“My Teaching Practice Logbook”
Name: Daniela Fernanda Cárdenas Godoy School: Felmer Niklitschek School Date: September 29th, 2015.
August 19th 20th, 2015 This was the first week that I went to school. I was introduced on Friday the previous week and then, on Tuesday we arranged my schedule at school. I was very excited because I studied in this school, and coming back to Felmer Niklitschek it like going back home. This week we just fix every hour at school and met some courses. I felt nervous but really enthusiastic thus I will meet the teenagers that I will be working with. I th th first met the 11 grades, the three of them. 11 grade “A” was working on a T.V
program presentation. They were presenting their works and I remember they were at a very good level, not only for the English language but also the organization and creativity. Regarding the other courses, they were working on a “technical fair” related to the creation of minicompanies and projects. The only thing that I could do in that week was being a monitor in the class and solves their doubts or questions regarding what they were working. I could observe how they worked and how much they knew about English language. Moreover, I couldn't observe so much how my guide teacher developed her classes because they were just presentations and monitored work classes.
August 24th 27th, 2015 This was the second week at school. In these days I could observe a little bit more how was my guide teacher’s performance and also the students behavior in class. I could see how the students worked, their level of English, their behavior, etc. I also realized that in every class there were more than fortyfive students and it was a bit complicated in some courses to keep the silence the entire hour, meanwhile I was observing I saw the strategies my teacher used to keep the silence and what she did to keep the order of the class. So I learnt something new. Concerning my own performance and contribution to the class it wasn’t so big, I didn’t do much because there were more courses presenting works and the other ones had tests or quizzes. So, I just observed and observed.
st August 31 to September 3rd, 2015
In this third week, I did my first class. I was quite nervous because I hadn’t done any class with anyone and I didn’t feel as prepared as I had to be. Moreover I had to start a new unit called “Voluntary work” and I wasn’t secure if the students will feel comfortable to work with someone that they have seen just a couple of times. Instead of being nervous, I showed myself very confident and secure of what I was teaching. I entered to the class, I waited for them to be quiet and then I start my lesson. I think my performance at that first stage was good, they showed respect and treated me as another teacher, not just as the practitioner. While I was developing my classes they were asking some questions and I was the facilitator they needed. The students felt the confidence to ask me and I was proud of it. In the activate part, the students created their own company of voluntary work and work very good. They formed groups and I could achieve my lesson aim. I monitored the class to help the students every time they needed. Although I wasn’t sure at the beginning of the lesson of how would it be to work with them it was a great first class, I could get the selfconfidence that I wanted to reach my objective and to get on well with my students.
th th September 7 10 , 2015
This fourth week was a little bit shorter because I went to teaching practice just three days. We had to attend a seminar at the university, so I missed the classes of Thursday th 10 . In this week I did my second class, it was a little disturbed because the grade th which I will be working with was a 7 grade and my guide teacher is the head teacher of
it; she used some time to talk about some discipline aspects of the grade. Although I had a lesson prepared for the two pedagogical hours, I could do just 20 minutes of the class. My guide teacher ran out of time and she left me just 20 minutes to teach. Besides the students were very talkative and hyperventilate. I started the class and I showed a powerpoint presentation, every time a revealed a photo or picture of some place they start to talk. I needed to be stronger to keep them in quiet and start to talk louder and louder every time, it was difficult to hear their opinions and their questions because of the noise. I tried not to talk when they were talking as a technique to maintain the silence but if I didn’t talk to them, they would talk and shout all the class, so I noticed that I had to use different strategies in different grades. Instead of the noise, there were and are some students that know and participate a lot, they can make complete sentences and give their opinions easily.
September 14th 17th, 2015 In this week I worked a little more. I planned more and I did more classes. On Monday, I th worked with the 11 grade and my guide teacher wrote down some ideas to give me feedback. In that case I did a grammar class because my students are a bit used to the structures and formulas. So, I prepared a class of “Zero and First conditional” to teach the uses and the differences between them. I did a presentation and added mainly pictures for them to do the class and practice the differences. Later on, my guide teacher gave me feedback about it. She told me about what I did well and what should I improve. That day I learnt that I had to be stronger with the discipline because they know how disrespectful is to talk when somebody does. In the same week I worked with th an 8 grade with “Superlatives”. I liked that topic thus you can do lots of activities. To start with, I did a collective reading comprehension about the “Record Guinness”. After that I presented some pictures and I contrasted the topic with the “Comparatives” that they had seen before. My students worked very well, they liked the topic, the pictures and they participated actively. It was a good week because I could learn new strategies and interact more with my students.
th September 21th 24 , 2015
th This sixth week was my first supervision. I was nervous but anxious to be with the 9 grade. That is an excellent course; the only problem was that I hadn’t worked with it and although I was excited of my supervision, I was terribly worried about what would happen. Moreover I was worried because the topic wasn’t so interesting and they had already worked with it. First, I did a short engagement. I did a poster with a hangman game for the students to discover the lesson’s topic. They participated and it was very funny for them. Then, I showed a ppt with the information and the differences between “would rather” and “would prefer” which was the topic of the lesson. After that, we worked on the activate part and the students did a dialogue. They did a very good job, the read it out loud and the activity was very good. At the end of the lesson, I prepared another game. “Who wants to be a millionaire” was prepared to give feedback of the learning. The students worked very well, they participated and were motivated with the lesson I felt happy enough to work with them again. Although I was afraid of working with that course I realized that they were hard working and very good students. Lastly, in the same week I worked with the 8th grade again and my guide teacher congratulated me for my work. She said that I have been improving my work and that class was really good. I heard really good comments so that was a perfect week.
September 28th to October 1st, 2015 This week, the school was celebrating its anniversary. The classes were very messy because the students were busy preparing their competences and dances. As we know they will be very enthusiastic with the celebration, we just took the students to the laboratory to work with a program called “English Discoveries”. Using that program the students could practice reading, listening, writing and speaking. They can check what they did right or wrong and also how much percentage they got in pronunciation when they did the speaking part. It is a good program though a little bit monotonous. I couldn’t do any class; I only monitored the students’ work and development through the class. They worked properly and were very respectful with me; they did not treat me as a practitioner instead of that as a teacher.