Final
Reflection
As a requirement to graduate
from the major of Teaching and translation of English it is mandatory for the
students to accomplish several activities, and one of them is the professional
practice where the student has to complete several activities as it is the 60
hours of teaching practice at an educational institution. The student of this
project performed her teaching practice at a Bilingual elementary school close
to her town, in Paraíso of Cartago. The student was in charge of teaching one
group of first graders and to assist the mentor teacher with two groups of
second and third graders. After completing the 60 hours of teaching practice
and 60 hours of planning and designing materials here it is her final
reflection on what she learned from her weaknesses and strengths during
the professional teaching practice and
her experience and perspective of her teaching practice.
Something that is always
important is to reflect on what we did well or not well during a project, so we
as continuous learners can improve our performance on everything we decided to
accomplish. In this case, after I finish my teaching practice can reflect on my
performance as an elementary teacher or as a teacher in general and I noticed
some important aspects to improve as it is the time management, the classroom
management, the involvement with parents, and the use of most important
language strategy for ESL.
Regarding time management
sometimes it is difficult to calculate the specific time that an activity may
take because it all would depend on the students’ abilities, also it is
important to learned how to handle time when it is about designing materials,
if you do not have enough time to create your materials the activity may not
have the same impact. I noticed through this experience that sometimes I
planned activities that took more time that I had planned or took less time
that I thought and if you do not have back up activities it can be problematic.
I also noticed that I had great ideas for activities but it would took more materials
that the ones available and sometimes there was not enough time to create the
materials needed for those ideas, so some activities I just could not performed
because of that or the materials were poor so students does not appreciate the
activity in the same way. I learned through this the importance of planning
well the activities so students would have to work fast or get bored because
they finished earlier, by taking into consideration the students’ abilities
after observation them, such as the time the consume to color in or to cut out
or to glue, to write on their notebooks and so on, and always think of an
activity that can be your back up in case that they finish the lesson plan
earlier that you expect, I noticed once that it was very difficult for me to
improvise an activity for the students after they finish all the activities I
had planned. And the same at the time I
had to create materials, if you have a lesson plan full of activities that need
a lot of materials you should think about it more and change some of them so
you will not to do more than what you can, and also to see if the material you
plan for an activity is worthy and if the students will really take advantage
of it or it is just material to complement an activity ( which is not bad but
if you can preside from it, so it is not worthy).
I also noticed as a
weaknesses of mine the involvement with parents, students should write the
instructions of what we were about to do during the class otherwise parents
will think that the students did nothing and they would be able to study with
them. I learned the importance of let parents know what we did so I started
getting used to write the instructions or the topics that would be covered in
that lesson and tell students to write it on their notebooks. other weakness
that I noticed and I must correct is to use the target language all the time,
it means English, students are not used to speak in English so for teachers
sometimes it is easier to use the native language, but the idea is that they
get involve with the language so I should talked to them in English all the
times, and I noticed that sometimes students are lazy and they did not want to
pay enough attention so when I gave instructions in English they started saying
that they did understand so I would translate it for them instead of explained
it in a different way so they could get it.
But not everything was
wrong, I think I did well some other things. For me was very important to have
their trust and that they would not feel bad with me, so I open a space where
they could share with me whatever they wanted to share, I think this is important
specially of you are there in the middle of the year, or as I was (just for a
couple of weeks) and so on. I also noticed something from this experience that
I would like to keep doing and it is the individual attention, every day I
tried to see the individual students improvement, If they got stuck with
something try to explained to them the topic in a different way and verify at
the next day that they did understand in that other way.
At the beginning of my
teaching practice I was scared because I had never taught kids before, I did
not know how to explain grammar, at least they were students how could write
and read so it was an advantage, but still I was accustomed to another way of
explaining topics, specially grammar, so I was really scared of how to do it,
but once that I observed my mentor teacher and once that I give the first topic
I felt better, I now I can say that I was pretty good at it, and kids always
understood what I explained I prove that by verify that they were able to
complete the activities that require that previous knowledge.
One of my
expectations, or let’s say that one of my objectives, was to show to the
teacher and students that there are different ways to learn English, that it
can be fun and at the same time they would learned and apply it to the real
life, and that is something that I am proud of; every time the mentor teacher
told “what a nice activity”, every kids laugh, and every activity successfully complete and by
successful I mean that the purpose or objective was accomplish because the
students were able to apply their knowledge shows me what a great job I did,
that the strategies choose were accurately and that my activities were
effective.
Teach kids
is not easy, it is difficult to find the correct strategies and activities for
those strategies, it is difficult to find material according to their level
proficiency and it is not easy to manage time, especially when you have to also
give reports and assigned homework to the students, in a short time, while you
are teaching; but I have to be thankfull
for this opportunity because I learned so much form it, now I may say that I
need more experience to learn more but I am ready to start teaching, I know my
weaknesses and strengths and I need to keep work on it. Great 60 hours.
