The author summarizes their experience teaching a group of 4th year secondary level students. They were initially scared about teaching teenagers but found the group to be respectful and hard working. The author engaged the students by focusing lessons on movies, a topic they found motivating. Through varied activities and games, the author was able to manage the class of 30 students and ensure they were learning, despite initial fears. Overall, the experience teaching this group was rich and enjoyable.

1. Group Report
Secondary Level – 4th
year
To start with this, I have to recognize that I did not have experience in secondary
level. Teenagers have always presented a challenging and difficult teaching
experience, so when I started my practicum period I was quite scared about the
teens’ reaction to my classes.
However, as I was not acquainted with the set of stages to follow and an adequate
set of teaching strategies that I could apply into my classes. According to Harmer
in his book ‘The Practice of English Language Teaching’ (2001) the teenagers are
constantly seek their individual identity, and this “provides the key challenge for
this age group”. They consider really important the peers acceptance and approval,
and in many cases, they pay more attention to that to the teacher. Also and
according to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, teenagers of 12 years old
correspond to the Formal Operational stage, so here, they are capable of thinking
and reasoning about hypothetical situations and they could analyze abstract
thoughts. In addition to, this last is related to moral reasoning.
The teenagers are changing constantly, their emotions and attitudes are very
variable, so sometimes they are unpredictable. That is why I wanted to present a
topic that they called their attention and felt motivated to learn as they are: movies.
I tried to develop different varied activities to engage them and taking advantage
that it was a group of 30 children, I could develop different games. My experience
was really rich and I enjoyed a lot. In spite of I had not experienced with teenagers,
they adapted to my classes, making easy to carry and enjoyable. At the beginning
was quite scared, but when the time goes pass I felt comfortable and quiet that they
were learning.
All in all, they were a great group, respectful and hard workers. They really
enjoyed the English classes. So I had not behavior difficulties in the classroom, only
there was a boy who looked like a ‘leader’ and in many occasions made jokes or
comments about the topics to their partners laughed, but this was managed
through personalized attention, by making him take a more active role and asked if
they have queries. And good behavior was reinforced using good marks or

2. comments to motivate them. I am really happy to do my practicum period with this
group.