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In order to have a better organization and to be able to see the process of all the children in the classroom, the best way to have all the children paying attention you could take into account the model ́A ́ (is at the end) from chapter 2, if the teacher arranges the desks in this way is easier to have a better overview both when the children are working individually as well as in groups; in this way, the doubts can be solved and you can teach in a better way; it is necessary to emphasize them group work, they need to understand that when you work in groups everybody is important to reach a goal. At all times it is about establishing a conversation with each child so that they can build trust in us as their teachers. As a teacher, it is necessary to have good behavior, to be very patient, to treat your students the best way possible because you also teach with your attitude, and a very good part about it is that students will become your friends too. Being e teacher is more than just teaching something, and that is all; is about being a friend to them, to play with them, to paint, to draw, etc. Because that is teaching, doing all the things with love to the kids, so an important part about teaching is the materials: paper, drawings, stickers, all those things that can catch the attention to the kids, so you can search on the internet what kind of material can be used, and finally talking about activities in pairs, we can make activities in which they need to use their imagination, like making drawings about their school, so both of them can work as a team and make a good job, and in groups, a good activity is to create something like a city, animals, etc. Using clay could be a good idea, you could tell everybody to make their favorite animal and tell how to say its name in English. As a Teacher, you need to be creative.
As a teacher, it is of vital importance to be able to be a trusted reference for their students, at whatever level, and at the level of initial education; this said above is essential because, after their home, the classroom must be the place in which the child feels happy and confident; we will have no major problem to be able to connect with our students. In the same way, it is necessary that the classroom is appropriate to the interests they have, how can we do this? We can ask them to draw their favorite cartoon or an interest that they have, such as a sport, etc.; If we have the taste of each one, we can decorate the classroom with clippings of their interests, photocopies and so on so that they are motivated and feel comfortable in the classroom, and for them to recognize that a kindergarten is a place where they can learn and have fun at the same time. To have a better learning experience it is necessary to take into account the likes and dislikes of your children, Teachers could search for ways in which they can have fun but at the same time, they learn because at the end that’s the objective ask yourself: what more can I do or change in order to adapt my student’s needs?, so as an example if your comfort zone is on, it is time to change that and get a little try about another area that maybe can be exploded, and what about music? Of course, not everybody can play an instrument, but everybody can sing, not as a star, but since everybody can speak, you can sing too, so what we can do if playing an instrument is not our business? Something that you could do is download some songs that can help to teach English to your kids; remember that at this age kids like to talk too much, and if your children don’t have the desire to sing, you could try another song, and maybe they like it, they listen to the sound and lyrics they will be interested in singing, then at that time you get the boat to the sea because you need to have all their attention and discover that it is possible to do more when you use others kinds of teaching.
My short-term goals are to improve the teaching process thank God I had the opportunity to teach a small group of children in my church, but the ages ranged from 7 to 10 however I do not have experience in kindergarten teaching, but I hope to be able to do it in the future. For this, I know that I must improve in many aspects such as pronunciation, and the way the class is taught. Try to be more creative in the way of teaching another language to children who are beginning to know their mother tongue, and as future goals regarding teaching, I want to have the best possible level in all areas that relate to English, so that I can provide my future students with good teaching of the English language, and the same is to be a friend of each one, to be able to connect with them, not only to be the teacher who gives them the class, but also a friend whom they can trust if they have a problem or need to talk.
To be honest, I have not read books on the subject in question; most of the teachers I have ever had in the past advised me on how to teach, and despite the fact that I still remember that for several years, they used to tell me that everything is governed by vocation; if you really like what you are doing or what you are going to do, there will be no problem because if it fills you to do it, the fact of being as creative as possible, makes that the student becomes interested and learns in the process. To improve in the aforementioned areas, I will try to find more information either in books or other electronic media. I know that sometimes we are distracted or we do not have enough time, but it is always necessary to have a little time to study and improve our English to get a better development of the language.
