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Pedagogic Experience  2
Hylde Andrea Ramírez Torres
STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES

During my teaching practice I could realize many strengths and weaknesses that bring an important learning to my professional life. Within the strengths I can mention the way I planned my lessons. Every moment that I was assigned with my students was really important for me. I structured my lesson taken into account the Presentation – Practice. - Production model which worked very well. I also introduced a warm up activity every single class so that students felt motivated and wanted to learn something new. The warm ups were interesting for them and also created an environment of joy and pleasure in the classroom. Some students said it was really nice to start the classes with something different, even competing among them.

As I had great experiences there were also some aspects to improve and keep on working. In some classes students were assigned to working individually most of the time which was not very convenient for the students as they felt boring sometimes and wanted to establish social connections with the other in class. Speaking activities became interesting for me. I asked students to prepare something short giving them some minutes (5-10) and then we socialize as a class with the rest of the class. I noticed that in the preparation time they were just doing other things, or translating things in Internet. Then the results in the speaking activities were kind of improvise and not of a good quality. Then I decided to monitor permanently what the students were doing and it was much better. They centered on the activity and the results improved a lot. Another difficulty was the exposure students had to English. They were used to speak in Spanish all the time, and then it was challenging to try to speak more in English. They did it finally.
I suggest student teachers to take their teaching practice with responsibility and seriously. It is one of the most important  subjects in the career because it is the real practice of the aspects we had been studying before. Commitment and resposiblity is a must.

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This video is meaningful to me as it represents the outcomes that our students had at the end of the course. It shows me how a group of students can achieve their goals with dedication and hardwork.

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This video corresponds to the final exam students presented. It is important to me because I can see the progress the have done during the course and the results of the effort and enthusiasm they worked with.

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Two lesson plans that were particularly difficult...

These topics are not easy to explain in terms of similarities. Students frequently confuse Simple Present and Be . Then they build sentences including always the verb Be when it is not necessary as they are now working Simple Present with other verbs. Making them aware of the correct usage was not easy....

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Two lesson plans I liked....

Something really special happened with these lesson plans. I introduced activities to discuss in the warm up section. It was challenging for students as it was a Basic course.  Nevertheless, they enjoyed the activity and it took more than 5 minutes! Lesson are planned but in the way things can make them be totally different!!!

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My teaching journal

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Testimonials

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Achievements

I can say that all my learners did a great job in the courses I was in charge of. There were two different groups: A and B. Group A was larger than the other. Most of my students were girls who accomplished all the rules and tasks assigned every week. They worked really hard to imporve their pronunciation and general comprehension of the language. They had as a challenge their performance in the class and made a big effort to be always there with us. Levels of proficiency in terms of language use improved a lot. They are now able to react in a situation where the context and language is familiar to them. SOme of them were shier and less open to share and socialize with the group but in their own way they also achieved the aims of the course.

Talking about group B is different. I had 2 students with different cultural backgrounds and proficency levels. The skilled one was supporting his partner and helping him to fing the right way to develop the activities assigned in class. I assessed them taking into account the differences seen during the lessons and the advances I noticed during the term.

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Characterization

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My teaching philosophy
All students are different and they deserve to be treated based on their particularities. Their learning styles, motivations, interests and skills may vary so that is why assessing them must be a detailed and respectful task for me as a teacher to do. The basis of all my teaching labour is understanding that students are not products to be sent to the market. My students are part of my life ans thus they need to be comprehended as human beings who come to school to be better people and to grasp values, attitudes and knowledge to improve the current reality.

My beliefs about my teaching

My students have prior knowledge that are the foundations of my current practice.

My lessons are structured in a clear and progressive way. I include aspects of language based in my students level.

My students enjoy the classes. They feel respected and involved in a learning environment.

I select materials that offer a variety of activities ans exercises. All learning styles are included in one single class.

Every class students learn something new and worth  the time and energy spent. I also learn something new. It is a process for all of us.

What I learned about teaching speaking skills

Classes must be initiated with a warm up activity that eagers students to do good things in the class. There must be a strong emphasis on pronunciation, fluency, accuracy and grammar. It is difficult for foreign learners to be aware of grammar when they are speaking then activities that help them built that awareness are mandatory in speaking classes.

What I learned about teaching in online environments
Foreign language pedagogy  suggests the compatibility of literacy-based approaches with uses of technology, defining literacy as the ability to deal with technologized forms of language use. One of the goals of literacy-based language teaching is to reconcile communicative language teaching (CLT), with its focus on face-to-face verbal interaction, with helping learners develop the ability to read, discuss, reflect on, and write critically about texts in all modalities. An example of this can be the use of YouTube as an ICT tool where students  and teachers broadcast themselves despite of recording with a camera and bringing the videos to the classroom as it used to be.  Thus, rather than differentiate between ‘old’ and ‘new’ technologies it is seeked the continuities as well as innovations across time and mediums.

My principles about teaching speaking online

Classes must be planned to well-structured  ahead. Students dereve respect.

My pronunciation and speech must be clear enough for all students. Mix- abilities classes demand activities to be clear and understandable for all students.

The ICT technology mus be a qualified one. It is a tool that provides students with a canal to communicate, therefore the quality in the sound and image is necessary.

Spanish use is not neccesary. My students are learning English and output is a key element in the process of acquiring a second language.

Interaction among students and peer evaluation gives students more confidence and engage them in activities that lead to cooperative learning .

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This is a tool to show what the advances in my teaching practice were up to now. It is a reflective document to share experiences with other teachers and partners.  A teaching portfolio comes to be a genuine tool in the educational environment nowdays. A summary of all the activities developed and a way to have a clear record of the processes students and teachers were having at the learning process. It helps teachers to trace and follow their own practices as well as evaluate and monitor advantages and disadavantages that arise from experience.