First Journal

Week from April 2th to April 5th, 2019.

This week was difficult for me because it was my first time in charge of two big groups of students. Last week, when I observed the classes in order to know my new students, I could have certain ideas about my students' behavior, English level and ways of learning.

My first challenge this week was planning the lesson since when I talked to my cooperator teacher, she told me what theme (the environment and human actions) and grammatical topic (past simple) which I had to develop in the class. I felt a little confused about how to join these two topics so I looked for reading and listening exercises about it but I didn't know how to develop the activities. My cooperator teacher was so helpful. She helped me a lot with the students. Then, she helped me to plan some activities.

In my first lessons in my two groups (801 and 802), I felt really nervous. I tried to take into account all the tips that my cooperator and supervisor gave me. I tried to use L2 all the time in the classroom but when I noticed my students didn't understand, I repeated doing some movements and using simple words but sometimes it was necessary to speak in Spanish Despite this, I tried to make them express their ideas in simple sentences but in English.

In the first lessons, most of the students told me "profe no le entiendo nada"  or "yo no puedo decir nada en Inglés". I felt frustrated with both groups.

In the next two classes, some aspects of the class changed a little bit. My students tried to speak in English although They didn't say complete sentences to express their ideas, they communicate in English. Also, they started to be active in the participation of the activities that I prepared and did in the class and obviously I felt better with myself. Even I was more confident in everything that I was doing.

Another problem that I had in the first lesson plan and I tried to do it well in the second lesson was with time management. I gave much time to one activity and the other activity was shorter than how I had planned it. At the end of the week, I realized that I had planned many activities for the week, so for the next week, I will try to plan for or five activities that I can develop each one of these in the classes.