My First Teaching Experience

When I was a student from an institute, more or less 4 years ago, I was practicing in a primary school from Berazategui. At that time, I was not working at school so I was not very experienced. I had lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 10 in the morning. It was a 5^th year and the students had a good behaviour, except for one student, who was the leader of the group and had serious discipline problems. He always bothered his classmates and he never did the homework. There were 32 students from a middle social class. I observed the students for two weeks and then I started working. I should deliver ten lessons.

My first impression as a student was that the teacher taught English in a boring way. The teacher spoke English and Spanish to help students understand. Most of the times, he did not use gestures or facial expressions. He used photocopies rather than different resources such as posters or flashcards to make students enjoy the classes. He was so exposed that students could not infer meaning. As Bowers (1987) states, “communicative competence implies that individuals and groups with greater skill in using (and manipulating) the language system will exercise power in naming and thus controlling how others will view social reality" (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2004, p.1).

As I had a program to follow, I decided to continue with it. I started working on clothes words and people’s clothes descriptions since they learnt vocabulary about the weather and the four seasons. My teaching goal was to make students aware that English is a language they can use in real life situations. As Giroux (1983) puts it, “language is a social event that is defined, shaped, and constrained by the culture of the setting in which it is used” (Kelly-Kleese, 2001, p.1). My learning goal was not only to teach how to describe people’s clothes, but also to create a set of rules for them to behave properly in class.

My teacher told me to speak English all the time; I did the best to do so, but on many occasions I could not. I was doing great since it was my third week. Students continued having bad behaviour but at least they did not run away from the class. The rebel student, who never spoke English during my observation classes, participated in class. It was really amazing for me that at least he could speak a word in English. On the fifth week, I had to evaluate them, during the first hour students had to describe orally their own clothes and on the second they had the written test.

 Before leaving, students gave me letters and nice drawings. The leader of the group was one of them, I could not believe it. The things they told me were amazing. I was very happy because it was a nice experience as a teacher I have had in my career. The following class I returned to give the exams back and I also wrote a very emotive letter telling students about my feelings towards them. I was very sad to say good bye but that was it. I know that they learned a lot of vocabulary and structures, they did it great in the exam, but I learned more than them. I learned that whatever you give, then nicer things will give back to you.

References

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor´s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463.

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA Community College Review: Community College Scholarship and Discourse. Community College Review Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541.