Reflecting on the experience

1. My own kindergarten experience
For a long time, I have been waiting for this key moment, the
instant in which I enter to a classroom and put all my knowledge
into practice. Four years ago, I decided to start this wonderful
course of study as an English teacher and they have been many
years of hard work, determination, and commitment. Now, here I
am in the last step, reflectingon my experienceas a kindergarten
teacher.
To start with, I must confess that I was a bit lost at the beginning.
However, I understood that organisation was the key to succeed.
As soon as I found an educational institution, I interviewed the
teacher and observed the group of preparatory kids. Then, lesson
planning took place in my daily routine trying to take into
account all the information I collected previously in order to plan
activities children like and enjoy.
Consideringthe theoryI have learned duringthis course of study,
I decided to plan my lessons based on the CLT approach because
I strongly believe that communication is the ultimate goal when
learning a language. Moreover, this approach puts the learner’s
needs in the first place, helping them to produce authentic
language while interacting with other people. On the other hand,

2. my lesson plans followed the PPP and TPR instructions as the
aim was to allow students to participate actively in the learning
process by listening and responding to my instructions and
activitities. I chose activities that made students learn by
themselves as well as collaboratively. I tried to include songs and
games which are activitiesthat little kids always like. In addition,
I prepared differentworksheets for the lessons, I used videos and
realia to revise and learn vocabulary, and I always tried to
promote students’ participation in order to help them improve
their speaking and listening skills.
In relation to my performance as a teacher, I know that I have
many things that need improvement. After the first lesson, I had
opposed emotions, I felt happy but also a bit disappointed
because I knew that the lesson could be better and better
organised. One reason would be that the group tends to receive
instructions in both languages, first in Spanish and then in
English, so it was hard for students to follow me. This kind of
difficulty made me think of the importance of using a lot of
gestures, body language and visual aids while teaching a second
language, especially with kids. Other reason may be that an
activity like painting as well as moving around the small space of
the classroom was not proper in the case of the girl who has a
motor disability as it was time-consuming and a bit difficult for
her to move around comfortably.
Concerning to the following lessons, I relaxed a bit more and
enjoyed the moment with the group. I could see that learners
enjoyed more my lessons and the activities I proposed. They also
knew me a bit more so the rapport increased. They had started
to see me as another teacher and not as a stranger as it was at
first. Besides, I tried to use different teaching strategies as well
as variety of activities in order to make students feel more
motivated.
To conclude, after having this comforting first experience as a
teacher I have been reflecting on ways to act differently in the
future in order to improve my teaching practices. Working on my

3. weak points such as timing, classroom management strategies,
teaching strategies as well as language accuracy and fluency is
the starting point for my future teaching lessons. In fact, there
are always things to improve, we are always learning.