1. The Second Step
To start with this practicum period, the first point was to find an
educational institution where performing my next lessons, both
for primary and secondary levels. After some ‘comings and
goings’, the school appeared. Despite I was not allowed to do my
practicum in a public primary school, I could find a private
secondary school in my town where delivering the lessons.
As a second stage, I interviewed the director as well as the
headmistress of the group. I tried to collect all the information
needed in order to know the group of beginner students in first
Year of secondary. Besides, I observed two lessons in which I
found thatit was a very large class, theywere thirty-two students,
and there was a varied level of English among the group.
However, all of them worked well and behaved properly despite
the fact of being such a large class.
According to my lesson plans, I continued basing my lessons on
the CLT approach and the PPP instruction. I wanted the students
were able to use the target language as much as possible and to
make them active participants of the learning process. My plans
included so many visual aids in order to help students
2. understand the new teaching points as I already knew that the
group was not accustomed to use English as the main language.
Besides, I planned activities such as games, worksheets, class
survey and including activities from their coursebooks, too. I
always tried to integrate both speaking and listening skills, and
promoting collaborative work among the students.
In relation to my performance as a teacher, I found really difficult
the use of English at all time with this kind of group. Many times
I felt that students found very hard to understand and follow me.
However, I appealed for different pictures, flashcards, gestures
and body language to help them. All of these strategies are the
key in such a common case like this group.
Moreover, I had to make some improvements in my lesson plans
in order to ensure a meaningful learning. Taking into account
comments and suggestions, I used information that students
found interestingrelated to their own lives, for example a context
like the Football World Cup and some famous football players
who students knew well, and it worked because the group really
enjoyed the topic and also participated actively in the activities. I
comprehended that exposure is vital for students as well as
teaching in a contextualised way, by working on meaning first
and then moving on to form to make the new contents more
significatively.
On the other hand, I have clear that I need to continue working
on many aspects. One of them is ‘timing’ as it sometimes
happened that time was not enough for ending an activity or a
lesson in a proper way. Other aspect is related to grammar use
and fluency. I made some mistakes when using the target
language; it may be because of the nerves ormy lack of conficence
when speaking in English, but I know it is a skill that I have to
work on. A third aspect that I was not aware of until I received
the teacher’s feedback was ‘Teacher Talking Time’. I understood
that I need to control this point, and to involve students more
during the whole lesson, moving around and becoming an
spectator, too.
3. To sum up, this has been a very challengingexperience for me as
it was the first time I entered a classroom as a teacher, and it was
with the biggest classroom of this secondary school. It was
difficult at times. It took me hours of planning and preparing
materials, but it was a wonderful experience.
