VI. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG IN CLASS

VI. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG IN CLASS 

Marcia Elisa Chicas Rivas

Description of what happened in and how I dealt with it.

I had some problems in my teaching practicum like any teacher could have, and It was great because I realized that I was a good teacher for them, and also I learnt many things of them and vice-versa . There were problems that I could solve by myself; some of the problems were for example:

·        Internal disturbance: When Students did not pay attention to my class, I tried to show them a puppet in order to capture their attention, but there was because they behaved I  that way because they to go out or when they did not understand any instruction that I gave them.

·        An activity too long: children had to cut some figures related to the class and they had to paint it and then, they had to stick it in their notebooks; It was so difficult for them because they needed more time to do it, so I tried not to give them activity very long activities because I realized that it was not going to work at the moment to apply it.

·        The class went out of control: One day the class went out of control I did why was happening that, but I tried to encourage them to stop talking in order to they behave, and I tried to capture their attention, I asked if them wanted to play or some other things in order to came back to the class.

For sure, I followed some tips that are on chapter 8 such as:

Long term planning: I can use long term planning since I started with my teaching practicum until the end of the practice. I followed the program that the teacher had in some classes; I decided the topics that I taught them and the day as well.

Short term planning: I decided roughly on the way that I wanted to teach each lesson, and to find that suit topic.

Lesson planning: It was useful to know what I had to do when I was at kindergarten, I used it every class and I made 16 different lesson plans to each class and It contained many things, such as : the warm up activity, introduction to the topic, English skills, connection with the students, activities that I did with them and so on. 

Jennifer Vargas Martinez

Description of what happened in and how I dealt with it.

ü Yes, sometimes, I paused the activity that we were doing and I tried to do another one. For example a game because in a game you don’t need a silence room and then, I continued with the activity that was in pause.

ü When the activity took too long, I tried to finish it helping my students with their doubts. Then, I continued with another one.  As it says in the book.

ü Sometimes, I had extra time but it was easy because I tried to repeat the vocabulary that we had been studying and then I include a warm up too.

ü When the activity didn’t work, I tried to change it as soon as possible. I observed if my students were out of control, and I change it using the same topic but in a different activity. I followed the tips that were in the book.

ü Picture cards: I did some warm ups with them. Also, I present the vocabulary with the picture cards.

ü English corner: the classroom has an English corner so I asked for permission to use it with my English resources too.

ü Board games:  I used the board to make some drawings. Then, my students had to match or say the name.

ü Calendar: in the classroom was a calendar and I used it to make some questions in my small talk.

ü Wall charts: I made my own wall charts since it is a good tool lo present vocabulary and make warm ups.

ü Toys: I used some toys to present my topic and to make games.

ü Building blocks: I allowed my students to have a short time to play with clay, toys, and blocks to make them explore their imagination.

ü CD player: I used the CD player in almost every class because it is funny to present the topic and activities with songs and stories.

Classification of the tools in this chapter into useful and useless in our environment.

Ø Calendar: (useful) it helps to know our student’s birthdays and dates that are very important for the class and for the school.

Ø Wall charts: (useful) they help to introduce and to present a topic.

Ø Toys: (useful) teachers can use toys for many steps in the class.

Ø Building blocks: (useful) they help to build motor skills.

Ø CD player: (useful) you can use it and every class because it is very important to make the class entertaining for students.

Ø Picture cards: (useful) they are very useful to present vocabulary and make games.

Ø English corner: (useful) you have there all the resources to teach English. Also, your students can use some resources in their free time.

Ø Books reading cards: (useless) they are too complicate to manage for kids.

Ø Transparencies (useful) they are very good to make a class more meaningful.

Ø Clock (useful) for the age of students, it is essential to have clocks to practice.

Ø Readers (useful) all classrooms must have books and magazines.

Ø Borrowing cards (useless) in most schools teachers don’t allowed students to take books home.

Ø Displaying the books (useful) students need to have the books in a place where they can take them.

Ø Maps (useful) to know about different countries.

Ø Card games (useful) are very good to have fun.

