Autobiography
Hello, my names is Edith del Pilar Magaña and I am 21 years old. My mother's name is Edith Esperanza de Magaña and she is from San Salvador and my father's name is Mario Arnoldo Magaña he is from Ahuachapan. I was born in 1991 in San Salvador, ES and I have live my entire life in Soyapango, in the department of San Salvador. I started studying in kindergarten since I was three years old. After high school, in 2009 I started studying tourism at Don Bosco University; but in 2010 I change carreer and decided to study an English teaching degree, and right now I am in the senior year taking the Teaching Practicum II subject .
Goals and achievements
After having the experience of teaching English to children, it was kind of challenging to think about what was going to be teaching English to adolescents, that is why at the beginig of this period I wrote an objective for the subject of Teaching Practicum II; so I could have an idea of what I wanted to reach and develop not just in my knowledge about teaching adolescents, but also in how to becmoe a teacher who can think in students' needs. So here is my objective:
- By the end of this period I want to be able to handle an adolescents' class and be able to manage the time, topics, and different activities suitable for them by studying their interests, ways of discipline, students' needs at that age and topics of big relevance; so they could use the target language to communicate.
Based on my teaching experience during these months, I could say that I have reached only the 70% of my objective in terms of classroom management, developing of topics, and awareness students' interests; however I expect to reach and complete it in a 100% at the end of this period.
The had experience in the teaching field
Here are some of the different experiences that I had in Teaching Practicum II through these last weeks, while teaching EFL to a group of 8 adolescents at Don Bosco University.
First class
Class date: March 8th, 2013
Topic: "Saying hello, greetings, and goodbyes"
In the first class I was very anxious to meet my new students and give for the first time the English class. What I wanted to do was to give a good first impression and try to develop in a succesful way the topic of the class.
The topic that I had to teach was about greetings, and as you can see in the picture I had to planned an atractive way so students could understand the diferent greetings and the appropiate moment to use them. What I did was to start asking them about their previous knowledge and then teach them the greetings that they did not know while matching them with a picture and time, and also I tried to have them practice a dialogue in pairs using the new vocabulary.
What I should not have done was at the moment of presenting them a dialogue I did not have neither the planning nor the original dialogue with me, so I had to rewrite a new one on the board; but this was a problem for my students and me since I was not sure how to write a good dialogue in a few minutes. Now I know that not having the necessary materials with you can give you some problems at the moment of teaching trough context.
Second class
Class date: March 15th, 2013
Topic: "After school and names"
The second class was a little bit more overwhelming, since it was the first class that I had to teach by competencies. The first skill that I taught was listening, with the topic after school and names. What I wanted to do was to have succes in my first Enlgish class with teens teaching with skills.
What I did was to present a chart with the alphabet and ask students to say it in English so I could know if they knew the alphabet already. After having them saying the alphabet, I played a recording so they could repeat after each letter. then I gave them some sheets with pictures so they could listen to the recording; however I could not find the track so I decided to spells the names. Finally I had all students practicing a dialogue in trios.
What I should have not donde was to ask all students to say the alphabet aloud, because in that way I could not figure it out who were the ones that knew it already. What I should have done was to ask the alphababet one by one so I could check students' previous knowledge. Then, what I should have done was to check and listen the CD in advanced so I could be sure of the numbers of the tracks that I was going to use. Moreover, in relation to the way that how students were sitting I should have put their desks closer to me for a better control, and also for them to listen in a better way the recording.
Third class
Class date: March 22nd, 2013
Topic: "Teachers and friends, and favorite stars"
In the third class I had to teach about favorite stars, and the skill to be developed was writing. I wanted to teach my students in an easy and fast way two writing strategies for building a six line paragraph. First, what I did was to paste a picture of a famous star on the board for brainstorming about it and have students to think about different things about that person. Then, I tried to theach them in an indirect way how to use the ideas from the brainstorming and put them in a paragraph in a coherent and conected way. After that, I encourage them to write about their favorite star in an interactive and fun way. Finally, because of the time I had to put the production stage as a homework.
What I should have done in the first place was to think a better way for having students write a succesful brainstorming stage. Besides, what I should not have done was to spend too much time in the activity 2 that was about answering some questions which I noticed were a little bit confused for them, so at the end I could have enough time to develop the production stage so students could share their work in an interesting way.
Fourth class
Class date: April 5th, 2013
Topic: "Birthdays and E-pals"
In the fourth class I had to teach about e-plas, and the skill to be developed was reading. I wanted to teach my students some reading strategies, so they could look for specific details. Moreover, I wanted my students to recognize the new vocabulary words from the reading by matching them with some pictures.
After that what I did was to have them fill some charts with some information about the reading and also I checked the answers together with them. Finally, I gave them some pictures from the reading and I asked them to make trios and talk about what they could remember about the information of that person based on the reading. I had planned a good lesson acording to my professor Yanira, which I develop in a better way in relation to the last ones. I really enjoy teaching this lesson!
What I should not have done was to spend too much time in the reading part, since I was trying to teach them some reading strategies to look for specific information it was supposed that they did not have to spend too much time reading each word at a time. So, what I should have done was to make clearer instructions and be sure that they understood.
Here are some of the different experiences that I had in Teaching Practicum II through these last weeks, while teaching EFL to a group of 8 adolescents at Don Bosco University.
