My first entry of the second period!!

Hello friends!! Today, I started my second period in the teaching practicum, and I want to tell you about my experience with the students of Advanced English I. Since some days ago, I had been very nervous because I had to teach advanced students and I did not know them either the teacher. I tried to control myself, but the most I tried the worst I was. When I observed the class, I saw that the class was pretty big and the students were very noisy; for that reason, I got more nervous. So I tried to study a lot in order to teach my class and to be well prepared for it.

At the beginning, I was nervous, but since I started the class, I felt better and more comfortable. The warm up was quite short and it did not have to do anything with the topic; I did it for the students to relax and have fun. My tutor told me that the warm up was nice and that she has never seen it before. Later on, I taught grammar and to tell the truth, I was anxious for teaching it because I was really prepared for doing so, and I organized well my class. Also, my tutor told me that she has liked my explanation.

After teaching grammar, I let the students practice on it by doing some exercises in which they worked really well, I was happy because most of them have understood the topic. I tried to monitor the students in order to check if they were working; though the teacher told me that I usually did it in the left part of the group, <> so next time I will do it in both parts.

Something that really helped me was that I managed well the topic, so when the students asked something, I was able to answer them. Something that I have to change is my voice in certain moments; though my tutor told me that I have a good voice, she also told that it would be a good idea to change the intonation sometimes in order to get the students’ attention when they’re speaking a lot. =)

4th entry!!!

Today, I want to share the experience of my last class in the first period of teaching in the Intensive Intermediate English I. It was a hard class because the teacher told me to prepare the grammar notes and to develop all the activities I could because she had little time to complete the unit, so I had to teach the grammar notes in an understandable and attractive way, but at the same time in a fast way. Thanks God, the students got easily the ideas and I was asking them to create some sentences for knowing if they had really understood.

During the activities, I tried to apply the CCQ which was very successful because I noticed that the students were understanding me, and also some of them were able to speak in order to explain others what they had to do in each activity. Moreover, the teacher told me that the CCQ was a good idea because students paid more attention when I was explaining the directions.

I liked this class because I had to study the topic, which was a little tricky to understand, and looked for more information in order to further enrich my knowledge. I think teachers must be well prepared in order to answer the students’ possible questions about the topics. In some extent, I tried to push the students to work fast and to make some activities orally for them to have more practice with the new topic.

In general, I liked this class because students were working hard, and they have understood the topic. Besides, I had more confidence and I felt sure about what I was teaching.

3rd entry!!

Hello friends!!

Now I want to share my teaching experience in the third class of this period. It was such a nice class with lots of activities. During this class, I tried to include the different learning styles such as bodily-kinesthetic, visual, tactile and audio because I have noticed that not all of them like to work in the same learning style so I have to think in my students´ learning process by applying a variety of activities for them to learn and develop their English skills.

Moreover, I tried to find the best pictures in magazines in order to bring them to the class for the students to describe them and to be part of those pictures. Students had to choose one picture, but they wanted to choose more than one, and also the teacher told that the pictures were amazing.

In one activity, I asked students to review the previous topics by doing mimics and creating sentences with each tense. Besides, I let them to made group work, pair work, and individual work. Also, I encourage them to use their own thoughts toward the activities.

For this class, I did not have to prepare so many activities by myself because all of them were already prepared. But I tried to include my own creativity though I think I still have to work on it because I know I can do it better. Also, I have to work on pronunciation because two students mispronounce some words and I did not correct them; for that reason, I have to pay more attention when students are pronouncing.

Something that I want to share is that now I feel better when I am teaching than in the previous semester because I have a little more self-confidence. Besides, my tutor told me that she has notice that I have more communication with the students, and that made me feel good because I know that I am improving my teaching abilities.