Written by Putri Kristimanta, PGR and Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Politics

When I first stepped into the first classroom I was supposed to teach, my body was tense, my palms were sweating, and my gut was nauseous. Building up my courage, I faced my students and started to talk shakily: “I am Putri. I came from Indonesia, and I will be your tutor for this term.” As they looked back at me with an intense stare, my anxious mind rushed into a spiral: What are they thinking? Do I sound incompetent? Is my English funny? I started with an icebreaker where everyone had to repeat three names they had heard. A few smiles and laughs spread through the room. My gut whispered, “Okay, they are cooperating. Maybe it’s not so bad.” I felt a huge sense of achievement after running four classes that day. I wanted to throw up, for sure, but I felt incredibly proud.

As an introvert who has never taught before and struggles with social anxiety, the idea of me teaching was, frankly, mental. I spent the first two years of my PhD battling mental health challenges. It was only after a long period of self-care that I felt ready to sign up as a Teaching Assistant (TA). I acknowledged that I was ready to learn something new for my personal development, even if it terrified me.

The Reality of the Seminar Room

Several weeks have flown by, and truthfully, I still feel like I might throw up every teaching day. I planned meticulously, writing slides and designing handouts. Yet the reality was often messy. I saw students who come unprepared, students who stare at their handouts and refuse to discuss anything with classmates, and the “dominant” students who fill the air with their own theories.

But the hardest part for me has been the awkward silence. When I asked a question and it was met with total stillness, I felt an urgent need to “feed” them ideas just to stop the quiet. I wanted to treat them as adults responsible for their own learning, but my own nerves often made me rush to fill the void.

I realised these struggles are not mine alone. I attended the workshop “Fostering Confident Classroom Interaction,” led by Richard Chinn from King’s College London. The atmosphere was immediately supportive. In our first task, we worked in groups to identify the issues and the causes in our specific contexts.

My colleagues shared familiar pains: low attendance in early morning slots, the struggle to balance lesson objectives with student needs, and the delicate balance of being appreciative of a dominant student without feeding their ego at the expense of others. We even discussed how to handle controversial topics in a way that remains fair and equal.

Learning the Language of Interaction

Richard introduced us to Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC), defined by Walsh (2013) as the ability of teachers and learners to use interaction as a tool for mediating and assisting learning. It puts interaction at the very centre of the teaching experience.

I realised I had been trapped in the IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) cycle. I would ask a “display question” (one where I already knew the answer), a student would give a short response, and I would say “Correct!” before moving on. This pattern limits engagement. Instead, Richard advocated for referential questions, which are open-ended prompts that encourage learners to express genuine opinions.

Most importantly for my “silence anxiety”, we discussed Wait Time. Allowing learners time to process a question leads to more thoughtful, deeper responses. I realised that by rushing to fill the silence, I was actually stealing my students’ “space for learning”.

Climbing the Mountain

A highlight of the session was applying Bloom’s Taxonomy to our seminar questions. It provided a ladder to move students from basic recall to complex creation:

• Remembering & Understanding: I used to stay here, asking students to list main arguments or summarise the author’s point.
  Analysing & Evaluating: Now, I was learning to ask, “Which parts of the argument depend on evidence vs. interpretation?” or “How convincing is this argument to you?”
• Creating: The “gold standard” where we ask students to combine different authors to construct an entirely new argument or redesign a study to address its limitations.

Using these verbs—appraise, contrast, formulate—has taught me to ask better questions.

The Art of the Closing

One of the most impactful strategies we discussed, which I am eager to implement, is the importance of student reflection at the end of a class. Often, we are so rushed to finish our content that we skip the conclusion, but the workshop materials highlight that providing moments for reflection strengthens retention and comprehension.

I learned that ending with a takeaway task—like a one-sentence summary or a question to think about—helps consolidate learning and signals the value of the session. Richard also introduced the metacognitive reflection stage, where students write down three takeaways and one question they still have. Sharing these ideas with a partner before giving feedback to the whole group is a powerful way to end.

I will be honest here: keeping the time limit is tough. It is so easy to let the main discussion run over. However, I realise now that this reflection is a “two-way” learning process. Not only does it help the students process the material, but it also gives me (the teacher) immediate feedback on what they actually understood.

The TA Toolkit

Richard and the handouts provided a “toolkit” of 22 strategies that I’ve started to memorise and reflect on. Here are a few that shifted my perspective:

• Nominating Students: I learned that “nominating” (calling on a student) isn’t “being mean” if done correctly. Randomly nominating students instead of going in a circle keeps the energy up, though we must be mindful of not forcing someone before they are ready.
• Low-Stakes Participation: Using anonymous polls or a shared Google Doc for questions allows my quieter students to contribute without the “spotlight”. I have never used this yet this is such a great idea.
• Clear Instructions: Richard gave us a great tip: keep instructions short and sequential. “Look at the board. Talk for 5 minutes. Prepare two points”. I realized I often added “unnecessary explanations” in the middle of a task, which just confused my students.

Final Reflections

I entered the workshop feeling like an incompetent TA who wanted to throw up. I left feeling like a more equipped one. The workshop taught me that teaching is a skill to be acquired, much like our PhD research. It is okay if a strategy does not work the first time; the key is to reflect on why and try again. To my fellow TAs who could not attend: it is okay to be nervous. It is okay to be an introvert. As Richard showed us, being “warm but bossy” and using the right interactional tools can turn that nauseous gut feeling into a sense of real, shared discovery with our students.

Downloads:

• Session Slides
• Handout 1
• Handout 2