Final experience. Practicum II

Hello everyone. It is such a blessing to be here again writing down all my thoughts about my experience in my Practicum II (with teens). And now I am about to share with you or at least try to do it because I think words are not enough to express all what I felt during the last ten weeks how this time teaching and interacting with real students was. I want to start by saying that I never imagined it would be the most wonderful time I have had teaching.

 One of my favorite things was all the support I received from my tutor Lisania Torres. She was definitely a very important part in my developement as a TA. She instructed me what to do and I am sure she is the best example and model I could follow in my future classes. It is funny and shameful at the same time, but I also learn how to use the CD-player with her because I did not have idea how to se it in  my listening class. Can you imagine this situation?

At the begining of this amazing experience I was nervous and a little bit worried thinking if teens would like me or accept me. I was also thinking about their behavior, but then I wonder how good guys they are. As a  personal joke I thought: they are not “normal teens” because I was waiting for bad behavior, cries, talks in class, interruptions as all teens do, but it was not like that. Students get and follow all the instructions easily, and help to have a good environment of learning in the class. I already know that in other experiences with kids will probably not be the same and I will have to deal with different situations, and be ready to solve them, but at least in this one (the first experience with teens) I enjoy and learn at the same time with them. Yes! I learn too. It is wonderful how this works beacuse when I was getting ready to each intervention I was also teaching to myself new vocabulary, ways to give instructions, how to use the material in the class, having a good arrangement, etc.

Now, I can say that in my experience students showed just some of the characteristics I studied during the first weeks of this course about adolescents. Then, I realized that their ages also play an important role, and of course, the fact that they have an scholarship, and they must do their best in order to keep it. Another thing I liked the most about these guys was how good they work together. They are all hardworking, disciplined, and responsible students. It is one of the biggest characteristics of the group.

After sharing with you all this, I also want to let you know my experience infront of the whole class. First, you have to know that I had exactly five participations in which I was receiving feedback from each of them at the end of the class, but there were just two evaluated classes for me. As it is normal and you have noticed it, I was nervous at the begining of each participation, but students were such “angels” that helped me to follow and do all the activities I planed without any inconvenient. I felt I was accepted by the students since the first momento because I could see in their eyes that they were so willing and eager to know how it would be to have a new face in class as I was for sharing all what I know. It was splendid when they started calling me “teacher” because then I did consider myself as a real teacher with a real classroom and real students.

When I was teaching, it is true that I did not feel that sure about myself but as time was passing I take more confidence and control of my own class. By the end of each participation I was able to explain myself, and make my students to learn and achieve their objectives by guiding them as a good facilitator.

 But as in everything there is always a good way to do something, and for this we need to have things to improve, things that did not work as we expected. That is why I want to list the positive and negative aspects about my experience.

Positive aspects:

-to interact with real students

-to have the participations with the class

-to see how the tutor teaches a class

-to write down what the tutor does in a real class

Negative aspects:

-the time. (We could see students just on Saturdays)

-and because of the time it was difficult to plan with the tutor what to do in the next class. It was hard to do it by social networks.

Finally, I just want to thank to every single person that makes this possible, and that helps us (teacher assistants) to have such experiences in order to know and contemplate that for which we are being prepared.