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Teaching Practicum... Journal III (August 12, 2010)

To learn how to teach is something that takes time. Honestly we say that we teach, but have we learned how to teach indeed?
We need to learn to teach in order to be able to teach others because we never know how we influence the people we teach to.
This was my Third class with Technical English I and until this point I can say that I am happy to know that being in that group has been a nice experience for me and I have nothing to complain about.


To teach English for future Kindergarden teachers was a nice challenge for me. At first I thought that it was going to be hard because I was going to work with a Whole group of girls. There was not a single boy in this group and this made think that these girls were going to be pickier or something similar, but what I didn't know was that in certain aspects it is better to work with girls only.
I really enjoyed every class since the first class and I felt very confident and comfortable since the very beginning of this period. Things went well during my third class thank God. 


*The warm up activity went well, but I have to remember that we have to use the appropriate vocabulary according to the level we are in. We were playing the category game and I asked the students to say the name of any fruit, but some of them didn't know any name, so next time I will consider the vocabulary I have to use.


*The activities went well too. The students worked individually, in pairs, in trios and in groups of 5. I consider that this helps the students to interact each others and to practice the language in a better way. Something related to all the activities we developed is that as a teacher I have to check the pronunciation of certain complicated words in order to avoid making mistakes when teaching the words to the students.


*Finally I want to highlight the importance of making the students to repeat the words, or expressions as much as they can because this will help them to remember the correct pronunciation. Something very important that I want to comment too is the fact of asking the students to pay attention to the teacher or their peers while they are speaking when necessary. Sometimes we do not ask the students to keep silence and this affect our activities because when someone interrupts the class it is harder for others to concentrate on the tasks.


I am gratreful with my tutor teacher for making me observations to improve my classes. Thank to my tutor teacher I have learned important things during my Teaching Practicum.

"A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. " 

Teaching Practicum... Journal II (August 3rd)

Here we are sharing our experiences once again!

This was my second week at Technical English I. And thank God, this week was better than the first one. I consider that things went better because I tried to follow my tutor’s directions and observations. I know that teaching English at any level is a challenge and sometimes we face serious problems, but the rewards of this are better than we imagine because we grow in knowledge and in experience.

I want to share some of the things that went well this week.

• 
  
  Conversation practice was an activity that went well during the class. The girls practiced the conversation at the same time that they were performing it. Something very important when performing conversations is the fact of having the objects the conversations mention for example because this makes the conversation much more real and interesting.
  
• 
  
  Another activity that went well too was an activity in which the students had to write the plural of some nouns using the demonstrative pronouns. I could prove how important is the fact of correcting errors at the moment the students are working because in this way we help our students to do things in the correct way. Otherwise our students are going to think that things are correct in the way they do it.
  
  
• Finally I want to point out the importance of checking out our material before using it. I made some mistakes when I prepared my material and I didn’t check it before printing it. I didn’t notice that I had written the word ADRESS with 3 letters S (ADRESSS) until a student noticed it. So next time I will remember to check things twice or thrice before printing them.
  
  I want to continue doing the things that went well and to change those ones that didn’t work. : )
  

“In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.” ~Jacques Barzun