. But it was a task that, having already built two daily lesson plans, would be the natural progression in our lesson planning. Weekly lesson plans are important because they help guide the teacher. Not just through a single day, but through an entire week of connected ideas and lessons. This helps teachers step back a bit and see how each individual lesson aligns with other lessons, and guides both teachers and students, in a particular direction of successfully completing language objectives. Throughout each of these modules, you were also asked to observe some of our very own ESL teachers here at ASU, teaching their classes. And look at each teacher's lesson plan for that day. These teachers were teaching their own students who came from various countries around the world. Perhaps you noticed that some teachers classes follow the lesson plans perfectly. While other teachers lesson plans didn't exactly follow that lesson. This happens for many reasons. For example, maybe the students needed more in-depth explanation. Maybe the teacher noticed an issue that needed more focus, or sometimes teachers lessons just don't go as planned. Honestly, deviating from your lesson plan to meet unexpected student needs is perfectly okay. So just a word to the wise, in the future if your lessons don't go exactly as you planned, Don't worry or feel bad. This is totally normal and it happens all the time. And if this happens, you can either assign the uncovered material as homework for the students or finish it up the next day in class. This is what real teaching is. Being flexible and adaptable to whatever situation pops up in your class. Any seasoned teacher will tell you that lessons don't always go as planned, and that's okay. [LAUGH] I digress. So back to our teaching observations. For each observation, you are asked to do different tasks, like predict a teacher's teaching theory. Compare two teachers teaching styles. Analyze a teacher's strengths and comment on some techniques a teacher used that you might be able to use in your own class. Observing other teachers is extremely important for all teachers, seasoned or brand new, as it helps you see how other people teach. Often, you get ideas and techniques for your own classroom. Plus, observing teachers helps you see how strong teachers with different personalities Function in their classes, for each of these video observations Justin Schule and I actually went to each of these classes ourselves and we filmed the various teachers teaching their classes. Interestingly we both commented on how many new ideas we gained from watching each of these teachers teach. And how we should probably try to go watch some of our own colleagues teach more often. Alrighty then. So in short, we've done a whole heck of a lot of work over the past few weeks, and we've produced some wonderful documents to add to your teaching portfolio. Please be sure to save each of these because you'll be required to submit them at the end of part two, the second Capstone project. I hope you've saved some energy, because we have one more fun project for you to do. Here is what's going to happen. Choose a portion of your daily lesson plan, just one of them. For example, maybe you'll choose a warmup, an objective discussion and instruction. Then, using a video recording device maybe your cell phone, a video camera, something like that, you'll record a six to ten minute video of you teaching part of your lesson. We call this a micro lesson. You're going to take all the information you've learned so far in this course and actually teach. This is your time to shine. Show your peers what you can do. You can incorporate warm language, teacher talk and any other idea that's been discussed throughout this course. Please be sure to save this video as you will also need it for the end of the capstone course in part two. And you just might need to submit a teaching video for a job application. [LAUGH] So here's a few tips for your micro-lesson video. First, practice, practice, practice. I cannot stress this idea enough. Practice what you want to say before you record yourself. The more you practice before you record, the better you'll look and sound in your video. Number two. Smile when you're teaching. Happy teachers are the most effective. Number three, if you're currently teaching, feel free to record you in your own class. If you aren't currently teaching, feel free to just record yourself at home without students. The main point of this is to focus on you and your teaching ability for this video. Number four. Be sure the video and the audio are clear to understand. Sometimes technology isn't as reliable as we'd like it to be. So listen and watch your video before uploading it to be sure that you can be seen and heard clearly. Number five. Be careful of your time. Please adhere to the time limits. Videos should be no shorter than six minutes, but no longer than ten minutes. So now, please go on to the final peer review entitled Micro Lesson, and follow the directions and peer review three other videos. After that you'll be finished with part one of Teach English Now. Exciting, right? Just a reminder, the completion of this capstone course marks the halfway point to achieving your TESOL certification. Part two of Teach English Now contains three more courses and a second capstone project. After you finish this capstone course, you can go on to Course Four, which is about reading, writing and integrated skills. Course five will discuss listening and speaking and course six will cover technology. Upon successfully completing these three courses and the second capstone project, you will receive a TESOL certificate from ASU. Hm, what did you ask? Why am I dressed like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz? Well [LAUGH] you'll just have to join us for course four of Teach English Now, which is about reading, writing and integrated skills to find out. I can assure I can assure you we won't be in Kansas or Arizona in course four, will we Toto? It is windy. We're got to get out of here before this wind blows us away. [MUSIC]
