JOURNAL 2

During a class I like to engage students in different kind of activities: individual, pair and group work. In spite of I have a large class, I try to provide all the students the chance to participate actively.  In order to develop some skills in my students I apply different activities into the classroom: role plays, dialogues and written exercises. My students usually prefer to record their performances than to act in front of the class. When they record, I use to show their works and they really enjoy it. For that kind of activities, the school has a bilingual computer room where we can work listening exercises, watching videos, worksheet solving using Word or Power Point. Unfortunately, that computer room does not have internet access but I try to take advantage of the tool.

When I develop a lesson plan, I always begin by asking myself what my students should know and how they can apply what they learn, for example: talking about their daily routine, buying a soda at the cafeteria or describe a Colombian celebration.  To that end, it is necessary to provide real examples and make students use the language in real situations and relate what they learn with their real context. So, a teacher must provide structure and direction in the tasks that students have to carry out. It is necessary that students have a clear idea about what teacher expects them to do in the classroom and in their assignments.  In order to practice the language, I like to organize the English Day so that the students can participate actively showing their talents. As a result, students feel enthusiastic about showing their best performances.

Learning is not an ending process and the teacher is a learner too. I strongly believe that teachers need to continue their professional growth, to do so, teachers can be part of educational associations, to attend conferences or doing advanced studies are excellent strategies to be updated in terms of new methodologies and strategies that emerge every day. Nowadays, technology also provides you a lot of tools to apply with your students. One important aspect is that students are very different today than some years ago so teachers require to share their classroom experiences and gain knowledge from other colleagues too.