Final reflection initial practicum
- 1. INSTITUTO DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE CONTINUA LENGUAS VIVAS BARILOCHE (A-052) Profesorado de Inglés – Opción pedagógica a distancia. Subject: taller de práctica docente Tutor's name: Aurelia Velázquez Student'sname: Nadia Aguirrezabala Assignment title: Final reflection
- 2. My first experience on the initial level I always thought that this period of the course would be the easiest, that my previous experience would facilitate me everything. One of the times that I went to sit for the final exams I had the opportunity of talking to some of the students that were doing the subject and they told me that it was more difficult than the rest, that it takes a lot of time, that the teacher was really demanding. At first I felt scared, but then I thought that I had to live my own experience, I had to do my best and to wait for that moment. In March, when all the documents were at the platform and I started to read them, I could not understand anything; everything was so confused, I did not know what I had to do first, there were a lot of schedules and papers and information to acquire. When I finally could organize my head, the school where I was going to start the practicum was closed for problems on the building. On the first interview, the school director had a horrible attitude towards me, which made me feel sad, angry and made me think that it would be a difficult process. I was certainly desperate and after that, things started to get worse. The school had many problems, not only on the building but managerial too. After almost two months of waiting I finally could began with the observation period and everything started to get better; the older director took time off from work and a new director assumed. I saw the sun after the storm in which I thought I would be lost in. The observation period The observation was fine, children didn`t know me, so the teacher had introduced me and explained children what I was doing there. They were all the time looking at me and girls were always around, observing everything I did; it was a little uncomfortable at first, but finally I became part of the classroom. Children are very warm, they are expressing love all the time and the second time they saw me, they run to me and hugged me; it was a little rare, since I`m not a warm person and I don`t like to hug people or to be hugged. They made me know my sensitive side and I started enjoying those hugs. The practice period The topic that I had to prepare was “family” which made things a little more complicated; the families of these times are not the ones that we find on books. Furthermore, the children that go to that school are not in the best economic and social situation, of course the most of them do not have a “perfect” family with parents that love each other and are all the day smiling; their situation is much more different from that.
- 3. The practice period at the initial level was a big challenge for me since I never had taught little children. At the time of planning the activities I had many difficulties, I had to look for a lot of pictures, games, songs and everything was new for me. What is more, I always have worked at secondary school, and the situation there is really different as well as I used to work with text books. In the preparation period I could not organize my ideas until a day before the lesson, I prepared the materials, practiced the lesson plan and thought about the faces of children while I was talking; I was terrified, although I knew them and they knew me, I was still nervous. The first day There were only seven students from a group of twenty; the lesson was going good, but I felt that I had to read it all the time for not omitting any part. Even when I have practiced the songs hours and hours, when I had to sing them I forget the lyrics; I wanted to die, it was a really embarrassing situation. In a moment, the teacher in charge of the class was in my back all the time, she took very seriously the task of recording me; it was very uncomfortable to have her on my back with the tablet on my face. The second and last day It took me more time to prepare the lesson, I had to prepare the thimbles to make puppets, to learn another song and I also had to start preparing the journal. All in all, I think that the lesson was better than the first one; I felt more confident and more relaxing of being in front of the class. There were twelve students, five more than the first class. We make a review and continue with the topic. While the lesson was going on, many people got in to the classroom, teachers and students. I was using the English classroom, so some of the students from other grades left their things there and were all the time getting in; that situation made me feel nervous, but anyway I tried to calm down and to continue. I think that students may continue working on “family” since two lessons are not enough to acquire so many vocabulary, what is more, they do not know writing and reading, so it is more difficult for them to remember it. I would like to have more time to make the period practice, I mean, to prepare more classes, to start before, in the second or the third grade of the course in order to develop our teaching process. There are many things that I would like to improve if I had the chance of doing this period again, such as introducing
- 4. more strategies to the teaching process, to have more contact with children, to prepare more games, to learn more songs among many others. However, I have learned many things that go further than acquiring strategies to organize a lesson. I have learned the importance of taking a breath, the importance of waiting and to be patient, to let the things happen and not to force anything, I learned to calm down and to listen to the teachers` advices, I learned about the human warmth and how nice is when someone helps you, and how sad is when someone wants that you to fail. I felt really supported by Aure and Silvina, they were all the time there to answer whatever I needed to know and calming me down when things were locked. I am satisfied with my performance, I know that I could do things better, but anyway; it was my first experience with children and I think I did it well. Although I enjoyed this experience and I would like that it least a little more, I do not want to work at initial level. I love teaching, but I am not as patient as I would like to be, I prefer to work with adult people. I am happy since I took a lot of things from this experience, I`m stronger now; even if I do not want to work at the initial level, I consider myself ready to teach children, of course I have to learn more things, but I can do it, I`m sure of that.