Journal entry # 3

Date: September 30^th, 2015

Elementary English class observation

Topic: Personal information

Once again, life is responsible for teaching me that education is the result of effort and commitment. Thus, this time I had had the privilege of observing this English class. The evidence gathered here is the result of the process that teachers are taking in the professional development program. That is why, this class in particular shows the students’ interest towards English and the teacher’s determination to teach them better. Then, I will explain briefly the things I could perceive in today’s class.

Firstly, I found interesting the way in which teacher started her class. To begin with, she gave an overview of the topics they worked on the last session. Students were highly motivated to participate. Then, everybody sang the numbers’ song.  What I noticed here is that students do not feel embarrassed to participate and that is lovely! Secondly, teacher is constantly giving feedback to her students. I think that constant accompaniment helps students to redirect their tasks. Thirdly, strengthening the pronunciation is suitable for students. I observed that the teacher was at her students’ side, helping them with the pronunciation of words and phrases. Finally, the use of appealing material makes students to feel motivated and cheerful. In this class, the teacher used cartoons to engage students in asking and giving personal information.

The aspects mentioned above report how the class was. It is not only the result of a class but also of a process. Nowadays, the teacher shows to be more confident and secure of what she does. Besides, when she has to give instructions, these are totally clear and students can follow them easily. Of course, there are things to improve, such as speaking English to the students rather than in Spanish, but… this is what makes us good teachers.

Taking everything into consideration, this class was very inspirational because the atmosphere that permeates the classroom is unique. Consequently, the relationship that students and teacher has is really special.  They respect each other and teacher supports them every time. What is more, this teacher is open-minded because when we give her feedback she is always attentive and she looks for solutions and strategies to improve her teaching practice. So, reflective teaching works when teachers are aware of their process and they can evaluate themselves with a specific purpose: to teach better!