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And the last part has come... and so have my fears. To be honest, I have to say that the Secondary level terrifies me.

I have been teaching English for 10 years and my students were never older than 13 years old. The idea of working with teenagers froze me. Besides, my older son started 1st year of secondary level too, so he became a teenager as well.

Maybe both challenges affected me as a teacher and a mother and that was even worse. However, I decided to bite the bullet and face my fears.

It was difficult to change my childish teaching way and think about teenagers' needs and tastes. Nevertheless, having a teenage son helped me a lot.

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When I met the group, the teacher told me that they were working without a book. She has prepared a booklet for them instead. That booklet provides students with basic grammar structures like affirmative, and negative and questions with simple present and vocabulary related to days of the week, sports and free time activities. Although this is a starter booklet, the topics and the reading comprehension activities are wisely selected, because they engaged students during the whole year.

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The group is formed by 29 students from 16 and 17 years old. Besides each of them is particular and adds something special to the group, all of them share a characteristic: they live on the periphery of the school. That singularity makes them feel that sense of belonging related to their neighbourhood and the school.

Most of them and shy and don't like pictures or cameras because that makes them feel childish or even vulnerable. However, they enjoy playing games during my classes, letting me know that they are still kids inside.

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There were many important moments for them and for me, but most of them were touched by the same value: resilience.

After the school was closed for a month, we returned and they were a bit confused and affected by the situation. Besides, they did their best to go to school and keep on learning. Those were difficult days but I couldn't spend a lot of time talking and feeling sorry about the situation, so I tried to keep on teaching but trying to put into practice as many values as I could. For example, we played many games and we remember values before and during the games. We also spent some time reflecting on some readers related to teenagers´ issues and how to solve them.

In other words, after suffering a stressful situation as we lived, we could overcome obstacles and use that experience to enrich our classes and add value to our everyday routine.

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Along the practicum period, there was one thing the regular teacher frequently mentioned : "dont rush".

At the beginning, it was very difficult for me, to calm down and give students the time to process my explanations. For example: I taught them a topic and sometimes I asked them questions to check their understanding, but immediately I gave the answer. Even more in our 40-minute classes.

One day, a student asked the regular teacher: why is she "running" all the time? and then she told me that. At that moment, I realized that she was right. I was so anxious about teaching them as many things as I could, that I gave them no time to process the information, think about it, make mistakes and continue...

The regular teacher explained to me that the important fact is not to teach everything I plan to do. The key is that they could learn, at least, one important grammar point and use it as many times as possible.

After that, I relaxed and took it easy. I emphasized the language in use instead of the number of topics I explained. and also relaxed with me.

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Music and social networks were motivational tools for them

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The use of technology during our lessons fosters student engagement and motivation. As they are e-learners, these tools were very useful to introduce a topic or create a meaningful context to learn.

I remember a lesson plan in which I told them that my niece met a boy through Instagram but, in order to know a bit more about him, he sent some QR codes to scan. I also mentioned that I didn't know how to do so, I needed their help. That class was fascinating because they paid attention to each audio in order to discover who this boy was and they also enjoyed the idea of teaching me something about tech.

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Our classes were a mixture of games, grammar, debates, jokes and good moments...

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"Teachers who love teaching, teach students to love learning"

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"Teachers who love teaching, teach students to love learning"

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This image summarizes perfectly our classes. Although they worked really hard, they also enjoyed having fun together.

That made my job easier because time flew by without feeling the pressure of a job. I can say that I achieved the objective while enjoying the trip :)

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Although we couldn't have a final picnic, as I promised, I sent a gift for them with this beautiful message: Thank you for helping me grow... because that´s a fact! They did so.

They taught me that sometimes we tend to jump to conclusions before facing reality. I was really frightened but then I realized I had nothing to fear. Of course, I never mentioned this to them, but that´s the real reason of the message.