VI. Teaching Practice
Procedures of Teaching
Time Management and Organizing Activities
Given only 1 meeting a week with only 70 minutes, it was hard trying to inject fun and engaging activities during my practice. Ms. Mery would often remind me to stick to the flow of the lesson plan so that both the students and I would not be overwhelmed.
It was important that I started with motivating the students for the session by allowing them to sing and dance with the help of a video clip (Aramsamsam Song). Afterwards, another video was played to introduce the new topic. The discussion will be built on from that video.
For the newly transferred information to retain, repetition was encouraged by letting the students answer drills and exercises first on the book, then the ones on the handout. It is also important to provide immediate feedback to correct wrong notions right away.
Here is the flow that I followed during my Teaching Practice, which is the same flow that my cooperating teacher would use.
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A. Initial Activity
1. Greeting
2. Attendance
3. Motivation
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B. Core Activities
1. Review the previous topic
2. Introduction of the new topic
3. Discussion of the new topic
4. Drills
5. Book Exercises
6. Worksheet
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C. Concluding Activities
1. Give the answers to the worksheet
2. Discuss the items on the worksheet
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Problem Solving
The only problem I recognized during my teaching practice was the language barrier. Since not all my students are able to speak and understand English easily, I had a hard time trying to attending to their concerns. It was a good thing that we could understand each other by movements and pointing to the things or items that match their idea of inquiry.
Classroom Management
At the beginning of my class, I would given them two simple rules which are: 1. Since I do not understand their language, they are only allowed to speak in English, and 2. If they want to speak or answer, they must raise their hand while sitting down. This was not always effective because of the children’s playful nature.
There even came a point where I made a deal with my students that I would not write what they needed if they did not listen to me. It was actually a risk for me to do that but my previous cooperating teachers in the Philippines taught me that I had to learn how to set boundaries. I cannot be all nice because discipline would be lost under all the kindness. Thankfully, it worked. The students agreed with me and they behaved more.