Reflective cycle

1. Prácticas Docentes II
Reflective Cycle
Student: Keila Belén Medina
Tutor: Aurelia Velázquez
CONCRETEEXPERIENCE
The aim of this experience was to apply the knowledges we have gained so far
about teaching and, more specifically, about young learners. Thus, the
observation period was essential for me in order to familiarize with students and
to understand them because I do not have a lot of social experience with children
nor young learners.
Moreover, getting to know them a little bit was fun and helped me to break the ice
before being in charge of the lesson.
As regards the teaching practice, I presented different topics through the three
lessons: similes, will, going to, and first conditional. The first lesson was nice, and
students started to feel comfortable with my teaching but still felt awkward as they
didn’t know me so well. For instance, they were quiet and worked very well, and
even the groups who had discussions got to agreements. The topic was “similes”
and they engaged excellently with the presentation of it as two Disney movies
were the basis for the examples provided. Then, they enjoyed the monster design
because they were able to be creative and use their imagination, even though
some groups discussed about some parts of the monster or about the name they
wanted for it. But, overall, they worked a lot during the lesson and felt entertained.
On the second lesson, the topic was “will and going to” which they already knew
how to apply. I had to introduce them to the difference of uses to make predictions
with will and going to (about holidays). Fortunately, students behaved and worked
very well but started to show contingencies as some students didn’t know how to
respect each other when someone was speaking. It was a pity, but I stopped the
lesson and made things clear before going on. Besides, the games I presented
(board game and a simile game) were fun for them and they really liked playing.

2. The last lesson was quite different as they did not have to work in groups.
Students worked individually or in pairs of two. I presented the topic, also using
holidays as the main theme and engaged them to do the activities. They all
understood the topic but found it hard to apply as they were not familiar with it
yet. Nevertheless, the teacher told me that it was not necessary for them to apply
the use of first conditional but to understand it and get to know what it is before
the end of the year. The crossword was interesting for most of them but their
favourite part was the questionnaire about my teaching practices.
Last but not least, they felt happy when they got their present and they hugged
me. It was an amazing experience and I will miss the students, a lot!
REFLECTIVEOBSERVATION
I feel that this time I did it better than the last year with kindergarten. Most of all
because students felt more motivated, I could select and design the suitable
activities for them more easily and most of them enjoyed the tasks I presented.
Plus, I can also spot that now I am more confident while teaching even though I
got nervous every time I had to start the lesson.
On the other hand, I do have a lot of things to improve and to change from my
teaching practices. As regards the first lesson, I did not set a context and I did
not realize until I got the feedback. I tried to refer to the selected Disney movies
to create the context but I know I could have made it better. Taking into account
my difficulties to manage the group from last years’ experience, this time I did not
have any problem with it and could manage them very well. Besides, I was able
to provide different ideas to solve problems and most students found a solution
to keep working peacefully and happy.
The second lesson was noisier, but students worked very well. The context was
as clear as glass this time, as we referred to holidays and all students provided
fruitful examples and engaged them to the tasks. In addition, they have all
enjoyed the games I proposed to them and were comfortable asking me for help.
I felt that this lesson I did everything better and I also found out I was very happy
working with the students. In spite of that, I know I have to improve my
explanations about the tasks and presented topics because I got very nervous
and missed the thread I originally planned in my mind to organize the ideas while
explaining.
The third and last lesson was nice but I felt that I didn’t present the topic as I
expected. I have a lot to do as to improve my explanations because they are an
essential part of the lessons as they aim to present the topic and that students
understand the main ideas before plunging into work. Some students found out I
spoke in Spanish too, and felt surprised because of it but that was fun because
they are used to speak in English all the time and that is amazing. From my point
of view, I achieved more goals than I thought I was going to be able to achieve.

3. Anyway, I could spot my weaknesses and I will make sure to keep working on
them as much as I need to improve my teaching.
ABSTRACTCONCEPTUALISATION
There are a lot of things that I can do differently, that I need to change or improve.
To begin with, I have to change my way to explain things because I need to get
more relaxed and be more confident while developing explanations. What is
more, I should think about being more dynamic and creative during the warm up
of the lessons.
Drama takes a big role on lessons, and I reckon that I must try to be more
dramatic when praising students. Whenever I have to monitor their process and
talk to them, I have no problems to be funny and make jokes so they don’t feel
like I am just being strict but that I am trying to help them because I do care a lot
about their doubts and special needs while studying. The case is that I cannot do
the same in front of all of them, and I think that is due to my anxiety to do
everything as planned -even if I know it won’t ever happen as planned- and so I
get very nervous!
So, all in all, I need to relax and to be even more confident than I was this time.
Also, I need to search for more ways to engage students during the warm up and
to achieve all my goals while developing the lesson.
ACTIVEIMPLEMENTATION
Taking into account all the things I would like to do differently, to improve and to
change, there are several options to achieve those aims.
First of all, in order to be more confident and relaxed, I should gain more
experience on teaching practices because practice makes perfect. I can also try
to imagine I am speaking to a single group and be as confident as I am when I
am actually talking to a particular group.
On the other hand, I would have to do research on warm ups so I can get more
ideas to implement them and observe the effect it provokes over students. For
example, I tried to play “hangman” and students loved it (and this one was a last-
minute idea). I may have to search for more ideas to adapt and to start designing
my own warm ups.
As for the explanations, I should dig into different strategies than using the
whiteboard or photocopies. I would need to buy a pen drive, for example, and
make use of the e-board or IT classroom to explain with images or illustrations.
Also, videos are useful on these situations where the whiteboard and the
photocopies are boring or not so effective.

4. Another thing that I should implement so as to get improvements is making
questionnaires before starting to plan lessons or to revise the first lesson I
presented to figure out what things are the most interesting for students and
which ones are not. This time I presented a questionnaire at the end of the
practices and it was effective to spot students’ feelings and thoughts about the
tasks, lessons and about me as teacher but I realized it would have been even
more effective if I did so the first lesson too.