Practicum II Experience

My name is Tomas Antonio Lievano Lazo, I am 22 years old, this is my fourth year at the University and I am studying a major in teaching; furthermore, I would like to mention that I have been exposed to the teaching field since the very beginning of my career since I have taken subjects such as didactics, psych pedagogy, Practicum I and now I am about to finish Practicum II. In this Practicum II course, I expected to get to know teenagers better and in fact I did; also, I started using ECRIF as the main tool to plan classes and I was expecting it to be challenging since I was used to plan with the PPP and the PDP frameworks; anyways, ECRIF was a new opportunity to plan classes in a more specific way and I think that with ECRIF lesson plan’s goals and objectives are easily reachable.

                ECRIF was ready for me but I did not feel ready for ECRIF because the very first time I saw this “new” lesson plan I realized that there were a lot of new things that I did not have idea about what they were for. Thus, according to my experience, I could say that the most challenging part of ECRIF is to think in a lot activities that you will need to perform in order to teach your lesson, and, I am saying this because we were required to include the following parts on our lessons: community builder, encounter, clarify, remember, internalize, fluently use and wrap up; Furthermore, there were a lot of activities to think about at the time of planning and we only had 45 minutes to develop the class so time and ideas were my enemies throughout all the semester. However, after planning some lessons I overcame these problems by looking for activities that were easy to perform, and students were going to love, and, at the same time they match the class’ objective accordingly.

                Teaching was not something new for all the students in this Practicum II class since we were together on Practicum I and most of us had shown a great improvement from the very first time they taught a lesson in front of us. I would like tome mention some of them and I would start with my classmate Deyanira because she had improved a lot. First, Her materials were great since they were big enough, catchy for teenagers’ eyes and colorful. Second and the most important, her voice projection was perfect since I was able to listen to her easily and students did as well. Third, she used the class’ space perfectly since I nonticed that she was moving around on her lessons and I did not see her nervous. Another classmate that had shown a great improvement is Yennifer because when she started teaching I noticed that her mood was not at the same level of the students; however when she taught her final lesson, she looked different and she was able to maintain the level in which she started throughout the whole lesson that made students felt comfortable. Also, I would like to mention that she is very dynamic at the time of teaching and teenagers enjoy having a teacher with such quality.

                To conclude I would like to mention that this class had been extremely helpful since now I know how to teach teenagers and how to plan an effective lesson that will match my goals and objectives accordingly by using ECRIF. Even though I know how to plan and how to assess my students, I think that I still need to get more experience on the teaching field since somehow I felt that my classes were not at the level that I wanted them to be. Anyways, this Practicum II course had been fully rewarding since I have learned new things that get me closer to become a teacher.

Physical and Psychosocial development of the adolescent student

Physical Changes in adolescence

This week I would like to start by mentioning some interesting things that I remember from my golden years (adolescence). For many people being an adolescence means having problems such as behavior issues, acne, big physical changes, emotional problems, relationships, first love of our lives, break ups, etc. I was not an exception; thus, my adolescent stage was very tough since I actually experienced all those problems mentioned above. When I was 12 years old I used to try to get along with the popular ones since I wanted to be popular; also, I used to beat up on my classmates; moreover, I had acne issues and experienced a lot of physical changes.

Although adolescence can be a very hard stage for most human beings, now I understand why adolescents go through all these situations. Based on the article "The Self, Identity, Emotion, and Personality". I was able to find out the scientific reasons for such stage which is full of ups and downs. According to Susan Harter, "The contemporaty perspective on the self emphasizes the construction of multiple self-representations across different relational context". that is, basically the changing view that adolescents are going through since they are looking for a specific role in a specific group, that is why adolescents behave in different ways throughout these period such as tryng to be part of new popular trends, acting different in order to get a gir/boy's attention, having some sort of rebellion with parents and teachers, listening new music, having new haircuts. Moreover, Erik Erikson researched the Identity versus Identity Confusion and he explained that " the identity versus identity confusion occurs during adolescence. at this time, individuals are faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life". As we can see, Erikson was trying to say that teenagers are trying to decide what they are and what they are going to be; so, this hughe dilema makes them have some sort of confusion affecting them in all senses.

As a teacher I would like to help my adolescent students by helping them with this important decition which is deciding what they are and where they are going to. First, I think that in order to be able to help adolescent students they have to trust in you as a teacher in order to become their friend; then,  I would try to make them see how important is to take good decitions during this period since a bad decition may affect them the rest of their life, third, make them see how important school is since it is the key for succes. I think that these three aspects are important and as teenagers students have to take them into account at the time of making decitions.

Meeting and dealing with the changes in the brain of a teenager

My practicum II course started on monday january 18th and by then I just had a vague idea about what adolescents behavior was. Thus, I only thought that adolescents behave the way they do because they are trying to get some attention which is accurate but there are some other reasons that affects the tennager's behavior such as changes in the brain but I will talk about this later. Moreover, I was aware that cultural aspects may influence the way teens behave.

