In the previous entries of this blog, we were talking about teenagers, most specifically the stages in their development; we came from childhood to adulthood, making stops in their physical, cognitive, psychosocial and emotional changes, and how this affect the teenagers in their life, and their development as students. In this coming entry, I will share with you my personal experience in the Teaching Practice with adolescents in the Teenagers Program from Universidad Don Bosco and will present evidence if the previous entries about teenagers match with my own experience in the teaching practice with adolescents.
In the practice with adolescents, I was working with two different groups, the first group was the level 6 of the Program, I worked with them around 5 weeks; the second group was the level 4, while I was working with them I noticed some important aspects that made reference with the stages that we were talking previously in this blog. As examples, I had the opportunity to observed how the adolescents need to belong to a group in order to feel comfortable and accepted with the rest of their partners, what I could observed in one of the groups in that the sense of being part of a group was really notorious because if someone passed to the front to did an exercise or wrote a sentence, if he or she made a mistake, their partners immediately told the person who was in front that he/she needed to corrected it. Of course, this sense of unity in both groups is thanked to the teacher that create a good rapport in order that the students felt comfortable with him and with each other. Also, I could felt that sense of unity in both groups because the students were greeted to meet us and I felt really comfortable with them too. Moreover, I can noticed the synaptic pruning, as we said before, this is a process in which the brain delete all the information that he thinks that would be not useful for the learning process or for the life as well. I observed that when the teacher asked to the whole class something about the previous lessons, some of them not were able to answer the questions or simply said the common phrase “I don’t know” in which it reflects that the brain has already done the synaptic pruning.
Like I said above, I was working with two different groups, in which I had different participations. I have participated in some of the classes, teaching some stages or a complete lesson for an hour or more, and I would like to share my experience with you. I had 4 participations, in two of them, I tough a specific stage, the other two were a complete class of an hour. Despite the fact that the first times I was so nervous, I really like this experience. Every single time that I delivered a stage or a class, I felt more comfortable with myself and with the groups, and all because of my tutor, he created an environment in which my partner and I felt comfortable with the whole group, and it really worked. However, I had to do my part of being part of the group as well; I treated them respectful in order that they treated me in the same way. Also, I made then to know that I was open to help them in something that they did not know; actually, this was my first participation, explain the vocabulary that they did not know in a text. There were some different in both groups, I noticed that in the first group they were anxiously for participating in the class, and they answer every question that I made. In the other hand, the next group that I attended was a little bit shy at the moment of participating in the class. I think that that happened because of the level of students. Of course, I did my part to try that the second group was active in some way, and at the end, the last Saturday with them, I did it, I felt proud of myself and also, I felt proud of them. Both groups were good, they were really respectful with my partner and me, and also, they were respectful with the teacher. Our mentor, was really nice with us, he was always trying to give us advice about how to deliver the classes, classroom management and how to treat the students. Alex Canizalez, was a wise tutor, I really like to be like him, have the patience that he has, also the way in which he performs his classes, in a very interactive and funny way, of course, I will apply them to myself in my own way. I am glad about the opportunity of worked with him; it was such a nice experience.
As I said before, I have had 4 participations, and in each of them, I had different feelings after and before the delivering of each. Before teaching my first lesson I was so nervous, because I did not know how to the students will react to my participation, but while I was delivering my class, I felt more comfortable and relax with myself, because I can see that the students understood what I was explaining, and that made me felt good and comfortable while I was teaching. I remember that before start this course, I was so nervous of delivering a class and make a lesson plan. Now, I really feel very comfortable by the time of teaching a class and make a lesson is a little bit easier now. I feel happy because I know that I did my best at the time of teaching and clarifying the activities for the students, and the most rewarding things were seeing the students enjoyed every moment as I did.
To conclude, we all know that in life they are good and bad aspects about the thing that we lived, and this is not the exception, and I would like to present to you the good and the bad things of this experience from my point of view. The most positive and remarkable thing of this experience, is the opportunity that the School of Language of the Don Bosco University gave to us for grow up as professionals, with this opportunity, we faced the real fact of being in front of real students, we saw and felt what the real work is about and we see the advantages and disadvantages of working with teens, and the troubles that we as teachers will face. I cannot find something negative of this experience, maybe I would say that is more an observation, I think that for future courses, if it will continue develop in this way, the instructions for the tutor need to be clear, because the first Saturdays, the tutors did not know what was exactly our role in the classroom. I will be anxious for the next course, that is the practice with adults, I know that the experience will be totally different to worked with teenagers and that is why I am so anxious for that moment. Finally, I would like to thanks to the School of Languages for the opportunity, thanks to my teacher Yanira Peña for being there assessing us in everything that we had doubts, for her patience and dedication of made this experience something memorable; also, thanks to you to for taking your of reading this post.
