Reflective Teaching

This week was the first one in which I had to be hard with kids. On Tuesday, I did an exam for 602 graders and it was a topic that we were talking about for two weeks. Their scores were very bad, only 8 students passed. I was upset thanks to in class, they were doing well with this topic but in the paper, it was like if they did not know anything about it. When I was giving them their exams and I was kind of angry and I told them why I was in that mood. Surprisingly, nobody talked, nobody made any noise. As soon as I finished talking, I started with a new lesson and they did everything without saying a word. That happened with 602, but with 601 it was completely different, just 3 students failed the exam. With this classroom, I always can work without having any problem with their behavior. I started with the new lesson and they did really like because they always were asking for more information, for new ways to say something and how to make sentences saying something related to...

I have to start saying that I hate the fact that I did not have class on Thursday because I did not apply what I have planned for that day and I had to do it on Friday and the time was not enough at all. The main topic of this week was parts of the body and, at the beginning I thought students were not going to like it thanks to this topic is too easy but, the result of completely different. Learners were paying attention and taking some notes, it was amazing because since I am their teacher, they have not been interested in some topics. This week, their behavior was not perfect but they improved it a lot. We did not have any discipline problem. On the other hand, I realized that I have promised that I was going to take to the class some games or didactic activities and I have not done it. In other words, I am going to use some word search, riddles and games in order to catch their attention and let them work as the way they want like coloring the spaces or being creatives. I n...

This week was kind of different because most of the students did have an excellent behavior in each class. I do not know the reason, if it was the topic or they realized that this work that I’m doing is for them. I’m saying this because I did a quiz in which learns had to translate some personal qualities in English to Spanish and Spanish to English and the results surprised me. A little percentage of both classrooms failed this quiz but the ones who passed, did it with high grades. Besides that, this week I did not have any problem with any kid, I did not put negative points and it was not necessary to call their parents. About the main topic for this week, I believe kids did like it due to the fact that they were always asking for more examples and they looked for some meanings in their dictionaries. One thing that implemented this week was giving extra points as reward of taking their dictionaries to the class. This is how students had a good performance when they wanted to kn...

It was a difficult week because some days I did not have class with my students due to the fact they had few meetings with their teacher in charge of them.   As a result, what I have planned for last week, it was useless because of it and for that reason, I need to catch up this week. Apart from that, I start working with a new topic for them which is “Personal Qualities”. I left them a homework in which they had to look for its meaning and some examples of it. They surprised me as the most of the students of both grade did the homework and the participated in order to win get a positive point. By Tuesday, something happened with the behavior of 602. While I was collecting their exams based on topics they have seen, some students were playing in the back of the classroom and one teacher from the next door saw them and came to my classroom in order to call their attention. Then, he went to teachers’ room and talked to my cooperator. Afterward, my cooperator came in and she was ...

DIRECTIONS: Post in your blog at least five journal entries you have written about your practicum experiences I have to say that it was not easy at the beginning due to the fact that when we face the real teaching world, we are not used to handle a big number of students. It was everything good until students started to going around and talking to each other, in this moment of the class, I realized that I was doing my teaching practicum. This week was to learn about myself, about how I manage my feelings, my actions in front of those students that I have in the classroom.   Instead of going crazy, I thought many times about solutions of some problems that I had this week. For instance, one kid was making too much noise and he was always talking to his friend and they did not let the class pay attention to what I was saying. I tried to make him work without causing any drama but it did not work. As a solution, I said that if someone was talking while I was explaining the topi...

DIRECTIONS: In your blog write your autobiography by enhacing your schooling experiences and the development of your bilingual literacy skills. When I knew that I had to write my own autobiography of English learning and teaching process, I had to go back many years ago when everything started. As my mother’s family had been very good at languages, I think that for that reason, I was able to learn a second language. I have to say that when I was at high school, I was the “nerd” student in English, because I was the one who always had the best grades and most of my classmates were jealous. This process of learning English is also kind of interesting thanks to I met some foreign people and it was amazing when it happened. At the age of 12 years old, I realized that I really liked this language I knew that I had to learn it faster due to the fact that since I was very young, I always said that I was going to move to London, it did not happen, so sad. My mom found an institute w...

DIRECTIONS: Once you have drawn your visual teaching metaphor, scan the drawing, post it in your blog and write an interpretation about it. My visual teaching metaphor is quite similar to real context. I drew some elements of the music which means that mos of the things should follow a secuence to be succesfull. Then, emotions are really realible when we teach in the classroom thanks to we go through great moments and not the best ones so, we need to know how to deal with them. Moving on, the light bulb has a happy face. Why? Beacuse it means that teachers should have a open-mind to acquire new ways of teaching, new didactic techniques to make learning an excellent enviroment. As everything is linked to the heart, it means that what we do, we must do it with our passion, as if it is going to be our last day teaching, just to have fun and enjoy what we do.

DIRECTIONS:  Based on the questions posed by Richars & Lockhart (2007) in " Exploring teachers´ beliefs ", in your own blog write down you own: Beliefs about English Beliefs about learning Beliefs about teaching Beliefs about teaching as a profession Beliefs about the program and the curriculum Beliefs about English: In my opinion, some people think that they are being forced to learn this language due to the fact that  most of the countries in the world speak English. Furthermore, that is the reason while young kids should learn it from the early eage. Beliefs about learning: learning is a process in which people acquire knowledge through some classes and some experiences in people lives. In addition, this process never ends beacuse we are all the time getting in touch with new things in life. Beliefs about teaching:  I believe that teaching is the output after doing input which is learning. I'm saying this because when we teach something, we mu...

DIRECTIONS: Watch the video " Shaping the way we teach English -Reflective Teaching  ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKVTh6HG-T4 ) ," and give an account of the characteristics of the participating teachers´ reflective practices.  Based on what participants said in the video, their reflective practices are not different to the ones that we implement these days. One of them was talking about giving more emphasis on having conversation with students in order to give them some feedback just to let them improve what they are doing. Another one was talking about asking for help. This situation is really a big deal thanks to some learners are too shy to talk in public and they afraid of making a mistake in front of the classroom. As a result, the teacher looked fo new alternatives to solve this problematic and she made students gain confidence at least to ask her for help, for an advice or just to ask for information.

According to the reading "Teacher development through reflectuve teaching" and I have been living through these weeks teaching in my classroom, I have noticed some potential solutions based on I have read. As a way of implementing a solution, I chosed some elements from the cycle for the process of reflective teaching. Mapping: while I was oberserving, I noticed that one kid from the back of the clasroom never did something and never let students work. So, I have been thinking about it and I will think about a plan to implement to change his mind but first, I need to take some notes as a diary to have some proofs of his behaviour. In addition, this diary is going to let me know about how I act in front of this situation. Informing: I have talked to my advisor and she told me that I should talk to her baout this situation so, I'm going to show her my notes in the diary in order to have some ideas to put into practice in the classroom. After doing this, it comes Act...