Teaching practicum II: Adolescents

 

Teaching practicum II has been an amazing experience due to the fact that, it comes from a short group to a big one, so my classmates and I had a big opportunity to teach in an environment real like class because there were more than 15 students; moreover, there were some important moments occurred during this process that help me to develop myself as a teacher. Besides, there were many comments from the observer teachers that guided me to improve my weaknesses because every time I had to teach I took all those aspects into account in order to overcome them; therefore teaching practicum II allowed me to experience how to become a teacher.

 

At the beginning of this practice I experienced a soft way of teaching because it was a short group of students and I found the way to manage them. They participated and behaved well during the classes. However, almost at the end of practice I had a new experience due to the fact that my group was joined with another group of teens which represented a great challenge for me because by then the student group was bigger than the other one and I had to be prepared to guide them in the learning process. Thus, when I taught my first class, I noticed that this group needed more monitoring, and motivation in the way of eliciting them to use the L2 (Second Language) as a tool to communicate among them and with the teacher.

 

Moreover, there were three important moments occurred during this teaching practicum. The first one was in my second teaching practicum class because the observer teachers told me that in general all was right because I developed my lesson plan in the way that each activity allowed students to be ready for the next one, and also I let them practice and produce by themselves. Second one was in one class before the last one when I was presenting vocabulary of natural places from El Salvador. I could notice that all the students knew about them, which made the class interesting for them because they were very active during the whole class, so that at the production stage they were able to talk about their favorite natural place. And the last one was in my last class in the production part when I asked them to draw the places from their hometown, it was really funny and helpful because they drew not only places they had studied but also places they already know like drug store, tortillas factory, and so on. At the end when I asked them to describe it in pairs they did it correctly.

 

As I said at the beginning, there were many comments from the observer teachers that guided me to improve my weaknesses because every time I had to teach I took all those aspects into account in order to overcome them. Thus, to improve them I had to find new strategies and make those strategies part of my classes. Therefore, each class represented for me a big challenge to improve. It was not really easy because not all the classes ended as I expected, but practice makes better teachers.

 

All in all, this teaching practicum II was full of surprises in which as teachers we learned from the beginning how to become better teacher putting into practice our knowledge helping others learning a second language. Personally it gave me the opportunity to receive feedback from observer teachers which was really helpful because I had to find the way to improve and they could witness my improvements in every class. Consequently, there were special moments which I appreciate because it let me feel in the right way and love my profession.

BE NEGATIVE LESSON PLAN

Hello everyone, I would like to share with you one more amazing teaching experience. Every time I have to prepare a new class I had a big chance to become a better teacher because I can improve my weaknesses, so I am glad for the feedback that my classmates and observer teachers gave me at the end of each teaching practice because it guided me to do the things in a better way. I hope you really learn somethingout of my faults and conquests just as I did. I have experienced that when you teach not all the things come out as you expect. However, it does not mean all is lost because as you know practice makes perfect.

 

Of course there are some things that I still have to improve like for example: give shorter and clearer instructions, correct some pronunciation mistakes, avoid helping students during the production stage and elicit students to speak in English instead of Spanish.

 

The objective for this class was: Students will be able to describe Salvadorian famous people’s jobs by using be affirmative and negative sentences.

The grammar focus for this class was “Be (negative)”. The lesson began with a warm-up in which students were divided into teams, and then they had to run to find a correct picture about famous people when the teacher asked. After that they were requested to say an affirmative sentence. Ss seemed they had internalized the vocabulary very well as the grammar part “Be affirmative” which they had studied in the previous class, so it did not present a big challenge for them.

Ss were presented a chart with some “Be affirmative” sentences in order to let them remember and internalize that grammar part studied in the previous class and help them get ready for the “Be (negative)” form. I tried to explain them be (negative) form through the display of each part of the structure of it on the board with different colored papers. It was really helpful for the students because they easily understood how to applythe “Be (negative)” form into sentences.

In the practice students were given a worksheet with a chart and some sentences which they had to unscramble some words to make sentences (looking at the chart for information). And while I was monitoring them I could notice that they were able to do it because they were working individually, and at the moment they were asked to share their answer with the whole class they did it without any problem.

In the production part I asked students to write three sentences: two false sentences and one true about Salvadoran famous people using be affirmative. It was a big challenge because even I had presented my examples, they told me they were not really familiar with many Salvadoran famous people, so I let them write about the famous people presented as vocabulary in the first part of the lesson. Consequently, at the end when the observer teachers gave me the feedback they told me I could have presented a list of Salvadoran famous people. All in all, it was helpful for students because when they were asked to work in pairs they tried to correct the sentences by using either “Be affirmative” or “Be (negative)”. They did it!

As I said at the beginning in this lesson I had a big chance to improve my mistakes, let me tell you that I did a better job by giving shorter and clearer instructions, I tried to correct my pronunciation mistakes, I tried not to intervene students during the production, because in that stage they have to put in practice by their own what they have learned from the lesson. And every time they asked me something I encourage them to try to find the way to say it in English. Nonetheless, it is still a big challenge because when they have a question they say it but in Spanish.Hence, finding the way to make students communicate using the L2 (Second Language) is my next challenge.