Reflection On 1st Teaching Practicum
Reflection On 1st Teaching Practicum
Reflection On 1st Teaching Practicum
On January 4, 2017 I visited Community Based High School Sultan Abad to take the first
class with grade 9 as the part of my teaching practicum. According to the time table of the school
I had to take the first period, hence, I reached the school at 8 am. But after reaching the school I
came to know that due to some adjustments the English class has been shifted to second period.
After waiting for 45 minutes I entered the class, greeted the students, introduced myself and
(containing the vocabulary of city and village life) was displayed in front of class for students to
read and guess the topic. Afterward, I started the main activities. Since, I was intended to teach
free writing in first lesson therefore, I discussed pre- writing/ brain storming and free writing. It
was an overcrowded class with no space to move chairs to form groups that is why I had to
consider left side of the class as group A and right side of the class as group B. after identifying
the groups the students were asked to close their eyes and visualize village and city life. Group A
visualized city life and group B visualized village life. The students were given three minutes to
visualize and collect some ideas in their minds. Soon after the visualization, the students were
asked to jot down their ideas in bullet points in the given sheets. Since, it was free writing
therefore, I kept encouraging them to write whatever came to their minds without any
considerations of grammatical rules. Subsequently, the students were asked to put their points
together and write a text/ passage. Once they done with their writing, they read each others text
to give feedback. Towards the end I randomly selected three students to read their text to the
class so that I could give feedback in general. At the end of the session I gave them home task to
In general the class was interactive throughout 45 minutes. All the things were done
smoothly and according to the plan. The students willingness, responsiveness and active
participation made the teaching and learning process more interesting and learner centered.
Throughout the class the students maintained their interest alive. Assigning the students to the
groups made the class more interesting, there was a sense of competition and all the students
were trying to write their best taking help from the vocabulary charts. Using multi modals made
the class interesting and interactive for the students. Reading vocabulary from charts, visualizing
city and village lives, writing their ideas in bullets points, putting them together, reading each
others text and sharing their writing in front of class all were thrilling activities for them.
However, it could have been made more interesting and interactive if small groups were formed.
Displaying pictures of village and city with vocabulary items would have made the lesson more
interesting and would have grasped the students attention more. I was too much conscious about
time I completed the lesson 6 minutes earlier. In remaining six minutes I asked the students to
share their problems regarding writing and share their expectations from my teaching practicum.
The students openly discussed their problems and also shared their expectations from my
teaching practicum. I enjoyed the discussion a lot because every student wanted to share their
After taking the class I found contradiction between the students writing skills and the
teachers perception about their writing skills. In my first meeting with the teacher, after class
observation the teacher told me that the students are too poor at writing, they even cannot write a
single sentence properly. In discussion with the students I came to know that the teacher has
made writing a scary thing for them. The students are confined to the grammar rules. Before
writing a single sentence they take care of every bit of grammar. As a teacher I have observed in
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my classes that whenever, the students are asked to write a piece of writing they think of
grammatical rules and sentence structures which stops them to initiate writing, and make writing
a nightmare for them. Until we motivate and encourage our students we cannot achieve our
desired students learning outcomes. According to Stephens (2016) teaching without motivating
the students is just wastage of time. He further says the teachers motivating words make the
learning an easy task and move the students towards the desired goal and objectives.
Since it was the first lesson, I was afraid of proper execution of the lesson because the
context and the students were new, the class was overcrowded and congested. But with the help
of multi modality I managed to deliver the lesson in a proper way. Reading vocabulary from the
colour charts, visualization, pre- writing/ brain storming, free writing, peer assessment,
presenting the text in front of class by the students, teachers feedback discussion were used to
As a teacher I need to take care of the minute mistakes which occurred in the first lesson
to avoid them in future. I hope, I would teach in a better way if I get a chance in future to teach
Reference
Stephens, T. L. (2016). Encouraging Positive Student Engagement and Motivation: Tips for
Teachers. Retrieved March, 4, 2016.