Future English Teacher! :)

domingo, 18 de octubre de 2015

                                      Penzu Reflection  
 
            I enjoy all the classes at Santo Tomás School. However, I think that the class that I enjoy most was the last one. At that class, I realized not only how much I learned about young learners, but also how fruitful was this experience. My partner, Gala Tamagni, and I organized every class with love and dedication as if we were the teachers in charge.  We made our best to teach our little students in ways that match their learning styles. We learned by heart all their names, all their songs as well as all their routines in order to make them feel secure in our classes. Children acquire best through play, so we prepared enjoyable games and activities, so as to practice the target language all the time. In addition, we made little presents for them in order to thank not only the headmistress and the teacher, but also our little students. All our efforts were reflected in that last class! :)
           One of the greatest challenges that we have to face was the unexpected things. Usually, the children got easily distracted since they really loved chatting, so when some of the groups started to talk with each other, most of students lost their attention, in consequence, in some occasions, we had to stop the class and told the students to pay attention to their teacher. In order to avoid this problem, we had to maintain them entertained and motivated with the class, making them all participate in the activities. In this way, when we planned our classes, therefore, we needed to bear in mind the need for qualities such as flexibility and variety.           Generally, the little students behaved in an excellent way, but some days, they behaved so badly that we had to find all the ways to control them. Sometimes, we asked them to change places and sit somewhere else. Other times, we identified the uncooperative pupil that caused distraction and we asked him to be “today’s helper”. In addition, we tried to create an English environment all the time, making English the classroom language as well as the language to be learnt. Speaking English for the majority of the time, together with the material we created, listening and videos, we tried to constantly expose the children to how English sounds and what it feels like.
             To sum up, I can say that this experience was one of the best experiences of my life. I learned so much about everything. This adventure help myself to know that teaching is what I want to do! :)