I gained experience as a substitute teacher at the IMAC school in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Lesson 1 (8.5 / 10)

Goal - Vocabulary, speaking (Talk about places in the city.)

Students - 2 students, level 1B

Feedback - You used the board well, helped with pronunciation, and pointed out US/UK differences – all strong foundations for low‑level learners. The main area for growth is concept checking: instead of accepting translation, you learned to elicit local examples (bookstores in Guadalajara) and use pictures or simple definitions. This shift turned your already supportive teaching into a more precise, student‑centred approach.

Lesson 2 (8.5 / 10)

Goal - Speaking (Use words to talk about travelling.)

Students - 2 students, level 2C

Feedback - Your timing was excellent, you prepared extra material, and the speaking objective was clearly met. You recognised that your discourse (e.g., “Where should tourists go?”) was too complex for A2 learners, so you simplified to “What do you recommend?” You also learned to use the board as a visual backup when eliciting tricky words like “guest” and “host” – a practical skill that made your instructions clearer.

Lesson 3 (8.5 / 10)

Goal - Vocabulary (Discuss scientific facts.)

Students - 2 students, level 4D

Feedback - Not provided; class abandoned after 20 minutes as I had been given the incorrect syllabus information.

Lesson 4 (8.0 / 10)

Goal - Listening, vocabulary, speaking (Offer and accept food and drink.)

Students - 5 students, level 1D

Feedback - Your timing was excellent, you prepared extra material, and the speaking objective was clearly met. You recognised that your discourse (e.g., “Where should tourists go?”) was too complex for A2 learners, so you simplified to “What do you recommend?” You also learned to use the board as a visual backup when eliciting tricky words like “guest” and “host” – a practical skill that made your instructions clearer.

Lesson 5 (8.5 / 10)

Goal - Speaking (Plan a new neighbourhood for a city.)

Students - 3 students, level 1B

Feedback - You helped with pronunciation, highlighted US/UK differences, and drilled useful phrases effectively. The key weakness was too much teacher talk and incomplete planning (anticipated problems missing). You learned to break instructions into tiny steps, write them on the board, and use clear examples – changes that directly reduced confusion for your true beginners.

Lesson 6 (9.6 / 10)

Goal - Grammar (“going to”), speaking (Make plans for the weekend.)

Students - 5 students, level 1D

Feedback - You presented and drilled grammar clearly, involved a very shy student (Marcel), and students successfully created their own examples in the final speaking activity. The only miss was skipping one exercise due to time, but your focus on depth over breadth paid off. This lesson earned a 9.6 – the highest mark – and showed how you turned earlier feedback (contextualise, check understanding, involve weaker learners) into confident, effective teaching.

Lesson 7 (8.5/10)

Goal - Listening lesson

Students - 3 students, level 1D

Feedback - Good overall class. Successful at getting the students to use the target vocabulary correctly. Need to exploit the lead-in more and contextualise the vocabulary for the students.

Lesson 8 (8.5/10)

Goal - Listening, speaking, reading (phrasal verbs)

Students - 6 students, level 6A

Feedback - You faced a difficult situation: late‑comers who were also weaker students. You brought them into the conversation, put examples on the board, and later gave catch‑up handouts – all sensible strategies. Pair work was good. The main growth area: have a clearer routine for late arrivals. Briefly say where the class is, give a silent catch‑up task, or accept that some content will be missed. Also concept‑check instructions by asking “can you give an example?” rather than just having students repeat the book.

Lesson 9 (9/10)

Goal - Reading

Students - 10 students, level 3D

Feedback - Your material selection was excellent: challenging but not too hard, with different sub‑skills practiced. You got through the whole lesson well under time pressure, and instructions were clearer – you used the board and concept checked.

It would have been better to explicitly tell students when an activity has multiple correct answers (use of different placing connectors). You also missed a chance to bring the lesson full circle – the final writing task (a personal story about a risk) could have linked back to your lead‑in discussion.

Lesson 10 (9/10)

Goal - Vocabulary

Students - 6 students, level 2A

Feedback - You ran a genuinely student‑centred lesson with excellent time management. You modelled instructions, elicited various examples, and handled self‑correction well. Students were engaged. Two clear areas for next time: remember to drill pronunciation of target vocabulary. Also, project your voice more authoritatively when students decide to start speaking over you. Call their names and ask for attention – you have the power in the room.