As everybody knows, our behavior changes depending on the situation, and I am not the exception. Generally, I am an extrovert, talkative, enthusiastic, and collaborative person and all of this can switch according to the situation. To be a teacher is required to be active and energetic, and I do not mind if I have to lay on the floor or produce animal sounds to explain a topic. Creativity is one of the principal abilities in the process of teaching English, and activities such as drawing, making crafts, or painting does not represent an obstacle for me. One peculiarity about my personality is my motherliness. For that reason, most of the time, I am awake to know what the children are doing to avoid any danger that they could have. Also, it is essential to be patient with them because not all the kids understand quickly.
As a teacher, I will decorate my classroom with drawings and figures; besides that, promoting the reading using books according to their age, and motivating them to learn new words every day. To create a specific area where they can sit and read books using pillows and carpets since they are not difficult to find and are cheap enough to make them a comfortable site.
Relating to the classroom organization, I consider that the best way to distribute the kids is in groups of 4, and put them in a way to leave space in the middle. Also, I would like to make the groups with a variety of kids; for example, boys and girls will work together in order to teach them how to get along from a young age, and change the way of working according to the activity; in that way, they will learn team, pair, and individual working.
Something important to take into account is the materials that we may have. Some schools can give enough material, but in other places, we must adapt our style. For example, If I want to show kids a video, but I do not have the resources, presenting the main idea with puppets, inventing a song, making posters, or use the material that we already have to teach them may be the solution. You may find plenty of ideas on books such as “Fun English For Kids by Fiona L. Cooper”. The main point is to have plans and adapt them to your context.
At the end, my goals as a practitioner in ELT are to show children the marvelous world of English. Also, I want to be their friend; I believe that the work of a teacher is more than teaching them words; moreover, it is a moral responsibility too. All the things that they may learn from being kids will influence a lot in their future. Personally, I know there are many things to learn as a docent; things such as working under pressure, improvising at the moment either songs or dancing, and learning to listen to them. Overall, being a teacher is one of the best decisions I have ever made; and that will be my inspiration to achieve all those things.
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Nicolle Huezo
To be honest, I have never been a teacher, but I think one of the skills that I have is that I am creative, and most of the time, I have a positive attitude; I think that would help a lot when teaching kindergarten children. Regarding my rapport with children, I think that I have too much patience, and I really love children because I feel that their love is very sincere and honest. Whenever I am coexisting with children, I feel that I behave like one of them. I mean that I start to play, watch series for children, sing and all those things without any shame.
I think that my style can be accommodated very easily to the children’s needs; for example, a need for children may be that they need to learn in a funny way; therefore, I could create a story in which I make different voices, so it calls the attention from them. One way to motivate children is through colors; I remember it because I learned in pedagogy that children love colors. One of my skills is to be creative, so I can use it by adding many colors; consequently, colors will attract children’s attention. One of the areas that I must improve is related to my attitude because sometimes something goes wrong, and I am already getting to feel frustrated. Besides that, I would arrange the desks, or I would sit with the children on the floor making a circle in which all the children are included. Thus, they all participate in games or dynamics.
One of my short-term goals as an English practitioner is to take away the shame of speaking the language I am learning, and it is also to be a good practitioner; that is to say, that students do not feel tedious in class, and the way in which I can improve that is with practice. The more I practice the more I learn; hence, it will take away the shame in teaching.
One of my long-term goals is being like a teacher that I had in high school, whose name was Josué; he is my example to follow because I remember even people who did not like English got excited when we had that subject. It was all because of the attitude that the teacher had since whenever he came, we did dynamics, he was patient, he explained the topics to us super well, and at the end of the class, we could ask him all kinds of questions that he was always going to answer. In the same way, one of my inspirations at the university are teacher Gerardo and teacher Mercy; they are very enthusiastic; since the moment they enter the classroom, they transmit good energy, and they are very active in class; teacher Mercy and Gerardo give the students the confidence they need. With these teachers, students can make mistakes, and they will not scold pupils or anything like that. Conversely, they will correct or help you in a funny way. Being like them is a long-term goal that I have as a teacher.
One of the books that has helped me is Teaching English for Children. I think that it is an excellent book to inspire practitioners and to know what to do and what not to do when teaching. Other things that have helped me a lot are the guides that I do for a school where I explain how to do certain types of crafts. I think that this has helped a lot to improve my creativity.
