Final
Reflection
One
of the things I wanted to see, besides how my mentor teacher would grade me, I
wanted to know what students thought, how they perceived my work. To achieve
this, I gave them a small survey they had to complete. It had ten short and
direct close questions in which they only had to mark that most suitable option
according to their perspective. I assigned points to each rubric to make the
data processing easier for me. Most of
my questions were subjective and appealing to student’s viewpoint. When I got my results I found out that the
group of Administrative English scored me 94.4 and the Basic English group gave
me a nice 99.5. Those grades give an average score of 97 which I believe is
awesome for the first adult groups I had ever taught in my life! Knowing this
made feel happy with my work and gave me more confidence. Plus I was able to
see their perspective and I found out that some of them took points out in the
planning rubric. I analyzed it and I thought maybe it is because I didn’t see
my mentor teacher everyday and it was hard to reach him during the day. So I
had to ask him what exercises he wanted them to do. Therefore, I believe they
saw that I did not have that planned in advance, so the next days I asked the
mentor teacher in beforehand to tell me the exercises he wanted for next class.
Another thing I wanted to
check through this practicum is that I was not so sure about how much I enjoy
teaching. I have always known teaching children is not my greatest strength
because I do not have that much patience, but I was not so sure then about how
much I would enjoy teaching adults, especially at a University level where
learning English is not their main purpose. As a result from this practicum I
found out that after work I really wanted to go home instead of teaching until
9:30 p.m., nonetheless, once I got into the classroom and started teaching time
went by extremely fast because I was really enjoying explaining the topics and
talking to the students.
In
summary, I think I did a good job overall. I have improved my skills in
explaining the topics as clearer as possible, and also to have a better
understanding of their learning and how to work with their English level. The
more classes I taught I felt more confident. There were some days in the middle
in which nervousness was eating me alive, but I dealt with it and next time I
knew exactly what to do. At the beginning with the technical courses I was
nervous because I had no idea of how it was going to be. As days came along I
felt that it was simpler that I thought. Unfortunately there is not enough time
to do as many activities as I wanted, but if that was my course I would make
the space. Also, I discovered that I provide clear examples and that they truly
understand what I said. When someone asked me the meaning of certain term I
usually make them think first instead of giving them a straight answer. I tried
to use English but I think I can still use more of it and that is something I
tried to improve during the practicum and it is still in progress.
One of my goals at the
beginning was to have a good relationship with my mentor teacher, I knew since
the very start that having good communication and confidence one another will
make the experience good for me, for him and therefore, for the students who
are the most important people after all. It makes me really happy to state that
not only I fully achieved this goal, but I believe I gain a friend. This
teacher really made me feel important, he took me into account for decision
making when something unusual happened with a particular student. I could
always tell him what I thought and suggested ways to improve the course
according to my point of view. He trusted me his students, he gave me advice on
how to explain things better, he congratulated me when I did something good, he
asked me for material because he liked it, he definitely contributed to make
the experience better than I even thought, and for that I will forever be
grateful.
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