First class
Class date: March 8th, 2013
Topic: "Saying hello, greetings, and goodbyes"
In the first class I was very anxious to meet my new students and give for the first time the English class. What I wanted to do was to give a good first impression and try to develop in a succesful way the topic of the class.
The topic that I had to teach was about greetings, and as you can see in the picture I had to planned an atractive way so students could understand the diferent greetings and the appropiate moment to use them. What I did was to start asking them about their previous knowledge and then teach them the greetings that they did not know while matching them with a picture and time, and also I tried to have them practice a dialogue in pairs using the new vocabulary.
What I should not have done was at the moment of presenting them a dialogue I did not have neither the planning nor the original dialogue with me, so I had to rewrite a new one on the board; but this was a problem for my students and me since I was not sure how to write a good dialogue in a few minutes. Now I know that not having the necessary materials with you can give you some problems at the moment of teaching trough context.
Second class
Class date: March 15th, 2013
Topic: "After school and names"
What I did was to present a chart with the alphabet and ask students to say it in English so I could know if they knew the alphabet already. After having them saying the alphabet, I played a recording so they could repeat after each letter. then I gave them some sheets with pictures so they could listen to the recording; however I could not find the track so I decided to spells the names. Finally I had all students practicing a dialogue in trios.
What I should have not donde was to ask all students to say the alphabet aloud, because in that way I could not figure it out who were the ones that knew it already. What I should have done was to ask the alphababet one by one so I could check students' previous knowledge. Then, what I should have done was to check and listen the CD in advanced so I could be sure of the numbers of the tracks that I was going to use. Moreover, in relation to the way that how students were sitting I should have put their desks closer to me for a better control, and also for them to listen in a better way the recording.
Third class
Class date: March 22nd, 2013
Topic: "Teachers and friends, and favorite stars"
In the third class I had to teach about favorite stars, and the skill to be developed was writing. I wanted to teach my students in an easy and fast way two writing strategies for building a six line paragraph. First, what I did was to paste a picture of a famous star on the board for brainstorming about it and have students to think about different things about that person. Then, I tried to theach them in an indirect way how to use the ideas from the brainstorming and put them in a paragraph in a coherent and conected way. After that, I encourage them to write about their favorite star in an interactive and fun way. Finally, because of the time I had to put the production stage as a homework.What I should have done in the first place was to think a better way for having students write a succesful brainstorming stage. Besides, what I should not have done was to spend too much time in the activity 2 that was about answering some questions which I noticed were a little bit confused for them, so at the end I could have enough time to develop the production stage so students could share their work in an interesting way.
Fourth class
Class date: April 5th, 2013
Topic: "Birthdays and E-pals"
In the fourth class I had to teach about e-plas, and the skill to be developed was reading. I wanted to teach my students some reading strategies, so they could look for specific details. Moreover, I wanted my students to recognize the new vocabulary words from the reading by matching them with some pictures.
After that what I did was to have them fill some charts with some information about the reading and also I checked the answers together with them. Finally, I gave them some pictures from the reading and I asked them to make trios and talk about what they could remember about the information of that person based on the reading. I had planned a good lesson acording to my professor Yanira, which I develop in a better way in relation to the last ones. I really enjoy teaching this lesson!
What I should not have done was to spend too much time in the reading part, since I was trying to teach them some reading strategies to look for specific information it was supposed that they did not have to spend too much time reading each word at a time. So, what I should have done was to make clearer instructions and be sure that they understood.
Hi Pilar. I was just reading your entry about the first class you taght about greetings. I can see that your difficulty (As you pointed out) was that you did not have the material for the activities. It made you improvise the content of the actitity. This, indeed could hinder the development of your task. In my opinion, nevertheless, I would say that improvisation comes in an effective way when a teacher is very experienced. It is due to the fact that teachers earn better ways of improvisation trough time.
ResponderEliminarAs a personal experience, I can agree with you Pilar. I, myself, have run out of materials or even have a total lack of them. Since I am alaso a beggening teacher, improvisation does not come very effective for me.
I would say that a good piece of advice that every beggining teacher should follow is to have a pla "B." This might work as an anticipation of any problem that one or the students might have. In this way, a beggening teacher won't improvise, but follow a prepared plan for a needed sitiuation.
What do you think about this Pilar? Do you consider plan B's a effective tool (Eventhough it would be hard to have a second plan for every task we plan)?
Hello Josue. Well, you are right when it comes the experience that every teacher has, and we as beginners should look for and learn different options and ways of how to deal with this type of situations. Regarding your question, let me tell you that I do consider that a plan B could be an effective tool when designing and planning our lesson. Since, we cannot predict the different bad situations that we could face this tool (plan B) could help us in an effective way.
ResponderEliminarPilar, I would like to comment on an important factor about your classes. Indeed, it can be seen in your blog’s pictures that you use very well design materials. In fact, materials can have a good effect on students at the moment they are doing an activity. More, materials and decoration can motivate students to be in the class. It is due to the fact that they call students’ attention. Nevertheless, it can come to one’s mind how to create good materials with an educational system that offers a high quantity of students, but a low deal of materials. Further, another controversy is that the teaching field is not well paid in our country. Besides, many materials can be recycled; yet, they might not last very long (This depends on many factors, which are not discussed in here). In consequence, material usage comes in a low deal in our context.
ResponderEliminarAll these facts make me want to find out an effective way to work with nice materials in our medium. Then the question, what is your opinion about this matter?