Teaching Expirience

Teaching Experience

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo

Teaching Practice Elmer Jorge Guardado M.A. February 10th 2014

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo

Teaching Expirience This is my experience as a teacher of English in a public school, as part of the requirements that my career demands me to do in this case the Social Service . Social Service has its purpose according to (Universidad Gerardo Barrios, 2014) and is: forming social consciousness through direct contact with the academic, social, economic, political, ecological and cultural processes that enable building projects to continuously improve them and Social Service is defined as an organized and compulsory activities for the application of the knowledge acquired in the educational process involving the exercise of professional practice for the benefit of society embodiment. Having defined what social service is, let us start with what I face in that school. My social service was in the (Centro Escolar Anita Guerrero, 2014). Firstly, my first day in that school was a day that I will never forget because it was my first day as a teacher, I mean, my first formal class. I remember how I planned those classes; in fact, they were five different classes with five different classrooms. I organized everything even I did my Teaching Letter and organized the time required to every activity I planned to do in my class. Perhaps, that was why my first day was not too hard in dealing with students distractions and all those stuff that a teacher must deal with in a classroom. I introduced myself and then asked students to tell me their name so I could call them by their names. The students paid me attention there were almost all the time quiet and when I told them to be quiet they just did it. To be honest the only classes I planned was that ones from the first day after that I never planned another class. I remember, I always asked the teacher what was the next topic, I already knew them because I searched in the (MINED, 2014) web page where there are all the topics that students will see during the year, procedures, aims, etc. The teacher always told to develop the topics he gave me, I did it but what I really did not like was that the same topic over and over again must be taught, I remember that I taught the topic telling the time like for three weeks, no kidding. That was so frustrating for me because teaching the same thing several days was annoying, I remember that some days I was not motivated, I think, that was the reason why I No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 2

Teaching Expirience stopped planning my classes because why to plan something that I already planned if it is the same topic that I will develop next day, by the way that topic, I used to develop it in many classrooms almost the same way because I feel like, I already have arranged what have to do, so lets do it with all the classrooms I did not have motivation and I did not want to get complicated because there were more important things at college like my homework. That was my thinking then, I was so wrong, now I see why that single planning did not work for all the classrooms. I had to teach children and adolescents, I do not know who the worst ones were but I think, that would be second grade there were so annoying and naughty, just remind how it was being their teacher causes me headache. I do not know what was wrong with those children, I had no idea how to handle those kids, I have never thought that one day I would have a classroom like that. They did not obey, they were too noisy, they, once, even fought in my class, it took me like five seconds to figure out what was happening after stopping the fight, I was like is this really happening? Are they fighting? I just could not believe what was happening, they fell down and were fighting on the floor, I approach and said kids knock it off (nervously) and tried to separate them. It was my worst moment as a teacher but I told my classmates and they told me that they were facing almost the same kind of things, we all shared our bad experiences and laughed at them but also there were, I do not know how to say it, good moments. The good moments motivated me to become a better teacher, to be honest 60% of all my classes were a waste of time and did not worked well but, on the other hand, the other 40% was a success, the best moments I remember were: when I assigned my students to make some sentences, exercises. I remember just how they asked me many things and I explained them face to face what to do and how to do it, rules, how to say a specific word, etc. I was here and there because everyone wanted my help, that was very rewarding for me, help people and that people is always asking for your help is very rewarding, it is a nice feeling as a human being, that really motivated me, this happened with the adolescents from seventh to ninth grade. The other good moment No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 3

Teaching Expirience was: the first day of classes I remember I asked students do you like English? Many of them told me NO. As a teacher knowing that your students did not want to do with English was not motivating at all but what I did next, after they answered NO, was to ask them why you dont like English? They told me: It is too difficult I told them no is not, did you know that English is the easiest language to learn? they were like ahh I also told them that Spanish is one of the hardest language that one can learn they were like fascinated, I also gave them more reasons to learn English, I was kind of motivating them. This was my second good moment at teaching, it feels great to influence others to become better people, I remember how I girl who was one of those who answered NO to my question, after a couples of month she always paid me attention, asked a lot of questions and also, always asked for my help. The power of a teacher to change people thinking, in my opinion, is amazing. My students, all the time were in rows because they were too many and as found in (Shipstead, 2012) the seating arrangement of orderly rows is the best type of seating arrangement for big groups of students. I had no trouble with this seating arrangement. And other kind of seating arrangement that this school uses is the separate tables, this kind of seating arrangement helped me with grouping students because they were already in groups in separate tables. I used the group work like three times but the pair work more times, I used the pair work when the students were supposed to perform a short conversation, one of them was student A and the other one the student B. I used this dialogs to help them to speak and use the language but after all it was difficult using dialogs because students did not want to pass in front. Now, let us talk about the teachers of English in that school, they were two and let me tell you one of my experiences with them were: they have no idea about how to teach English, they just teach English as a subject, rules and grammar. The most disappointing thing was that they still are using the same book to teach English I remember that I used to use that book when I studied there like 7 years ago, and when I No Moiss Ramrez Castillo 4

Teaching Expirience checked that book again, I found many mistakes there. Other thing that happened to me was that they did not know anything about the curriculum of the MINED, once, I told one of them, Am I going to teach the same topics that are given by the MINED and he was like what? They decide what to teach and how to teach, they had no idea of any method, other time I was talking with one of them and telling them about the methods to teach English, he was like he have never heard about any method to teach English, even they did not know that the method they use all the time is the Grammar Translation Method. (Larsen-Freeman, 2000) Even they were not good teachers, I respect them because other thing I learnt from my social service was the hard work that teachers must do in order to develop a topic, just the effort that is need to stand for about four hours in front of a class with spoiled students, that you always have to tell them please be quiet over and over, that is a hard work. Other thing I noticed, as I say they only use the Grammar Translation Method, now I know why they use it, because I remember how I started teaching, trying to make students use the language, through dialogs and repetition but when I realized that they misbehave a lot, they were too noisy and talk to each other having no respect for my class I just decided to explain structures and make them do exercises just to have them working and stopped doing those things that disturbed the class just because it was easier than trying to manage the class as is supposed to be. I did not do a good management of the classroom. At the end, I followed the same path of those bad teachers, actually I was one of them, using only the Grammar Translation Method, how ironic! My reflection here is that I did a bad work, I failed as a teacher but now I am wiser about teaching methods and how to handle a class, many things that I did not know when I did my social service. Having accepted my mistakes is about time to do something and decide the kind of teacher I want to be, and what I want is to become a good teacher, and the characteristics that I want to have are consumer of knowledge and motivator, change

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo

Teaching Expirience the minds of all those students who think that English is not necessary and things like that, now my practice is coming and I am sure I am not going to fail again.

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo

Teaching Expirience References Centro Escolar Anita Guerrero. (8 de February de 2014). Anita Guerrero. Recuperado el 8 de February de 2014, de Anita Guerrero: http://sitiosescolares.miportal.edu.sv/12773/ Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. En D. Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (pg. 11). NY: Oxford University Press. MINED. (8 de Febrary de 2014). Ministerio de Educacion, El Salvador, C.A. Recuperado el 8 de February de 2014, de Ministerio de Educacion, El Salvador, C.A.: https://www.mined.gob.sv/ Shipstead, M. (2012). Seating Arrangements. En M. Shipstead, Seating Arrangements (pg. 19). Alfred A. Knopf. Universidad Gerardo Barrios. (8 de Febrary de 2014). UGB. Recuperado el 8 de February de 2014, de UGB: http://www.ugb.edu.sv/servicio-estudiantil.html

No Moiss Ramrez Castillo