When things go wrong in class

One of the most difficult things I faced in my teaching practicum is the lack of discipline I mean that in many schools students are allowed to wander in and out of the classroom, arriving late or skipping classes. The criteria for marking should take attendance and punctuality into account, to the same extent that these matters are important in the job world that students plan to enter one day. Even though it was difficult I tried to do my best, I ask the teacher for help because there were to girls (that were studying psychology at the University of El Salvador) that were just listening the classes, and all the students wanted to talk with them. At the end, the teacher changed the days for them to go just to her classes. Since that day the class never went out of control; but there were always external disturbance. Kindergarten classrooms are so close to ten and eleven´s classrooms and, it was a mess when they had no classes; our pupils sometimes wanted to do the same like to go outside the classroom or buy something to eat. Besides, the street is next to the kindergarten´s classroom when ambulance passed the pupils always got up to take a look of what was happening. One of the tips I used the most was teaching the words of the things that were happening outside; for example; when an alarm was activated I taught the word alarm, and I gave them some examples sometimes related with the topic we were studying.

One of the problems I had I lack of motivation. Most of them were really interested in learning a new language; however four of them were not. Actually, they don't see the point in learning another different language. And this is obvious, if the students speak Spanish, and they don't have English speaking people as neighbors, big chances are that they won't feel motivated to study it. In fact, I could not do anything for the four students; I just let them learn whatever they wanted.

Furthermore, behavior is a big problem because students get bored if the activity takes too long and, it brings distractions and causes a messy class. I just tried to control their behavior in other ways of releasing energy like activities or games.

Another difficult thing that happened to me the first day was that the teacher did not tell me I was going to teach two hours, and I prepared things just for one hour. At the beginning I did know what to do, but I had read the book “teaching English to children” and, I remembered lots of activities. We played a game, sang a song and made draws.

As practitioners we faced many problems because it was our first time but it was really wonderful to learn how to teach and treat children. It is difficult to plan everything and the go to teach.

BY R. JEANMILLETTE FERNANDEZ

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Throughout my teaching practicum I had to face new situations. In some moments at my practicum time I did not know what to do or how to react when there was a disturbance in the classroom. I had to deal with children’s behaviors such as boredom, stress and lack of participation in the activities. There were many situations like those in the teaching practicum, but with the help of the tutor and based on the prior observation, I could easily solve some of the problems that may occur in the classroom.

First I like to mention internal and external disturbances as the main problem I had to face because nobody could control disturbances even more if they are external. In those moments I tried to catch children’s attention using different strategies. I use some tools that immediately get the children back to the class. I also had some problems when doing an activity and it took too much time or maybe it was quite difficult to accomplish. In these moments I quickly had to move to another activity, or I tried to explain it with understandable words.

So many times I had to know how to control the classroom because the children easily get distracted when they see almost every sort of things. This characteristic is useful in the teaching environment, so we can use it as a tool. We have already learned how to create a variety of teaching aids that have become an really important part if what we need is to teach young language learners.

In all ways I would find situations that will help me in one or another manner. The main thing is that I learned how to deal with them, and now I am confident enough. Maybe in the future I will have to face many other problems in the classroom, but with this practicum I will be more confident when I take risks. I will do a nice job.

BY ANGEL NACXIT GÓMEZ CAMPOS

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It is very important to be ready when the things go wrong. We all know that young children are wonderfully spontaneous and sometimes they do and say whatever comes to their minds.

Young children are not angels and we are not gifted teacher; we also need to know that when they are interested in something they are going to do it or they will show it.

I remember when I had my second practice and the class went out of control. The teacher was not there and some pupils began to through garbage to one another and the other children did the same. I tried to stop them but they did not listen to me, so I did not find anything to do. I went to ask the teacher for help.

In that time then the teacher got into the classroom all the young children sat in their desk and the teacher began to tell a story and I learned a new way to get the control of the class. It was a difficult experience for me because I have never had many young children as pupils.

BY JOSÉ FLORENTINO LOPEZ FLORES