IV Journal

“If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.”

Here we are sharing our experiences once again.

I’m happy to know that my fourth experience in the level of Intermediate English has been very nice. I have nothing to complain about the group, neither the tutor teacher. To be sincere, I consider that everything went well in my fourth class even when I didn’t have the tape recorder when I started the class, but everything was fine during my fourth class.

During this special class we were studying the comparatives and I consider that the students were practicing this structure in the whole class. There were two activities that I really enjoyed and the students enjoyed too. The first activity was about a conversation that contained sentences with comparatives. I played the conversation once in order for the students to be familiarized with the conversation. Then, I asked the students to form three groups. I gave the students the conversation in slips of paper because they had to order the conversation as they were listening. I played it the second time so the students could check it. Then I played it the third time for the students to repeat it. After this, they discussed about the conversation. What I really like was that they new what was the conversation about since the first time I played it. The second activity was about a song. I asked the students to form to groups. I played the song “You gotta be”. The students had to make a list of the adjectives and the comparatives the song mentioned. It was a nice activity because the students were all involved and were very attentive to the song. I’m sure that if I had to teach this lesson again, I’d do these activities again.

As I said before, I considered everything went well in this week because I reached my objectives, and the most important part: all the students were involved in every single activity thank God.

This group has taught me that teaching requires patience and consistency.

Journal III

A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.  ~Author Unknown

Day after day I’m living the experience of learning from every student in my classroom. Every day God gives me the opportunity to see that we are in the classrooms not to say how things are, but to discover together.

My third experience was great; and I can say that things went very very well. I was happy at the end of the class because I felt satisfied with the work I had done and because I received good comments only. My experience in the third class was very nice. I liked the way in which students involved in every single activity because this made the class more interesting and at the same time they work together. After teaching during almost a year I have proved that to make students be involved in the activities depends on the strategies teachers choose for developing their activities. Of course that we are not always going to make the hundred per cent of students participate, but at least the major part of them will do it.

Something I really liked from my third class was the last activity we developed. Because we were talking about past actions and using the past continuous, we developed an activity in which students used this structure. The activity was about the description of a picture. The students were given a picture that they had to describe using the past continuous, but I asked the students to narrate the picture. While the narrator was saying what had happened, the rest of the students had to dramatize the action. The narrator started the activity saying for example “yesterday morning I was walking around the park when I say John riding his horse…” The student that had taken the role of John had to do the action and so on. This was a very interesting and funny activity, but the most important thing was to observe how the students used the structure we were studying.

There are many things that I would do again if I had to teach the same lesson, but I have to keep in mind that as a teacher, I had to adapt the activities according to the students’ necessities. I will never stop learning from my students and my tutors teachers because every day is a new opportunity to learn new things from every person we meet.

Journal II, Second Class

“Every day is a new opportunity for gaining new experiences in the teaching field for the rest of our lives.”

This was my second experience of teaching at Intermediate English I and I consider that things went much better than the previous week.

There were many things that went well during my second class. Actually I can say that practically all things went well. The warm up activity was very interesting because all the students were participating and were practicing the grammar structure they had studied the previous week. I consider that is better if warm-ups activities are connected with the previous topic students have studied or the topic the teacher is going to develop in the class because in this way we help our students to practice what they have learned previously and we also introduce them to the new topic they are going to study.

The activities we developed all through the class went well. There was a particular activity in which the students had to choose a famous person and think about some questions they would like to ask these people if they were alive. Some of these famous people were for example Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, Celia Cruz, etc. It was very interesting to observe how the students formulated the sentences using the simple past tense. One of the students for example, said that if Albert Einstein were alive, he would like to ask him why he invented the relativity theory. The students made interesting questions, and the best of all was that they were using the correct structure.

I know that there are many things I still need to improve, but I feel satisfied with the work I’ve done until this day. I know that I still have to look for a way to make all the students get involved in every single activity. I know they have problems with this aspect, but I will try to do all I can to help them to improve these aspects. At the end I will help not only my students, but myself too.

Journal I, Second period

Every day is a nice chance to learn all the new things that life bring to us through different experiences.

This was my first week at Intermediate English I, and I consider that I began my new challenge for this period. I like my new group because I was with them last semester; however this group presented me the greatest challenge for me during my practicum. I started to think about the strategies I will use in order to make all the students to speak because they do not like to speak and this makes more difficult my class.

There are many things that went well during my first class. The warm up activity for example was very appropriate for the topic students were developing during the previous classes.

Another thing that went well too was the classroom management because I asked the students to work in pairs, in groups, and I also asked them to develop a face to face reading. As there is not a perfect teacher, neither a perfect lesson plan, my first class was not perfect and I had to face some situations that made my first class not so good. Something that was hard for me was the grammar part. I received some comments about this part not because I couldn’t explain, but because according to my tutor teacher we have to look for a way in which students speak more than the teacher in grammar explanation. Of course that this is not an easy task, but I will try. I know that my second class will be better than this class, but I am happy to know that I got a new experience today.

Next period

What will bring us the next period???

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