Dr. t. lee
Extracurricular Clubs/Activities
Learning doesn’t stop when the bell rings or when a lesson plan or unit ends. As a TLG volunteer, I wanted to make a difference at my school by facilitating afterschool activities that would help the entire school learn English in a fun and engaging way.
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Extracurricular Activities: Connections to Teaching Philosophy |
· I founded the Tbilisi Oral History Civic Education Club which was the school’s first free, after school club (the majority of “clubs” in Georgian public schools require students to pay to enter and the facilitators pay school administrators fees to use the site).
o The purpose of the club was to build students’ awareness of the concepts of democracy and the responsibilities of global citizenship. In addition, students would have extensive experience with reading, writing, listening to, and speaking English via the development of several oral history projects that would include interviewing local civic leaders.
· This club was open to all students and upper grade English speakers were the target audience.
o I spent one week visiting upper level classrooms, explaining the club purpose to students, and inviting them to attend.
· Our first meeting had one teacher in attendance and two students.
o Unfortunately, schedule changes implemented by TLG restricted the Tbilisi Oral History Civic Education Club to meeting once.
o However, the development and implementation of the first free extracurricular club was significant and warrants its mention and inclusion in this portfolio even though it was not permitted to fully blossom (see Figure 10 for the first meeting’s PowerPoint).
· Many of the students I spoke to who planned to attend the second meeting were disappointed to learn that the club had been disbanded.
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Figure 10. The Tbilisi Oral History Civic Education Club Introduction Meeting PowerPoint.
· Following TLG’s cancellation of the student club, an intensive after school whole staff conversational English class was started to give teaching professionals in all subjects experience with speaking natural English.
· The Conversational English for Teaching Professional Session One and Session Two PowerPoints are included here to demonstrate the types of activities the teachers participated in during the sessions (see Figure 11).
· The teacher classes met for one month for a total of 8 hours of intensive, practical application of conversational English.
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Figure 11. Conversational English for Teaching Professionals session one and session two PowerPoints.
My extracurricular activities emphasized components 1-7 of my Teaching Philosophy. The teacher and student centered extracurricular activities demonstrate my commitment to increasing the practical application of English skills via the use of games, fun, and social interaction to increase language competency.