Snapshot of my teaching practice
- Abilities
I created lots of worksheets for my students in order to practice what I taught. Also, I made a variety of charts for me to use them while I was teaching... Here I show you some of the material I used during my teaching practice...
- Attitudes
The first day that I was in the classroom just observing, the students were asking what I was doing there because I was a completely strange for them... When I introduce myself in front of the whole class they felt comfortable because now they knew that I was the new English Teacher in the School.
- Rapport with Children
I think all my students considered me as another friend in the classroom because I always played with them. Also, they respected me as a the English Teacher I was.
- Classroom atmosphere
Inside the classroom, I found a lot of material to the children such as color pens, paper, finger paint, pencils, scissors, etc. Also, the desks were arranged in a way that the children could pay attention to the teacher.
Furthermore, the classroom was decorated with a variety of pictures, with the numbers, the vowels, the ABC, and more.
- Grouping
I consider group work as an important class activity because it guides the learners to work together, but when you are working with very young people you cannot use group work because the children may star a fight and then the activity will be a mess.
In teaching very young people, I preferred using individual work instead of using group work even though they were arranged together in their little tables.
How can I adapt my own style of teaching to accommodate to the needs and motivations of young learners?
According to the areas mentioned above, the one I consider I have to improve is GROUPING because you as teacher let the students to participate or to work actively among them and then they have to express the idea's group and the rest of the group could support themselves.
My own short- and long-term goals as an ELT practitioner
- To not to be afraid when talking in front of a class even if they are very young, teenagers or adults.
- To be patient when explaining what the students have to do at the moment of developing an activity.
- To be more active when teaching a class in order to motive the students to participate during the class or in an activity.
I recommend you this websites where you could find a lot of downloadable material, such as flashcards, songs and their lyrics, etc. which could help you when teaching.
- American English, a website for Teachers and Learners of English as a Foreign Language
-Bluebloc Notes
By Alex Mezquita
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SNAPSHOTS OF MY KINDER PRACTICUM
*RAPORT
Actually I could achieve a very good rapport with all the kids since the first days at the kinder. I think it is because I am like a little kid. Nevertheless, at the moment of teaching I changed from being just another kid there to become their teacher.
ABILITIES
At the moment of preparing the classes, I faced a challenge "How to bring activities to the class that makes the kids feel like learning and also to catch their attention."
I tried a lot of things like telling stories, songs, make them dance and most of them worked well.
Songs like the wheels of the truck and dingo the dog were very useful at the moment of the class.
ATTITUDES
I am not going to lie, the idea of going to a kindergarten and teach was not that fascinating for me. At first sight, it seemed to be easy but handle a class with 44 kids was not easy.But I said to myself "What do I really want? Just a grade? or the satisfaction of having planted that seed in the children minds of the English." I did the best I could, and it was just a matter of changed my mind and focus on what I wanted.
CLASSROOM ATMOSPHERE
The classroom atmosphere is one of the most important things a the moment of teaching because if the children feel comfortable in the classroom the experience of learning will be better. I tried to follow some of the tips that the book teaching to very young learners gave.
*I tried to put as many things o the walls as I could.
* At the moment of develop an activity like coloring I gave the kids some crayons and left aside some other crayons in case they wanted more colors but i put the crayons in boxes and jars for them to know where to find what in where.
*And finally there is this one thing that I really liked. that the desks were arranged in a way that there was always space at the front and in the middle of the classroom to perform and walk in the classroom.
GROUPING
Grouping was a bad idea if it was not coloring in my case because they were too many kids and the time was not enough. I had a bad experience while trying to carry out this if I wanted them to do something in groups. Nevertheless, their desks were arranged in groups.
How can I adapt my own style of teaching to accommodate to the needs and motivations of young learners?
Well, everyone has different abilities and points of views. I think that I have to bring to classes things that I'm good at . in my case I know how to play some musical instruments and it would help with the classroom atmosphere and to create a better rapport with the kids.
Nevertheless, there are things that I have to work on like my patience, also learn how to handle classes with big groups because it is a big challenge.
My own short- and long-term goals as an ELT practitioner:
Well some of my short term goals as an ELT practitioner are
* To learn how to left aside that feeling that i get when I'm in front of a class because the students expect that we handle the language and topics as the palm of our hands , and we are simple human beings and we make mistakes.
* Improve my interpersonal skills for when the moment of teaching huge groups of students that a process of creating boundaries be easier.
* Keep studying and learning more about the language, and about teaching people in subjects like Didactics of the English Language.
As a long term goal, the principal is to finish all my practices in every stage successfully.
Some material I found on the Internet and may help you is the following:
If you are a kindergarten practitioner this might be as useful as it was for me.
* A list of nursery rhymes
In this page, you will find a lot of sheets for coloring.
Here is a podcast of an exercise about a conversation.
by FRANCISCO RAMON
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Snapshot of my teaching practice
Abilities
The first time that I went to the school, some of the children were happier than others when they knew that I was there to teach them English and when they realized that they were
good at learning some words in English, they became more interested in learning and also, they could play and learn at the same time and that made the process of learning more easier. That made easier everything because I knew that I had to motivate children to learn and I think I did it because in the end they were using most of the words that I taught them and they were thankful for that.
Attitudes
As we know, children like to play a lot and they easily get distracted with other students or toys, so the first week was kind of difficult for me to get their attention but then I tried to learn from them and I changed some activities to make them more attractive for the children. After that change, in my second week they started to participate more and I started to rewarded them with recognizing their work in front of other students.
Rapport
From the first day I went to the school and met the children, most of the them created a good relationship with me and the fact that they showed interested in learning English was helpful at the moment of teaching. Kids are very lovely, especially girls, but I was surprised that some boys change in a positive way their behavior and wanted to learn more.
Classroom atmosphere
Like in most of the classrooms of kindergarten, the walls were decorated with pictures related to the topics that they have seen and with some of their worksheets to recognized their work in front of all the students. I used to leave them my materials in the wall for them to remember during the week, what they had learned with me. Also, I arrange the desks in order to they behave better and learn more.
Use of grouping
In the beginning, I did some group activities, but I realized that was a really bad idea because children tend to talk a lot when they are with their classmates, so I started to think about how I was going to make them word. I understood that they work better alone. Of course, this was not all the time, but they work better individually. I developed some activities in order to them could learn and enjoy, I realize that they loved to paint.
*How can I adapt my own style of teaching to accommodate to the needs and motivations of young learners?
I think that I´m good at decorating the material that I´m going to use my the class, this helps to catch students attention and also, I tried to be confident with my little students. But something I need to improve is how to manage some situations that disturb the class, because not all the children behave the same way and you can't treat them like would treat a younger student.
- Explain your short- and long-term goals as an ELT practitioner and how you plan to reach them.
One of my short-term goals as an ELT was to create a bond with my students and teach them most of the basic things. Also, to have a teacher's attitude because I couldn't ask them to pay attention in a polite way, or to speak too loud while I was teaching, but I did it.
About my long-term goals as an ELT, I could say that I was expecting to have a high final grade, to learn how to teach and be more confident. I expected to enjoy my teaching practice and I did it, too.
By Wendy Estrada
