Journal Colombo

 On this day I had my second and final observation. I had throughly planned the classes so I felt more confident than in the past few session, but still I felt a little nervous and anxious as always. The observation I had was, again, with the preteens course. I think overall it went okay, the kids seemed to really understand the topics and seemed like they were enjoying the activities, which made me feel at ease. 

I wasn't on day 14th because I had a mandatory appointment at university, so I returned on day 15th. The day before this one was Halloween, so they advised us to do lessons Halloween themed. I wanted to do something different and fun for the kids, specially because of this date. I took my time thinking about activities and games, and managed to do a decent lesson plan for both courses. The kids class was more Halloween themed, they even came all dressed up in their costumes which was cute, but with the preteens I mainly focused on reviewing the last unit of the book and had the project presentation. It was still hard but I did feel a bit better compared to day 13th. 

 On this 13th day of classes I was feeling particularly anxious and stressed. I had planned the classes for both courses but I felt they werent good nor enjoyable, the thing is that I didn't had the time to plan anything else. And so the class with the kids didn't go that well. They were very distracted and this slow doing the activities. Of course I blamed myself for this, so when the class ended I felt bad about it. This leaded to me feeling worse thinking I had the class with the preteens next, so I decided to not enter. I informed my team teacher and my supervisor that I wasn't feeling great and my team teacher ended up doing the class instead. I apologised and they fourtunately understood. Hopefully next classes I feel better and have the time to plan better lessons. 

On this 12th day of classes I was super nervous because it was the first day I had to lead the whole 2 hours of class for both groups. I was kind of confident with the lesson plans I had prepared but, once again, I felt very nervous in both classes. In the class with the kids I tried to relax and be comfortable so it wouldn't show as much. Teacher Nidia had an appointment so she couldn't be there, but I was with another teacher as substitute. Her presence also made me a bit nervous, then I got to talk to her and she was very kind. After the class she gave me some feedback and I agreed with everything she told me. I have to improve on a lot of things that are hard for me, so I'll try my best. As for the class with the preteens, I did feel a lot more nervous. This may be due to the fact that my supervisor would attend and grade the session. I was very stressed but the students seemed to understand the topic and do the activities so that made me feel a bit relieved. After it e...

 On this 11th day of classes I had to do another language cycle and communicative moment, along with a section of parents meeting. I think I learned a lot from the previous week, I wanted to be more organised and to better manage my time. For this reason, I was able to plan my assigned sections with more peace of mind let's say. It is still difficult for me but I didn't rush as much as I did last week. As for the parent's meeting, I was really really nervous to speak in front of the kid's and teen's parents. I did the section of the student's report, where I informed them of how the course was going and of any recommendations. I tried my best delivering this information and trying to hide my nervousness, so I think I did well; Nidia also remarked that I did a good job so it was very reassuring. On the othe hand, I feel like the kids and preteens are starting to get me as a teacher. It is still not easy for me but I think the more classes go by the more I'm u...

This day was very challenging. I had a very tough week overall, and I couldn't organise myself how I would've liked to, so teacher Nidia helped me out a lot with these classes. I find the language cycle quite difficult to plan, I have a hard time thinking of activities for the different stages, so that got me really overwhelmed and stressed out. While in the class with the kids, I feel like I could've done a lot better in the delivery of the lesson, but it was fine. With the preteens I felt more confident so I think it went well. After the class ended, I had various discussions with my team teacher Nidia about how to improve in preparing, planning, delivering, etc, the classes so it is easier for me and I don't feel as saturated as I felt. In other news, I feel like the kids are very smart and they sucessfully do all exercises from, for example, the langauge cycle part. Of course there are some that need to further practice, but in general they understand and develop al...