Second Week of Teaching

This week things were different for me. I was feeling more confident and comfortable with the process. During the week I helped the teacher with all her requests. At the beginning of each class she usually get close and say: “Today I am going to teach these and that…would you like to do it?” And I don’t lose any opportunity, of course. She has been very helpful so far, and every time I asked her to let me teach with my own activity she just says “Go ahead”. This week, I was also able to redeem myself with last week’s 3^rd grade. I brought a huge poster of a house that I hardly drew myself. The house was empty. It had just the name of each part of the house. I started the lesson by telling them what we were going to do first, then I gave them the instructions step by step; some of them even required translation. After they were finally gathered in groups, I gave them a piece of paper where they had to draw all the corresponding items inside the part of the house that I assigned to them. I was monitoring the groups during the process while the teacher was just observing and taking pictures. At the end, each group came to the front of the class, pasted the drawing, and explained to the rest of their classmates. The activity was I huge success to me because it reached its purpose, and I was finally able to manage them, however, there still were some weaknesses. My tone of voice is too soft, so I had to make a painful effort to speak lauder. Then, kids took too long gathering in groups and were very noisy in the process. The teacher gave me the tip to count until three to gain their attention. I also had to translate some of the instructions because some told me: “Teacher, no entiendo”. Finally, each group supposed to present the drawing and explained to the rest of the class, but all of them were on the board waiting for their turn to paste the draw. Anyway, the important thing is that each told me what they draw, and some of them even walk the extra mile by drawing pets and family members on the house, which were the previous topics taught. I really enjoyed teaching this time. 

 

My First Teaching Experience

During this first week the teacher assigned me to help her to introduce food vocabulary to 1^st and 2^nd grade and parts of the house vocabulary to 3^rd grade. My very first experience was with 3rd grade, and I was so freaking nervous! I didn´t expect to be that nervous, but I believe that my biggest fear was not being able to manage kids behavior. So, on 3^rd grade I presented some parts of the house with a big poster that the teacher gave me. I just had to explain the name of each part of the house and what do we do on each of them. For example: This is the bedroom, there is where we sleep on our beds. I used a lot of mime and different examples to be as clear as possible, but it was hard to make them pay attention. They were very distracted. I think that they were not paying attention because they didn´t see me as a figure of authority as they see their current teacher. So, I continue anyway and after the explanation they had to work on the book identifying some house items like the table, t.v, refrigerator, toilet, etc. I was monitoring their work, but many of them didn´t understand what they had to do, so I had to helped them.

Even though my 1^st experience wasn´t as successful as I expected, I learned a lot from it. 

This same week, but on other day I was ready to teach food to 2^nd grade. I brought my own flashcards, and I presented them in the same order as in the book. For each item that I presented they had to color the one in the book. When I asked them “What is this?” they answered in Spanish on the first flashcards, but then they started giving me the right answer on the next ones. I was surprised, but then I realized that they were just repeating the word from the flashcard. That was how I learned that maybe is not such a good idea to write the word on the front of the flashcard. Anyway, it was fun and after we cover all the items that the teacher needed I draw on the board one column of likes and other of dislikes, then, they came to one by one to draw one food item that they like and other that they dislike. After this activity I asked them to repeat with me the name of each item, and they did a very good job. The teacher was surprised because they behaved very well, and also all of them were willing to participate in the activity. She said that they were one of the most difficult groups to manage because they never stay on their places, so I am planning a very dynamic activity to reinforce this topic on next class.       

1st Week as a Teacher´s Assistant

My 1^st week as the teacher´s assistance was very interesting because I had the change to interact with the kids. I checked their work and I gave them some positive reinforcement. All of them were very curious about my visit and asked me a lot of questions about who I am and what am I doing at their class. It was fun to help the teacher and to get to know the kids a little bit more. The teacher showed me how to introduce a song on 1^st grade and it was so cute to watch them. The song was to review the family member’s topic. She began by writing the key words on the board, then, she started singing the song acapella while the kids tried to follow her, finally, she played the song and at that point kids were already able to sing along. On 2^nd grade we start to learn some new words related to food. Kids had to draw on one column the types of food that they like and in other column the ones that they don´t. This activity was very successful. On 3^rd grade she started teaching the parts of the house. All the exercises were on the book. I noticed that some kids like to work on the book,some others don´t, and a few more just didn´t bring the book. In general, during this week a learned a lot from the teacher, kids, and school´s dynamics.

Second Week of Observations

During my second week of observations I wasn´t nervous anymore, kids are fun and interesting to work with. So this time around I focused more on the kids instead of the teacher. Topics reviewed for that week were feelings, family activities, and occupations. Many kids didn´t know their parent’s occupations and the teacher and I have to guess a lot of them. Even though the activities and the materials that teacher presented were very appealing, most kids were misbehaving or not paying attention. The teacher told me that every group is like a person, this means that each has its own personality, and I found this comment very assertive. Each group is different, some groups are harder to manage, and activities that work well in one group might not be useful or interesting for other group. Since I was observing, I noticed some bullying among students even in this very early stage. I also realized that sometimes the teacher is not able to see what is happening with some students. Maybe this is because groups are too big. Also, a lot of students walk around the class and the teacher spends a lot of time trying to make them sit in their places. After every class, the teacher told me some of the “issues” that some students have. For example, that there is one with an Asperger Syndrome and a few with ADHD or other psychological issues because of their problems at home. So, I took notice of these kids and I realized that is true that some of them require attention, but some others are just kids that like to play around, or simply have different learning styles. For example, on the 2^nd grade that I watched kids are very kinesthetic, therefore, they need more active activities because they can´t be on their sits for too long and they only pay attention for a very short period of time. Since my personal point of view, nowadays, kids and people in general are labeled with many psychological disorders that were invented by our society just to medicate them and have control over their behavior. But, like I said before, this is just my personal opinion, so to handle the situation what I would do is to come up with very interactive activities were they can be allow to move around.   

Just to support my previous statement I would like you to watch this video from the following link: Etiquetas psiquiátricas de transtornos inventados

First Week of Observations

On my first day doing observations I had the chance to observe 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd grade, which are the levels that were assigned to me. I was very nervous because I didn´t know what to expect. I was really intrigued about how the teacher handles kinds’ behavior, so the first lessons were enlightening for me because I found out some techniques to do it. I was paying close attention on how the teacher delivered instructions, and I notice that she follows the same structure at all lessons, so the kids are used to these patterns. For example, she starts every lesson asking them to put everything away and clear their desks to make them focus on what she is going to say. After this, she starts with the date and then work on a warm up and introduces the topic. At the end of the class they have to clean their desks again. She also draws instructions on the board step by step. For example: 1. Open book on page 40 (and she draws a book with the page number on it). 2. Draw (and she draw a pencil). Kids are already familiar with this structure, so they always understand what they have to do right away. Then, I also notice how she asks them to sit or to be quiet. She counts until three or threat them by telling them that their break will be shorter. All these little tips are going to be very useful for me since I don´t have a clue on how to work with little kids.

Some of the topics reviewed during that week were feelings and family members. I realized that lessons are mainly focused on drawings, posters, and flash cards. Every activity is always represented with an image. Since they are still learning to write, most activities are about drawing, coloring, identifying, matching, and repeating.