The Practicum Course that I have recently taken helped me discover my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. I have been teaching students one-on-one for the past few years but realised that teaching a group of students requires a particular set of skills and can be more fun in some ways.
My strengths as a teacher:
I am a teacher by nature as I have always loved explaining things to others. If they were my classmates or my students, I felt great when somebody finally started to "get it"!
Throughout my practicum, I believe I built rapport with the students. I tried to do it by talking to them before the lessons, listening to them, asking questions and answering their questions. During the classes, I tried to engage all students and give them all opportunities to participate in the activities actively.
I always try to use a friendly and respectful tone of voice when working with students. I believe that by doing so, I help them build self-belief and self-respect, which are crucial for effective communication in a different language.
I am passionate about learning English and want to give my students language knowledge as well as inspire them to learn on their own. I think the most significant success of a teacher is when their students achieve their goals in life because they can speak another language!
I believe I am a good presenter - I was able to control the pace of a lesson, get them motivated, use my sense of humour when the lesson gets heavy. I believe my teaching background helps me feel less nervous in front of the students; however, I realize that there's still room for improvement.
My areas for improvement:
Use more scaffolding in the lessons and try to give context exercises that are relatable to students' lives.
Before giving ready answers to the students, see if they can find the answer themselves. Don't answer their questions right away. Ask them what they think and lead them to the correct answer.
Time management. Although, I think if I had more teaching hours, I'd be better at estimating how much time students need for different activities. But there's definitely room for improvement, especially with more detailed lesson planning.
Challenge me to be more tech-savvy. I find that I am very conservative when implementing technology in the classroom. I need to conquer my fear of using new digital resources and keep in mind that this is what students really like, and that's how they are going to stay engaged during the lesson.
Give clear and detailed instructions before giving students a task to work on. When writing a lesson plan, plan where students will see the instructions and how you can make sure they understand them.
My focus for the future - I initially started with signing up for a singular course, not even a program. My intention was to become more professional in teaching ESL. I wasn't planning to work in a language school or with a group of students. However, I was getting more and more interested in learning to teach English to groups of students, and I can say I really enjoyed teaching a class during my practicum. I am not leaving out the possibility of teaching a group of students at one of the language centres in Canada.
My reflections on students' feedback - the feedback was very positive. All of the students said they enjoyed my lessons and there's nothing they didn't like about them. They enjoyed doing quizzes more than any other activities and will use the knowledge I have given them when looking for a job in Canada.
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