MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

My Teaching Experience

Marvin Adonay Montoya Amaya

Elmer Jorge Guardado. MaT. February 11th 2014

MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

My teaching experience goes back a couple of years. In fact I never really expected to become a teacher. I was named a leader of a conversations club at the university, therefore I had to help my classmates understand the language better. So we made a schedule and got together. There they were in front of my, and so I asked what do you want to learn? I still remember the faces of amazement of those classmates. Later of course I realized that this should have been a question that I had to ask myself and not to them. What do my students need to learn? And what am I going to teach my students? These are two fundamental questions for a teacher. Back in the days, I did not realize this, but of course this is how I gained some teaching experiences. Later on, I learned about warm up activities or ice breakers. Which are activities that are used to prepare the students for what they are about to learn. (Sagan, 2013) These activities will keep your students active and participative during the class. Be sure that the activity has to be related to the topic of the class, so it does not lose the learning experience for your students. Later on I would be given the opportunity to teach in a small academy in Usulutn. I had taken some more classes at the university so I had a better idea of what teachers teach in the classroom. Then came a new experience, as the students that I had were not teenagers like most at the university. They were five year old kids. This was another challenge because immediately I knew that I could not teach them the same way that the teachers at the university were doing it. Teaching children was quite a task. Although I really enjoyed it, and loved the way I connected with those children. They really enjoyed playing around and singing songs. Of course I was willing to do all these things for the sake of the children, and I never really minded having to crawl with them or sit on the floor to do an activity. (Asia) It is completely different to manage the seating of a childrens group to the seating arrangements that I had seen in the University. Where in the university they were strict rows, for the childrens group there were a variety of different seating arrangements depending on the activity that you want to do. You can use the traditional orderly rows, make a horseshoe, in a circle or in separate

MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

tables. Depending if they will do individual work or they will work in pairs. (Rebecca Williams, 2010) Through time, and some teacher training I came to know about classroom management. Which involved the way you have to approach your students, the actions that are appropriate by the teacher, the stance in the classroom, how much movement is enough and of course how aware a teacher must be about what his/her students are doing. The amount of teacher talk used to be a lot more than the amount of student talk time. I would spend most of the class explaining the topics. Sometimes I would have to include L1 in the classroom to make myself understood. I thought that there were no rules that needed to be followed in any of these aspects. But truth is that they are very important in the art of teaching as it is explained in (Harmer, 2007) all these elements involved in an effective classroom management are things that in the first days as a teacher I really didnt pay much attention to. But as time goes by you begin to dedicate more time and put more effort to them. (Michael McCarthy, 2010) Observation plays a central role in teaching, both by observing your students and by being observed by one of your peers. Through observation you can see the progress of each of your students, while they participate in any activity. It is also convenient to mention that observation is not so useful, as it is when you take notes. Taking notes will help you when you double check the activities going on during the class. It is also very convenient when a peer is visiting your class, so that there can be physical evidence of the remarks made by our peers. Observation is probably one of the oldest ways of evaluation as well, therefore it just needs to be adapted to what you will be using it for. In this case evaluating students and under some circumstances, evaluating the teacher. (Richards) In the end I find out that there is no perfect teacher. I have been learning along the way the whole time. To be honest I am still learning up to date. A teacher is not all knowing, or a person who never makes mistakes. Teachers have become a guide for all the students. A facilitator, who will make the learning experience easier for his/her students. Since the very basics, which can be talking to your
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MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

students by their name. Having that personal interaction with them. Until the detailed wrap up activity that you have prepared, so your students can reproduce what they have learned. A teacher will continue learning throughout his/her career. As we all know there is nothing that is completely static in this world and teacher have to have the adaptability to mold unto the new expectations according to the requirements given by the world. That is why I feel compromised to become a teacher who will inspire my students to learn the most they can. To enjoy practicing the English language, as much as they can all day every day. I will put my best effort into changing the perspective that students have toward English language learning. All this will not be done in one day or in a month. I completely understand that this process takes time, as it has taken me so much time to get here. But I am sure that if we the teachers take this compromise now, the future of our students will be an even better one than the one we are having now.

MY TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Referencias
Asia. (s.f.). classroom Managment. Asia University. Obtenido de http://improvencyclopedia.org/categories/Warm-up.html Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English. Pearson Longman. Michael McCarthy, J. M. (2010). Touchstone. Cambridge. Rebecca Williams, A. T. (2010). Jelly Beans. Cambridge. Richards, J. (s.f.). Classroom observation in Teaching Practice. En J. Richards. Sagan, C. (2013). improv encyclopedia. Obtenido de http://improvencyclopedia.org/categories/Warm-up.html