1. What did you learn from the design of the CALL lesson?                                  

During the design of the CALL lesson, I came to realize that “visualization” brings lots of advantages in teaching. Without the assistance of the computer, showing students pictures isn’t that convenient and it’s time-consuming since the teacher must have them printed out. Also, in comparison with the traditional blackboard, the projector catches more of the students’ attention. Take the on-line spinner for another example, it can substitute the use of drawing lots. The former one is able to engage the whole class simultaneously and make the process more exciting since every student can see the result on the projection screen. The CALL lesson allows teachers to make more variety of the English content and teaching materials. For instance, use YouTube and Bluetooth speaker to play an English song to the class. Meanwhile, hand out the lyrics with some missing words to the students and ask them to fill in the blank while listening to the song. Later, show the video with the lyrics through the projector so the students can check their answer on their own. Furthermore, with the assistance of the computer, searching the information for the student instantly is never a problem. In the third class I demonstrated, the students said that they want to see Taylor Swift’s speech in the graduation ceremony of New York University. Although this section wasn’t in my lesson plan, I was able to show that video to students by using the computer and the internet. Last but not least, through the process of designing the CALL lessons, I came to realize that computer assisted language learning does have far more potential benefits. Not only does it enable teachers to share related content to the students, but it will also come in handy when students want to present their ideas to the whole class and then raise some discussion.

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2. How did the design of the CALL lesson enrich your professional knowledge?  Apart from the previous theoretical professional knowledge, the design of the CALL lesson for on-site teaching enriched much of my practical experience and knowledge. It is really a precious opportunity for me to put a lesson plan in practice since I haven’t had a chance to do a teaching demonstration in front of students in the teacher trainee program yet. When designing the lesson plan, I gradually understand that planning, drafting, reviewing, editing are all dispensable, and a more important point is that they are not in a linear process. Only with the continuous looping through the four steps, the satisfactory lesson plan will be done. Furthermore, adopting the PPT slides in my lesson, deciding what content should be on the slides and when to integrate songs and videos builds up a logical teacher. Yet, the unknown condition of the on-site teaching made me worry about my lesson plan at the beginning. But after the reflection after the first lesson, I learnt that knowing how to be a flexible teacher is also an imperative professional knowledge. To put it into conclusion, the design of the CALL lesson enrich my professional knowledge by my reflecting upon the condition of the class, revise the lesson plan for the next section, and thus gradually transform to a logical and flexible teacher.