My first week in the school

My first week during the school Humberstone was good, I did not have troubles
with the teachers, UTP or students, actually they were very kind to me, and this
motivated me more to be there. On Monday, my first class was with a 9 th grade, I
just sat down on the back of the room and observed. I did the same with all the
classes that day, I noticed they were not like talkative with new people, except for
the 7th grade. The 7th grade was very kind to me, they saluted me, asked things
about me and we talked a lot (during the free time they had). This did not happen
in 8th and 9th grade, I think they were shy or they lacked confidence. I noticed that
my guide teacher did not presented me to the classes and perhaps this was the
reason that caused they did not greeted me. The following days were similar, but
with little changes: some days, I was helping my teacher with some test and other
doing assistantships (It was not only observation).
There are some things that called my attention: The classes were based only in a
book, nothing was different from that, the class management was very good due to
the respect they had with Miss Daisy, their teacher. There were around 44 students
per class, and this made almost impossible the workgroup because of the space
they needed to do that, and the attendance were very good (the maximum number
of absentees was around 3, being classes with 43-44 students).
Overall, my first week which was dedicated to the observation and some
assistantship, did not present any trouble or remarkable things to write about.

Rodrigo Mansilla

My second week in the school:

First week of classes

During the past week, I used some time in the school to start planning, for this I
asked my guide teacher to let me use some hours in the week. I planned for 7 th
grade and 8th grade, and I tried to continue exactly the same my guide teacher was
doing which was working with the textbook. I tried to vary some things, because in
my opinion, students get bored if you do the same thing every day. When I started
to do my classes I realized that the students were accustomed to work with book,
so my changes were not very important.
The classes on 7th grade were good, but the students did not cooperate with me
some times and they talked a lot. I think my class management at that point was
unsuccessful. They reviewed on Monday food and drinks, and for this I brought a
lot of things in order to catch their attention. On Thursday I knew what I had to with
the chatty students; I was monitoring all the time how they worked and I paid more
attention to the chatty ones.
The classes on 8th grade were better than the 7th grade ones, this could be
because of the schedule they had. This class had classes on Tuesday at 11 am
and Wednesday at 8 am. On Tuesday they behave very well and all I wanted to do
worked. On Wednesday happened the same, it was all good, I had problems with
some students, but monitoring their work helped.
My first week as a general summary was very good, I felt that I was a real teacher
because their respected me and tried to help me (mostly of them) in all I wanted to
do.

Rodrigo Mansilla

Third week in the school

second week of classes

The second week was not very different to the last one. I took some time to
observe and do my assistantship during the days I was not teaching. The classes
were taught in the same way, but in some cases the use of a touchscreen was
used to change the way the activities were done. The mimio was very attractive
to the students because the mouse moved when the students controlled it from
their seats. It was a little bit difficult to control it because it was very sensitive and
sometimes when the students wanted to click the correct answer they miss
clicked it and the answer was considerate wrong. I took this idea but I changed the
device. Even though using the touch screen was very interesting and fun it took a
lot of time to answer and in my case I was very careful with the time, so I decided
to change it for a wireless mouse and the activities were done faster than with the
mimio.
In Monday I applied this method, and the students were amazed because I was in
the back of the class and I controlled my computer from the distance (they did not
see me controlling my pc because the mouse was at my back). The best of this
was that the activities were interesting and I did not lose time.
I could pass the contents without any problems during this week, but we focused
reviewing them instead of seeing new ones because they had a test next week.
The food and drinks vocabulary was reviewed for 7 th graders and present simple
and present continuous tense for 8th graders. I used some realia with 7th graders
(bringing some food and quantities which was a content of the test also) and
videos with 8th graders to do examples of this tenses. I applied quizzes on
Wednesday and Thursday because I wanted to know how much they knew and
how they were prepared to the test. I will have the result next week.
This week showed me that the students behave better with me when they start to
know me, they are more respectful and more responsible, exclusively 7 th grade
which is a difficult class.

Rodrigo Mansilla

Fourth week of classes

Third week of classes

Being my last week, the Schedule was different; I went only to do my classes and I
was I pre observation with Miss Ema, my supervisor of second period.
The classes I did were more peaceful than before, perhaps they were focused on
the test they had next week or for the presence of my supervisor, even though they
were not in calm during some moments, I think we cannot expect the children to be
in silence all the time, which is utopic. The discipline changed abruptly in 7 th grade,
because in previous classes, the class did not cooperate with me, they did not pay
attention at all. I think they realized that they had to be prepared and due to my
review classes, they would learn more than doing it by themselves.
I can add that some tips of my supervisor helped me to improve my class
management. I was focused on the students who talked a lot. I did not lose them
from my sight, but they behaved better than before, and that helped me to carry out
the activities in a better way. I tried to monitor more the progress of the activities,
because last classes I did not pay a lot of attention to that, and some students
could not complete the workbook, which is their study guide (they were
accustomed to study only from the workbook). I focused on that during this week.
I can say that all what I wanted to apply worked (More monitoring during activities
and better class management) in this week and I think I finish my first period in an
acceptable way.

Rodrigo Mansilla