My first teaching practice at UNICAES in the ACCESS program

                                                                                                               Friday, February 8th 2013

Hello everyone, I hope you be doing well with your practice.

My first teaching practice was on Friday, I taught a teenagers’ group of the ACCESS program. 

At the beginning of the class I felt very nervous because you know, it was the first time and I really wanted to do a great job. At the end, my performance was not the one that I expected because of my nerves, I was very, very nervous so I committed some grammatical and pronunciation mistakes; however, it was not that bad, it was just that it was not the way that I expected because I knew that I could have done it better.

In regard with my lesson plan, everything was very good and appropriate for the student’s level of English and for their likes; I used a song with a rap rhythm to teach grammar just like teacher Melendez taught us, I cut the lyrics into pieces so that students could pasted their part of the song on the board when they listened to it in the song. I also used some flashcards to get them speak during the warm-up and the worksheet for the controlled-practice had some pictures too; I think pictures always help students to understand better an activity and they also motivate them.

About the students:

I taught a group of 19 students, they are teenagers who are still in high-school, but they already speak English since this is their second year at the ACCESS program. I had a really good time with this group because they are smart, obedient, willing to participate and willing to learn; in addition, they respect you as a teacher and they also respect your class. My advice to you for this group is that you should include many speaking activities as well as TPR activities not only because they like them, but also because these activities help them to be more “awake” during the class.

About my feedback:

I received two feedbacks for this class, one from my tutor and the other one from the teacher of the group that I taught. The pieces of advice that both teachers gave me were tremendously helpful for me. I’m going to tell you the things that they liked and the things that they advised me to improve so that you can take advantage of my experience too. My tutor liked the lesson plan in general, he especially liked the song and the fact that I taught grammar with a song; he also liked the transitions that I did among the activities and that all the activities were perfectly matched with the objective.

The teacher and my tutor advised me to ask students to speak aloud in this way: “I’m sorry, what did you said?” and put my hand on my ear. This is because some students don’t speak aloud. They also advised me to use more CCQ and to do not speak while I’m writing on the board because this is as if I was talking to the board; this last comment was kind of funny for me, but that was what I did in first class and they told me that it is something that often happens to novice teachers.