Ø Cardboard boxes (useful) you can make different games with them.

Ø Paper dolls (useless) it is good to make some but not in every class.

Ø Class mascots (useful) they are useful to present a topic or structure.

Ø Puppets (useful) students love puppets so they are very useful to make storytelling.

Ø Cassette recordings (useless) nowadays, we have more technology and resources.

Ø Cassettes (useless) nowadays teachers prefer cellphones or tablets to record classes.

Ø Overhead projector (useful).

Ø Board games:  word sentence cards:  word card displays. (Useless) they seem to complicate for the age of the students. In other context, they could be perfect.

 Vanessa Ivette Pacheco Pacheco

One of the problems that I had in my teaching practices was an internal disturbance because there were some students that liked to bother each other, It happened in my first class while I was explaining them the numbers when suddenly I heard someone that was crying, I ask them what have happened, but nobody answered me because they tough that I was going to call the principal, then I asked the boy why he was crying, and he told me that his classmate stole his toy and told him nasty words.

 It was difficult because I was alone without the teacher, but I decided to sit down the boy in another desk, and I told the bad boy that if he did it again, I would punish him. Luckily the boy did not do that again and I did not face again that kind of problem.

Talking about some activities that don’t work in a class, unluckily I faced one, It happened in my last class when I was thinking to teach them using a projector, but suddenly it was a blackout, I was really worried because of that. But I remember that in chapter 8, it said that a teacher always has to have a plan B, I tried to have an extra plan in all of my classes because I know that in some cases technology devices can affect us, and instead of trying to fix the electronic devices I decided to start teaching using some flash cards and some charts that I had.

Finally it was not a big problem because I could deal with that, and my students enjoyed in a better way my class, I guess that it was better to teach that topic using flash cards and charts than using a projector.

Mirna Raquel Cruz Cordero

In my case, I had some problems because some of the activities that I decided to develop in my teaching practicum did not work. One of the activities was group work.

I asked them to work in groups because the activities they were doing was about guessing some actions (verbs) they had already studied, they started working very good and they were having fun in the activity that I assigned, but suddenly they started talking too much and then some of my students were fighting because one of them won and the another one did not won. When I heard them screaming and fighting, I separated them.

I followed some of the tips that are presented in chapter 8, and I think that those tips helped me a lot. In the future I will apply those tips because I have experienced teaching by using them and It made my teaching practicum a little bit easy. So for me the tips worked.

Jose Ernesto Calderon Leiva

·        External disturbance.  I remember that when I taught my practicum classes, sometimes there was an external disturbance because other students were getting prepared for the celebration of the Independence Day, and they were marching, obviously it was really noisy and I had to deal with that in many times.

·        An activity took too long. There was a day when I had an activity with the students and I didn´t realize that the activity took too much time, and suddenly I had to look continue with the next activity to take advantage of the time.

·        You had extra time: In another day, I had to face a different situation in which I had some extra time and I had already done all the activities that I had planned for that day. In that moment I had to start thinking about all the games that I could apply to gain more time, because I didn´t want that the teacher looked at me and realize that I was with no more ideas. At the end I could remember a little game to play with them and I think I did it well.

·        An activity didn’t work: I faced a situation like this when I taught my students the days of the week and I designed an activity for them where they had to match the different days and draw a line to connect that day with the correct order they have (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. ). I realized that they were asking me what to do, even though I had already explained the directions, also they looked as if they had no idea of what to do. I felt bad because they were excited to do the activity and they couldn´t because it was too complex. Now I know that I need to adequate the activity to the students´ level.

·        Did you follow any of the tips presented on chapter 8? Do you think the tip(s) could have worked for you? Explain.

·        Yes I put into practice some tips like: I wrote assessment after every class in order to change what was wrong and try to improve my mistakes.

·        I decided to the way I wanted to teach the topic and also according to what I considered my students needed.

·        I looked for the correct vocabulary to use, related to the topic.

·        I tried to do my lesson plan kind of easy and short without adding a lot of details, jus the most important aspects.