Gerson Jaco
Right now, I am not a teacher, but I will write about the abilities and attitudes that I have; besides, I will write about my behavior when spending time with children, the things I would do in my classroom if I were a teacher, and how I would make the grouping for children to be able to understand what I am explaining. I have some abilities that sometimes help me for my development. Some of them are good management of people; that means that I can sometimes understand the personalities of the people around me. Also, although it is sometimes difficult to reach an agreement in a group, I think I can work as a team because people and I look for easier ways to do things. Besides that, I am almost always able to maintain good interpersonal relationships with the people around me.
About my attitudes, I am a kind, talkative, positive, empathetic, collaborative, patient, polite, and grateful person; I am also a person that people can trust. Moreover, if creativity comes to my mind, I would put up many posters or objects of all colors to have a happy classroom and not a dull one. Regarding my rapport with children, I think I am a person who is not able to get along with children because they are a case; I mean, I often get mad at children because of their imperative behavior. In addition, talking about grouping, I would make groups of five children so that they will be able to understand and grasp the content better. At the time of explaining, I could explain group by group because if I explain once to the whole class, they can get distracted, and they are not probably going to understand the topic given by me.
I think I need to improve some abilities, for example, making decisions, having creative thoughts, managing tensions and stress, etc. Moreover, I need to improve my talkative attitude because I sometimes talk a lot. Besides that, I really need to improve my rapport with children to be an empathic person with them. Furthermore, I need to be more creative to decorate in a cheerful way in the classroom. I also need to develop the use of grouping for all my students to be able to understand what I want to explain. I have some short-term and long-term goals to accomplish. Among the short-term goals, there are to apply what I have learned in each Didactic class in teaching practices, to learn to be more creative, improve my development and to be able to speak or to give a speech in front of many people. Regarding the long-term goals, they are to graduate as a professional teacher, to work in a place where I feel comfortable and where I am able to get along with my coworkers.
Some resources that may enhance my professional development or some resources I use are the Teaching English to Children book and some appendixes that I have used in my career. Also, I would ask my aunt, who is a kindergarten teacher, some of my doubts although she does not work as a teacher.
Talking about my teaching practice, I shall mention that I am the kind of teacher who changes his behavior dramatically when the class starts, from being all serious and formal to an outgoing-dynamic style. I try to give all of my students the same attention and incentives, so nobody feels excluded. Now talking about my class atmosphere, I am not up to making didactic materials with my hands for every class, but I have no problem doing it if it is about long-lasting materials to paste on the walls for decoration and occasional use. On the contrary, I prefer using videos, songs, and my own presentations or material, so I can be more accurate with current days.
All of those materials can be easily found on the internet as it only needs an appropriate method to find them and patience to find the one that better fits the given purpose.
Also, in order to make the class attention focus at one point, make students work in groups and give students more to see than just their classmates ́ neck, the desks in my class shall be arranged leaving a space in the middle in a semicircle shape, and activities in groups or pairs would be the most popular as they make students socialize and practice their language with someone else, listening to someone else who is not the teacher.
There are a great bunch of goals I plan to achieve as an ELT practitioner. To name some of them, in the short term, I expect to know how to properly write a lesson plan down and all the technical details involved in the class preparation. Now, talking about long term goals, I plan that by the end of my practices, and besides knowing how to write a lesson plan down, I shall know how to put it into practice correctly as it is not the same to plan something and make it work; that is the main difference between theory and practice.
In order to accomplish those goals, my first thought is to be open-minded all the time, letting my students teach me too and accept my own failures, and allowing them to provide me with constructive feedback. Now talking about all the necessary theories for having a conscious look about my work and a high academic level, my roots come from my formation at the university, especially from the English Didactics subjects.
-Teaching Materials Collection - JET PROGRAM by CLAIR
-Fun English for Kids - Fiona L Cooper
-Teaching English to Children - Wendy A. Scott and Lisbeth H. Ytreberg
-Teaching Languages to Young Learners - Lynne Cameron
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