Journal II ....last period

Being a good teacher is something that takes time. Teaching is not theory, but practice. This was my second class in the group of Intermediate English I and I think that many things went well during the second class and these things helped me to feel good and at the same time those things made my students to practice grammar structures too.

During my second class I taught grammar again. I know that to teach grammar is something not so easy, but I have nothing to complain about because even when teaching grammar is difficult, a teacher has to do his/her best by trying different strategies when teaching this part of the lesson. I have been using different ways to teach grammar and I considered that they have worked until this day. The topic was about prepositions of place and I had to explain the uses of three basic prepositions of place and a huge list of other prepositions. In order to make this part interesting, I prepared the prepositions of place, the explanation, and the example in slips of paper. I asked the students to help me to read the uses and to stick the examples, but I did something else. I selected a part of the board for the students to write their original examples. This helped them to understand better. After this activity, the following part was to read or to explain the other list of about 30 or 40 prepositions of place. What I did was that I told the students that they were going to develop the other part of grammar. I divided the students in four groups and I gave them a piece of paper, a list of 10 prepositions, and an envelope containing the meanings of the prepositions of place. With this material they had to create their own chart with prepositions of place, meaning and original example. This was an interesting activity because all of the students were very concentrated in what they were doing and all of them were very involved in the class. After 10 or 15 minutes I gave them the opportunity to use their handout. They didn’t notice that what they were doing was in their handout. This was a nice experience. The students worked together. They worked by themselves. They read what they did, and I was there to help them to construct their own knowledge. We applied constructivism and I consider it really worked. This was a very nice class. The tutor teacher was happy to see how the students worked and she was glad to see that even the shy students were very involved in the class.

Sometimes we don’t want to teach grammar, but I guess it’s time to look for new strategies and challenge our students to learn by themselves. We are in the classroom just as a guide for our students. This is our job, to make our students learn by themselves.

Journal I last period

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

Being in Intermediate English  I has been a nice experience to me because I have had the experience to teach different levels and I have confirmed that every level requires a different attention and it also requires different ways to apply strategies according to the students and according to the activity that the teacher is going to develop.

During my first class I had the opportunity to start the lesson plan and of course I had to teach grammar. I can say that during this first class, almost all things have gone well. Objectives have been reached, activities have worked, the classroom management and the rapport have been good, and many other things have worked well. The warm up activity was an activity that the students enjoyed very much. Also the grammar part was not too difficult. The students helped me to develop the grammar part. I gave them the uses and the examples in slips of paper and they helped me to explain and to give the examples too.

Even though many things went well during the first class, there is something that I consider students and teachers still need to improve regarding with time. Sometimes it is very hard to start the class with few students and this group has the peculiar characteristic of coming late to the class. However, I consider they will improve this aspect in order to benefit themselves. What really makes me feel happy is that through these experiences I grow as a teacher and these things help me to see what my responsibilities are as a teacher. I know that what I have to do is my best no matter what things I can face in the classroom because there will always be a sun behind the darkest cloud.