Reflection 2

The first semester of the practicum ended successfully with great and joyful results. I went through many new experiences and challenges, some of them were difficult while others were beautiful memories that will remain in my memory as a teacher forever. When we began the practicum, I did not teach for the first two weeks because we had to do an observation, that is, to see how teachers teach in classes and how they deal with the students. All this is to prepare ourselves to start the lessons. During these two weeks, I tried to learn and collect as much information about ways of teaching and students as possible, and I prepared materials to make my lessons as perfect as possible.

My first lesson has begun. I started with the introduction excited and gave all the information I had about the text, waiting for the majority of the class to interact with me, but things did not go as I expected. Only some of the students interacted and answered during the lesson, which was disappointing. Before the end of the lesson, I asked the students to give their opinion of the lesson in general, and most of the students replied that they liked it, so I was surprised and asked myself about the reason behind not participating in class if they like the lesson. At the end of the day, my colleague and I sat with the teacher, and he explained to us that there is a disparity between the students. So, we must provide activities or worksheets that suit everyone. I took his advice and started preparing activities that are suitable for everyone, such as using educational games like Genially and Kahoot on the projector.

With time, I began to see a great improvement in my lessons, especially when I started teaching grammar topics as exam revision. The students began to interact more during my lessons, and some of them gave me very nice comments, such as telling me that they understood the subject for the first time only because of the way I taught, or that they see me as their best teacher. All these comments made me feel happy because I am beginning to feel as if the students have become my friends and they also now respect me as their real teacher and not only as a student from Al Qasimi College.