Peer Observation Lesson(ungraded)

Goal - Reading lesson

Students - 5 students, level 6A

Feedback - Good lead-in. Good presence in the classroom. Good use of realia to get students engaged in the topic.

These classes were delivered online to students from Iran and Ukraine via Zoom.

LESSON 1

Goal: Reading and speaking

Students: 7 students, upper intermediate level

Feedback: You built strong rapport and gave very clear instructions, making students feel supported throughout. The main area for growth was keeping task setups concise and avoiding unnecessary explanations – a skill you developed quickly, leading to smoother transitions in later lessons.

LESSON 2

Goal: Listening

Students: 7 students, upper intermediate level

Feedback: Your warm lead‑in and purposeful use of breakout rooms created genuine communicative practice. You learned to reduce teacher talk and let students process transcripts independently before explaining – a change that made your feedback more efficient and student‑centred.

LESSON 3

Goal: Vocabulary and reading

Students: 8 students, upper intermediate level

Feedback: You set up tasks clearly and managed breakout rooms with good awareness of student responses. The key lesson was moving from explaining vocabulary directly to eliciting meaning with CCQs and focusing on depth over quantity – a shift that greatly improved your language teaching.

LESSON 4

Goal: Grammar – used to vs would

Students: 7 students, upper intermediate level

Feedback: Your personalised story made grammar engaging, and you clarified the target language accurately with learner input. You identified the need to give students more personal response opportunities – and by the next lessons, your follow‑up tasks had clearer communicative outcomes.

LESSON 5

Goal: Reading

Students: 8 students, pre-intermediate level

Feedback: Your natural interaction and well‑sequenced reading tasks showed strong classroom management. The main weakness – confirming answers without text‑based evidence – was quickly addressed, and you began asking students to justify their answers, deepening their comprehension.

LESSON 6

Goal: Vocabulary

Students: 8 students, pre-intermediate level

Feedback: Your test‑teach‑test structure and task cycles (individual → pair → group) were highly effective. You learned to vary interactions by recreating breakout rooms and to give delayed error correction – turning freer practice into a richer learning opportunity.

LESSON 7

Goal: Reading

Students: 5 students, pre-intermediate level

Feedback: Your timing and platform management were excellent, and you helped students produce both written and spoken responses. You recognised the need to grade language more carefully (avoiding idioms like “How did you get on?”) and to provide written models – refinements that made your instructions consistently clear.

LESSON 8

Goal: Grammar – uses of “like”

Students: 8 students, pre-intermediate level

Feedback: Your test‑teach‑test sequence and concept‑checking questions were precise and effective. The one area for improvement – exploiting the lead‑in to generate more interest in the topic – was a minor point in an otherwise strong, enjoyable lesson that concluded your teaching practice on a high note.

Irina is a pre-intermediate student from Moscow who wants to improve English for the purpose of travel. She was not interested in grammar lessons.

The classes were very conversation centric, and we did roughly a dozen weekly lessons.

The conversations were based on audios from the BBC “6 minute English” series. This material was not only a focus of the weekly lesson, but could then be listened to afterwards to reinforce relevant vocabulary.

After a couple of months, based on the recordings of our conversations, I used AI to isolate her most frequent errors (grammar structures and fixed phrases, and the most important vocabulary).

Based on this, I used AI to write and record a story to reinforce these patterns. Irina was very happy with the result.

Tanya was a beginner student from Moscow who wanted to improve her English for travel.

She had an extremely tight schedule and did not want to waste time on anything that was not conversation based.

We discussed different movies, and also looked at various beginner level bilingual texts.

‍After half a dozen lessons I gave her very condensed feedback relating to her top three mistakes: omitting “to” and “do not” with verbs; not using there is / there are, and understanding the difference between countable and uncountable nouns.

Johanna is a native Spanish speaker from Colombia, who has recently moved to Canada.

She is a long time conversation exchange partner, but in this case her primary goal was to improve her mark on the CELPIP language test, in particular the reading section.

We spent several hours reviewing exam technique strategy, forcing her to learn how to skim read effectively and to scan for keywords in the text. This immediately made a difference in terms of being able to complete the tasks on time.

On the speaking section, I was able to offer feedback on language she was not using properly (“there is / there are); a defect which made her spoken English sound a lot more basic than I knew it to be.