By attending to classes and researching I found that teenagers not only experience physical changes but vital changes are taking place in their brain. According to the article adolescents brain developed published on january 22, 2014 by the online magazine thInk neuroscience, "Scientific evidence is showing that the brain systems involved in decision-making, planning, social understanding and risk-taking are developing in adolescence. This might have implications for education, rehabilitation and intervention".  So, we can see that brain influences on teenager´s decitions.
The National Institute of Mental Health stated that:
     - Several lines of evidence suggest that the brain circuitry involved in emotional responses is changing during the teen years.
     -  The capacity of a person to learn will never be greater than during adolescence. 
     - Enormous hormonal changes take place during adolescence. Reproductive hormones shape not only sex-related growth and behavior, but overall social behavior. Hormone systems involved in the brain's response to stress are also changing during the teens. As with reproductive hormones, stress hormones can have complex effects on the brain, and as a result, behavior.
We can infer that brain has such a great impact on teenagers that it can changes behavior but it also makes these ages the most suitable to learn.

As a teacher I will be working with teenagers which means dealing with behavioral changes due to brain influences and also with teens' hormones that will have implications on students' reactions and behavior. I expect to learn methods that will help me to teach a class in which I can make a real connection with my students that will allow me to interact with them in order to find out what they are going through and based on that use an approach to teach them.

Reflection

This is the last entry on this semester on my Practicum I class and I would like to say that I enjoyed a lot.
At the begning of the course I thought that woring with kids was going to be difficult because I had not worked with kids before and even though I had a son and I spend a lot of time with my cousin and niece, managing a big group was going to be difficult. Working with kids is a difficulty for teaching and I can tell that it is not since working with with kids is the most rewarding activity I have ever made.
That feeling that you got when you see those kids pronouncing words in english cannot be compare with anything.

When we started the first lesson I had some difficulties mostly with my attitude toward stidents, some flashcards that did not meet the size required and the organization of our group was not that good.

In our second performance we lacked organization and this was a bit problem at the time of performing since it affected us a lot because we had to skip the wrap due to lack of materials. 

In our third participation I feel that we did a great job and I overcame most of my problems since I showed a very good attitude toward students and as a group we were really organized; However, I still have to improve my voice projection.

Throughout the course, we have been getting ready for our kids by having some talks with an expert on coping with stage fright and how to speak in public and I believe that it was very helpful since Improvement was shown on the performancecs.

It has been an amazing experience since I learned a lot about kids which is something that is going to be very useful for me not only because I am a teacher but because I am a father of a beautiful 11th moths child. This is a learning experience for all my life and I hope to keep increasing my knowledge in order to be a leader in the classroom.

Lesson 10

This class took place on november 11th, 2015 and this gruop was assigned with a PPP framework since they were required to teach vocabulary and writing skills. Everybody noticed that this team took the time to prepare this class since they had a lot of materials to perform the class and kids apprecciated it!

I could notice that the group was tired and this affected a little bit their performance since I did not see a very good attitude toward students; however, their material offseted everything.

At the end, they enjoyed with the kids and kids were happy and even thougn explanation was not that good, kids understood since they practiced some professions last class.

On the one side, this group needs to improve their voice projection and they need to show a better attitude. On the side, their materials were amazing since they brought some sort of muppets and flashcards were big enough.

Lesson 9

This lesson took place on november 9th, 2015 and it was the time for our group to perform this class. we were assigned with a PDP framework in order to teach the topic "My dream job" for listening and speaking skills. this was the last opprtunity that we as a group were going to have and according that what we showed in prevous classes I think that we improved a lot, mostly in our organization since we had everything ready and even though the classroom was  a total mess because an University event took place a couple of hours before, we were able to overcome that uncomfortable situation.

Kids were ready to start so we started with the wellcome song and after that I was in charge to start with a wrap up activity called "find the place" in which students were playing with a ball a goal and the one who did not score was asked to find one of the places in the town that was taught in the provious class. 

After that, Eunice was in charge to perform the pre listening and the during listening and we decided to use "realia". We wore some customs in order to show the way that professionals dress and we used very attractive materials.Then professions were described by using realia and studenst were asked to complete a worksheet with the name of the professions.

Bryan was in charge of the post listening activity and kids were asked to play the musical chairs with the purpose of practcing the sentence "I wan to be a ____"

The wrap up was in charge of Willam and Eduardo who did a very good job by making students play the crazy hat. Students enjoyed this activity since they were dancing and running around the chairs.

At the end we sang the goodbye song and snacks were given to kids.

I would like to infer that in this class our improvement was shown since we were more organized than before, our flashcards were big enough for kids' eyes and our attitude toward students was good; however, we need to iprove in our voice projection a little bit more.

Lesson 6

This lesson took place on wednesday october, 26th and this group was assigned with a PDP framework in order to perform activities with the purpose of practicing listening and speaking skill. I would like to infer that this group was very organized and their materias were the best for the whole course, Although their materias proved that they took the time for the kids and they were willing to participate, their performance could have been better.

When they started the class, the sang the welcome song and what amazed me was the materials they used to perfomed the song since every single child had a muppet and they were doing mimics.

After that, on the presentation pat I would like to say that the way Yaneth performed was good and even though she lacked voce projection, she sat down in the floor and share her knowledge with the kids and again visual aids were great!
Then, the during stage took place and the idea they had was interesting since they recorded themselves in order to play the audio for our kids; however, I realized that there were some pronunciation mistakes that can make students confused later on. Then they played a game using some dades and that was catchy and interesting four our kids.
Class was about to finish and it was time for the wrap up activity and they did something that I loved which was an interesting game that every single salvadoran child knows, guess which one it is?, it is "mica" of course. I loved this activity since kids were running all around and enjoying as much as they could.

I think this group did a very good job since their performance was great and most of the activities were well planned.