Introduction

My first year of practicum began at Salim Preparatory School located in Salem Village. My group consisted of only two female trainee teachers, myself and my colleague Khadra. And the teacher in charge of our group was a male teacher from Salem School. The practicum was two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, and the working hours were from the first to the sixth lesson, if there was a seventh lesson, it was counted as volunteering hours. The classes that I taught were not limited to one level but rather taught two seventh-grade classes, one eighth-grade class, and one ninth-grade class. I used to divide the lessons fairly with my colleague, so sometimes we used the co-teaching method, and sometimes I taught alone in the ninth grade and she taught the seventh grade alone. The majority of the eighth-grade classes were individual classes with only four to five students because the curriculum requires that we teach these classes in addition to the regular classes.

The materials passed in the classes were divided into texts, grammar, or other activities related to special days in school dates, such as the Day of Tolerance or Earth Day. Whether the lesson plan was about a text or Grammar topic activities were always present, especially gamification such as Kahoot or Bamboozle. Students were highly active in these gamification activities. At the beginning of the first semester, I had some difficulties reaching all the students in the class because there were quiet students who hardly interacted with the lesson. So, I found that these activities make everyone focus and pay attention during the lesson.

However, at the beginning of the second semester, we began to teach subjects from the curriculum of the oral proficiency course. For example, one of the most successful lessons that I learned from this curriculum is the poem nothing gold can stay and beauty standards. And I am sure it’s because I used the gamification Kahoot.

The selection of materials in classes depends on several factors, but the most important of them was the time of the exams because when it was nearing the end of the semester, most of the lessons were a revision of exam materials.

Of course, I faced difficulties in the beginning, and I was somewhat nervous at the idea of ​​standing in front of students whom I had not met in my life and teaching them. But I got over all of that with time because I worked on improving my weaknesses to become a better teacher. And this happened with the help of the teacher in charge of my group and with the help of the pedagogical advisor who is in charge of students in Salim school. Our teacher used to sit with us at the end of each day to give us feedback on our lessons to improve them for the better. And our pedagogical adviser used to sit with us every Tuesday and give us feedback and some advice to help us become better teachers in the future.