Last Journal Third Period

“Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.” 

Teaching has been a challenge for me every single day during this semester even when there are many things related to grammar structures or classroom management that as a student and as a former teacher I already know. Teaching will always be a challenge for me because one never knows when the students are going to be in the mood to learn. However, as a teacher is important to remember that we have to be ready to face whatever thing that may occur during the class and of course a teacher must do his/her best always.

This was my last class teaching at Intermediate English I, and I can say that there were many things that I learned from this level. One of the important things that I learned during this period was that it is important to establish a good relationship with the students because one never knows if one is going to meet with the same group again. I learned that is very important to establish a good rapport because when students feel confidence to ask and clarify their doubts they learn more.

I consider that I was a lucky girl because I had to teach grammar since my first class until the last one. I learned something really important. We don’t have to complain about teaching grammar, we have to look new ways to teach it. This last class I tried to teach grammar in a new different way. This time I had to teach adverbs of manner. There were about 10 rules, so I decided to prepare the rules with their examples. I prepared some cards with numbers from 1 to 8; the students had to explain the rule corresponding to the number of card they had chosen. I gave the students 5 minutes to read and understand the rule and to create their own example using the adverbs of manner of their rule. After the 5 minutes, the students passed to the front. They explained the rules, made the changes to the adverbs, and finally they wrote their own example. It was a nice experience because they were very focused on their task. They considered this activity very interesting and they said that they understood better.

I thank God because even when teaching to groups that come late to class, or groups that don’t like to participate is very hard, I have had good experience and I have gotten good results.

After a whole year of teaching practicum, I feel very satisfied with the work I have done and I feel happy to know that teaching is a process that never stops and that I will never do things perfectly; however, I know that every class I teach is a new chance to improve all those things that I have done wrong. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to learn new things trough this teaching experience.

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”

Journal III, Third Period

After teaching my third class to the group of Intermediate English I, I consider that there are many things that I have improved and there are many things that have gone well till this day. I know that many things have gone well in the class; however, there are many other things that need to be improved as a teacher.

Thank God the objectives have been understood by the students and I consider that we have reached the objectives in every class. Today’s objective was about identifying the Present Perfect Tense. I didn’t know that the special gift for me during the last period of the teaching practicum was to teach grammar only. I have learned something important in this last period; a teacher doesn’t have to look for excuses for teaching grammar, but for a way to teach grammar differently.

After the warm up activity, I used a song for presenting the topic. The song was “Have you ever seen the rain?” the students had to order the slips of sentences to form the song. They all were involved. After forming the song they had the chance to sing together, and I consider that this was part they engaged and enjoyed the most because they like to sing.

As my previous classes, I had to teach grammar again, but have been using different ways for teaching grammar. In this occasion, the students were the responsible to create the grammar explanation. I provided them with the material, and they only had to stick the material on the board. It was really nice to see how the students create their own explanation. After doing this, they had to write some examples. The examples were in some envelopes. They only had to order the words to form sentences and they did it very well. The last part was about creating their own examples based on the explanation and using the verbs I provided them. By doing this, the student demonstrated me that they had understood the topic.

This was very important because all of them were involved in the activity, they enjoyed the activity and the most important aspect was the fact of practicing the language. I know that for teachers is not so easy to have all the students participating in every single activity, but I think that teachers must use strategies to make all the students participate in the activities.

This issue has not been easy for me, but I consider that what has helped me is the fact of showing confidence and enthusiasm when giving instructions. If the teacher doesn’t show enthusiasm, students won’t show enthusiasm either. Enthusiasm is a very important part of teaching.

After this class I have realized that there is a single thing that I will continue doing because this aspect will always help me in my teaching career no matter what level I teach. What I want to continue doing is keeping the enthusiasm in the class because this will help me as teacher to encourage myself to do things that I don’t like and enthusiasm will also help me to encourage my students to feel confident and to do things no matter if they make mistakes or not.

I have to remember that “The truth teacher is the one that teaches from the bottom of his/her heart.”