Trying to Get Data

        Having reflected about my last class and accepted that something is not working, in my next class, I will try to get some information about my Ss I order to improve my classes. Since I have to teach my Ss about their likes and dislikes, I will take advantage of it. I will try to get as much information as possible about what they like or dislike I order to make use of their likes in my classes.

       I consider that if I include topics or things my Ss like, my Ss will be eager to participate in class and to be interesting in learning English. That’s why, in my next class, I will ask my Ss to write a very short paragraph about what they like and dislike; after that, I will ask my Ss to share their paragraphs with whole class. I think that while making use of this activity, I will have the opportunity to get the data I need to make a reflection on what to do next!

Reflecting about my Last Class

 Last Wednesday, I taught my Ss the numbers from zero to one-hundred. I’m pretty sure my Ss understood the lesson because at the end of the class I did an activity which proved me that they clearly understood the lesson. So there were many aspects that help me understood what’s cooking in class.

   

 First of all, I could reach all my objectives; my Ss learned everything I taught them even though everything in the class was going so fast since they have been studying English for many years. However, I also had to face some problem.

    For example, at the beginning of the class, I tried to make my Ss work in groups, but I couldn’t; they wanted to work with the same persons as they are used to.  So I would like to group them differently; that’s one of the things I would like to change in my classes and I also would like to encourage my Ss to participate in my classes.

     Second, in my class, I made use of photocopies which were very effective, my Ss try to use isolated words to communicate in English, and I tried not to speak to much and let my Ss to do it. I think that having done those things helped me to engage many of my Ss in the activities.

    

 Moreover, I developed many different activities with different types of materials, but I think the most interesting activity for my Ss was the dictation and writing activity, and the warm up was the least interesting one.

      So, I consider that I have to improve many things for the next class; for example, my directions were not so clear because I had to repeat them three times, I have to try to make all the activities I will develop to flow smoothly , and to provide more opportunities to my Ss to learn because I think that a good teacher is the one who cares about his or her Ss learning process, so the most important thing I will like to accomplish in every class is to make my Ss use meaningful English.

Some troubles I am facing at chool

        While doing teaching practice, most practitioners face different kind of problems like finding the right option to teach teenagers. Most practitioners find it very difficult to make their students participate in class and also to get respect from their students. For example, I have been having lots of problems while doing my teaching practice.

        To make my students participate in my class has been a pain my neck. Since I have thirty-five students and all of them are different, trying to find something in common they like to work with has been very difficult. Moreover, all my students behave differently, some are shy, others are easy going, and others are hard workers, but the only thing they have in common is that most of them are very active.

        Since I have understood that  making them work in activities that include lots of movements does not allow me to have a good classroom management, the only solution I have found lays in keeping my students busy finding the right materials, and maintaining tight discipline in the classroom, so that students would listen to me as I taught them.

       Because everybody faces different kind of situations in their teaching practice, we, as practitioners, must look for the suitable strategies or methods to make our students get interesting in our class. We also have to make you of reflective teaching to identify which are the problems we are facing and the possible solutions we can apply to improve our teaching.

    

A new view about Warm ups and Ice- breakers

     Even though Warm ups and Time Fillers are so effective to teach a class, I think they are not so effective with adolescents at schools. Since I am teaching in eight grade with 35 adolescents who are so active, I consider that bringing a warm up which includes lots of movements to a class is not a good idea because they make the teacher lose the control of the class. First of all, since my students are still adapted to the old traditionally system education, they are not used to have an active role in their own learning, so most of the time my students do not want to participate in class which makes my job little difficult; that’s why I decided to use Warm ups and Ice-breakers in my classes, but when I used a warm- up in my first class, students started talking, jumping, walking, and doing whatever they wanted. So, to get the control of the class after doing such activity was very difficult.

     Nowadays, I have found that having my students doing lots of thinking, reading, handing, or writing tasks makes my students being really involved in the learning process. So I have noticed that letting my students solve critical problems or tasks by themselves, makes them learn not only through their own discoveries but also with some help from me!!!