Questions for reflection
- 1. Observation N°1 by Estela Question for reflection: Your class was great, yet you should try to overcome your shyness. What could you do to improve this? Breathing exercises may help. Did you feel very nervous at being observed? How can we help you? As I noticed I was feeling overwhelmed between my practicum and doing some subjects from 4th year, I decided to quit those subjects to fully concentrate in preparing and giving my lessons which made me feel less anxious in general. I did feel extremely nervous being observed and I always feel that way when I'm being evaluated, but also I felt nervous because of my inexperience in giving lessons and very low self-esteem (I really thought I could never stand in front of a class). But as the lessons went by, I felt more and more comfortable with the class and although, I made mistakes each lesson, I corrected them the next one. Observation N°2 by Joana Question for reflection: You mentioned when you finished your lesson that you did not like the activities that you had prepared. Now that you have already taught the lesson, what changed would you make? Do you think that students reached the objectives that you had established? Why/why not? During this class, almost at the end, I realized that the last activity was too complex as there were verbs students didn’t know, and as we lost the first 10 minutes of the class because the kids were coming from the Phys Ed. Class and Juan didn’t come to the classroom right on time, I got too nervous because I couldn’t explained all the verbs so students could complete the activity. At the beginning of the practicum, each lesson, I wanted do all the activities I had planned, but then I learned that sometimes I had to adapt the lesson plan according to external factors or if I miscalculated the time an activity would take students to complete. Also during that class, I lost time checking one by one the activities instead of correcting them on the board. Students reached most of the objectives I had established but they couldn’t finish the last activity. At the beginning of the next class we completed the activity all together on the board, I presented the new vocabulary with flashcards and explained the modal verb can/can’t with examples.