Group report secondary level
- 1. Group Report Secondary Level – 4th year To start with this, I have to recognize that I did not have experience in secondary level. Teenagers have always presented a challenging and difficult teaching experience, so when I started my practicum period I was quite scared about the teens’ reaction to my classes. However, I was not acquainted with the set of stages to follow and an adequate set of teaching strategies that I could apply into my classes. According to Harmer in his book ‘The Practice of English Language Teaching’ (2001) the teenagers are constantly seek their individual identity, and this “provides the key challenge for this age group”. They consider really important the peers acceptance and approval, and in many cases, they pay more attention to that to the teacher. Also and according to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, teenagers of 12 years old correspond to the Formal Operational stage, so here, they are capable of thinking and reasoning about hypothetical situations and they could analyze abstract thoughts. In addition to, this last is related to moral reasoning. The teenagers are changing constantly, their emotions and attitudes are very variable, so sometimes they are unpredictable. That is why, I wanted to present a topic that they called their attention and felt motivated to learn as they are: movies. I tried to develop different varied activities to engage them and taking advantage that it was a group of 30 children, I could develop different games. My experience was really rich and I enjoyed a lot. In spite of I had not experienced with teenagers, they adapted to my classes, making easy to carry and enjoyable. At the beginning was quite scared, but when the time goes pass I felt comfortable and quiet that they were learning. All in all, they were a great group, respectful and hard workers. They really enjoyed the English classes. So I had not behavior difficulties in the classroom, only there was a boy who looked like a ‘leader’ and in many occasions made jokes or comments about the topics to their partners laughed, but this was managed through personalized attention, by making him take a more active role and asked if they have queries. And good behavior was reinforced using good marks or
- 2. comments to motivate them. I am really happy to do my practicum period with this group.