Camila Roldán reflects on her teaching practicum experience at School N° 4. Her biggest challenge was discipline management, as it was difficult to keep students quiet, separate those fighting, and get their attention. Romina often had to intervene to help with this. Student and teacher absences on two occasions also affected class development, including mixing grades and having difficulty lowering excitement levels. Camila was able to track student progress through tasks and homework, and saw their learning when they participated and completed exercises, such as a final project on animals that required using new vocabulary. The project classes were most enjoyable for Camila and the students, as students were motivated, engaged in cooperative work, and tried using new vocabulary.

1. Practice II - 2014 – Camila Roldán
Reflective Narrative about my practicum
After having finished my practices at School N° 4 I can reflect about
what I consider was my biggest challenge during the classes I taught. This has
to do with discipline management. Although I knew I was the authority when I
was in front of the class, it was really difficult for me to keep them quiet,
separate them when they were fighting or call their attention when they were
disturbing my class. As a result, Romina had to intervene lots of times to help
me in this aspect. I think I will improve this with my frequent presence in
classrooms i.e. with experience and also with a better use of my voice because I
tend to speak low.
Another problem concerned the absence of students or teachers which in
two occasions affected the development of my classes. On 25th, August lots of
students were absent which led the teachers to mix the two grades in order to
teach them together. Therefore, during this class Samanta and I worked
together with the students and tried to do our best. The drawback of this
particular class was that it was the only class in which we include a listening
exercise and few students were present. On another occasion, one of the
teachers was absent which meant that students were gathered in different
grades. By the time the English class started, it was very difficult for them to
concentrate and for us to low their excitement levels.
As regards students’ progress I could keep a record of their fulfillment of
tasks and homework in a chart which I then gave to Romina. I could also notice
that the children were learning when they participated during class and solved
the exercises which I gave them. One of the best instances to see how much
they had learnt was the project about animals in which they had to bring all
the content together to produce a final work.

2. Practice II - 2014 – Camila Roldán
The classes I enjoyed the most were the last ones in which the students
worked with the project. I liked them because I could see them motivated and
engaged in the task! It was very nice to see them work cooperatively and
deciding what information to include. Besides, they even tried to use new
vocabulary which we have not learnt depending on the animal they had chosen.
It was a nice experience both for the students and me.