The Evolution of Teachers

I am José Eduardo Escobar Vásquez. I am a student at Universidad Don Bosco. I am studying the major in languages teaching option. I am studying my ninth semester. This is my fifth year in this major.

In all this time studying at the university I could understood and learnt a lot of important things. Useful things that I will be able to put in to practice not only in the future at my job, but right now in some subjects in which I have to implement some strategies for teaching. Last year and at the beginning of this year I was teaching some classes for my social work. I was teaching English to some kids on Saturdays.

When I started this year of classes I had to take this subject called Teaching Practicum II. In this subject we had to deal with teenagers in the classroom. I thought that this situation would be a little bit difficult for me because I know that teenagers sometimes are problematic. Also in this subject I studied a new framework to plan my lessons, ECRIF. At the beginning I had hard time planning with this framework because I have never heard or read something about it. When I started to plan with this ECRIF, I spent a big part of the day thinking about what I could implement in each stage of this framework. I had a lot of doubts while planning my lessons, but now I feel really comfortable with this framework because I know better how it works. Now, I can plan a lesson with this framework on less time. I think that practicing is the best way to get something. Personally I prefer to work with this framework because it is better. This framework is really complete and it is more understandable while delivering a lesson. We as teachers could appreciate in a better way how the process of learning works on students. With this framework teacher has the total control of what he is doing during the lesson. Teachers can adapt the different activities for each stage of this framework in order to take advantage of it.

I could see and learnt some things from my classmates. Most of they are really creative with the activities that used for any stage of their lessons. I would like to share some things that catch my attention from Vanessa Aguilar. She is a great teacher, I admire her attitude a lot. She looks confident when she is in front of the students. She is willing to help, to give her best in anything that she proposes to do. She is really creative with the material that she used in her classes. She presented some ideas that I have never thought about them. She is really serious when she is delivering a lesson (I cannot be that serious). Probably been serious while delivering a class is a good way to stand, a good attitude to take. At the end of the course I could see and perceive that she was more relaxed while giving her class. Students felt comfortable in her classes. Teacher Vanessa encouraged them to participate, and they did it. In the three lessons that she delivered I could see that she was really prepared for them. That’s a characteristic of a great teacher.

I conclusion, I could say that I improve a little my skills for teaching English. I feel more confidence standing in front of students. I feel really exited making the material I will use for my class because I saw that students learn better and enjoy a class with creative material from the teacher. I saw that with the activities that I use with them. For example with the crazy hat and the big smile. I think that I reached most of the objectives of this course. I can plan a lesson using ECRIF in approximately 2 hours, and that is a big step for me!! I know that with more practice planning I will create my lesson on less time. I can differentiate which activities would work better for students. If we want good results in our students we should learn from all of them. All the people is different and all of them have something to teach us. It is our duty to identify the differences between our students and take those differences in our favor. We could explode the best of them, and we have to do it.

Physical and Psychosocial Development of Adolescent Students

This last week, we were learning about physical and psychosocial development in adolescents. We could understand a little bit more about some changes that teenagers have to pass through in the adolescence. I would like to share some of my memories from this phase. I do not remember changes by themselves. My memories are more related with situations or thoughts. For example, I remember when I had to decide about what to study in high school. I felt some doubts because I wanted to finish quickly from high school. Also my friends wanted to study only two years. Maybe at that moment I did not think about the opportunities that I could have if I had studied for three years in high school. I remember that my friends liked to go out at nights and they invited me to go out with them, but I have always been a shy person and I liked more to stay at home rather going out. Most of them exceeded of some “relaxations activities” such as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes or something else. I was not as curious about those thing as they were. So I have not had problems with those things. Other situation in which I felt confusion was about choosing something to study at the university. I felt that my family was pushing me to decide something and I made a decision, but this decision was not the more appropriate and I failed in my first year at the university.

Now I understand that adolescence is a phase of changes. It is a phase in which you have to make decisions, important decisions for your future. Also, it is a stage in which you do not consider consequences of your actions. Most of the teenagers tend to abuse of alcohol because they feel curiosity about it. Even some adults tend to abuse of alcohol, but they do not do it because of the curiosity. They already know about alcohol and their consequences. Maybe we as adults do not do things because we do not know that they are bad, but we do those things because they are bad habits that we bring from the adolescence. In my conclusion, I opinion I think that in any point of your life you will feel some doubts while making decisions, but you will made those decisions and you will be willing to take the responsibility of those decisions nobody will be pushing you to be responsible. So it is a personal decision to do things right.

I think that a way to help them in order to learn something we as teacher need to guide them in a respectfully way. I am the kind of person that believes in this: “treat others the way you want to be treated”. Adolescents are volatiles, they could act by impulses, but they know how to behave with someone who knew give them trust. If we as teachers are willing to help them in their learning process they are going to feel it, and when they feel confidence they will ask for help. Maybe teenagers are not as complicated as we think. 

Meeting and Dealing with Changes in the Brain of a Teenager

In this course we are going to be working with teenagers. I have worked with teenager at church and it is a little bit complicated. Also I have some friends that are teenager and I have the opportunity to see their behavior. In my time working and seeing teenagers I could notice that they are really unwise. They tend to do things without thinking in the consequences. They have a lot of question about life. They feel curiosity about forbidden thing and they want to know the answers. They look for experience some situation in their lives. Teenagers are energetic, but in most of the cases they do not use that quality in an appropriate way. They tend to stress themselves with little things such as: being fashionable or maybe love problems or other little things. In this phase most teenagers do not have their own identity. Their likes are similar to their friends’. They want to be like someone famous maybe a singer or an actor or a soccer player. Teenagers are against the rules maybe that is natural in them, they do not like to follow instructions from their parents or from the authority. They feel like they are invincible and that they can take the control of their lives, but they lack of experience and their attitudes and decisions could be wrong. They as us are going to make mistakes, and we as teacher should know how to react while working with teenagers.

I found some interesting aspects about the changes on teenagers’ brain. There are some things that are “natural” in teenagers. At the beginning I thought that this behaviors were attitudes adopted for them, but reading some information I found out that their brains are going through a stage. Adolescents act by their emotions. When they have to make a decision their feelings and emotions have an important impact in what they choose. The article I read said that there exist an emotional reactivity. According to the article adolescent are looking for new experiences and in most of the cases these kind of experiments have and unpleasant ending.

As a teacher my expectations for working with teenagers are that they could apply all of the qualities that they have in order to learn, understand and practice English. They are smart and if they focus their attention in something the results would amazing. I hope to understand better teenagers. We as teachers need to know different strategies for exploiting the abilities that our students have. We need to look for subtle ways for teach them something. Also we need to know how to catch their attention. I hope to find a way how make them do something not pushing them, but make them want to do it. We should encourage them for learning English in nice and attractive ways.