lunes, 7 de noviembre de 2011

Critical Incident


An Experience to Remember
Last year, when I was a student from TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) college, I had to deliver 6 classes at a private Secondary school.  I had lessons on Fridays from 1:15 to 3:15 in the afternoon in a 5th year formed by 20 students.  Before being assigned the course, the teacher had suggested not to practise with that group, because they had serious discipline problems, which could lead to a bad and de-motivating experience.  As the timetable was suitable for me, I decided to take it all the same, but with fear and prejudice after the teacher’s suggestion. 
First, I observed some classes delivered by the teacher, which provided me with useful information about the group dynamics. Students tended to misbehave and continually argue with the teacher, who seemed to be tired of dealing with discipline issues. She used to complain that no challenging activities such as games or songs could be performed, since students did not show interest or pay attention.  As Abidin and Kmetz (1997) have explained, “teachers are less apt to have positive interactions with behaviorally challenging students and even avoid contact with these students as stress levels increase” (p. 1).
Consequently, establishing a friendly and positive environment was my first objective when I gave my opening lesson. I was suggested to work on sports vocabulary and modal verbs, both interesting contents to prepare innovative activities as learners were weary of working on exercises from the book.  Therefore, we first worked on a game to know each other, in which they had to write in a separate piece of paper an adjective that described themselves, as well as a sport they liked and one they hated.  Then, I read them aloud and the other students had to guess who the person was.  It was a simple activity but they were really engaged in it, since they wanted to know about each other and win.
After that, I divided them in groups and proposed a memory game with pictures and words about sports.  This was my way of introducing lexical items as well as maintaining their concentration in the class, because they were really involved in solving the task and winning. After posing some questions about sports and brainstorming ideas, we watched some engaging sports commercials on TV, and they were supposed to reflect on the message conveyed, the attributes of the sports and their popularity in our country.  This was a good opportunity to implicitly introduce some modal verbs, expressing prediction, possibility and obligation.
When the class finished, I was really satisfied because students had been engaged in the class, they had actively participated and no behavior problems had emerged.  Therefore, I tried to prepare the following classes in a similar way, focusing on videos, songs and games to apply the language.  My most important feedback was students’ positive reaction, since I had observed how they tended to work before.  I learned a lot from this group, mainly that you should never be influenced by other people’s prejudice.  What really matters is your own image of the group after establishing a relationship with them.   






 

References
Abidin, R. & Kmetz, C. A. (1997). Teacher-student interactions as predicted by teaching stress and perceived quality of the student-teacher relationship. Anaheim, CA.
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