Teaching Experience: What I Learned

Final Reflective Essay on Teaching and Learning I have learned three functions from my savant command visualise sound pedagogy, mannikinroom care, and humility. In this expository essay I will briefly develop each of the above-mentioned and beg off why it is significant. Among foreign lyric poem teachers, there is debate ab out(p) how to near effectively teach. The debate disregard be simplified to two pedagogical approaches grammarbased vs. immersion-based. The grammar approach to larn a foreign lyric poem is traditional and still the dominate pedagogy in use today.If you took French, German, or Spanish in high school, this is how you were taught. The grammar approach is a mechanical approach to language-learning and has advantages and disadvantages. For example, if I am statement a schoolchild the verb to go, I would write the various breeds on the board I go, you go, he/she goes, etc.. I would then direct students to practice this verb through written or spoken a ctivities. When I think that I have adequately taught the verb, I would handlely give a formative assessment to check student comprehension.And so it goes, piece by piece, I put together a language for my students. The advantage of this approach is that it is simple and very comprehensible. Its exchangeable putting together a puzzle, one piece at a time. Students do non aim tremendous anxiety and do not observe lost in a sea of incomprehensible dustup. The regulation disadvantage of this approach is that it is slow to build fluency. For those of you who took a foreign language in high school or even college, how much do you re bothy remember instantly? The solution to the problem of fluency is immersion.One form of controlled immersion is called TPRS, and is the focus of the next few paragraphs. Language teachers and learners know that the observe component to learning a foreign language is to travel foreign and live in that country. teachers began experimenting with ways to duplicate this powerful learning experience in the material bodyroom, and I feel that TPRS is the well-nigh successful imitation of it to date. TPRS stands for numerate Proficiency through Reading and Story sorting. This pedagogical technique recognizes that a class meeting five days per week for less than an hour cannot result a straightforward immersion xperience because true immersion involves a 24/7 experience. Instead, TPRS imitates the most salient and valuable features of immersion. Like the grammar approach, it has advantages and disadvantages. In TPRS, the teacher selects the most critical, high-frequency words and tells a repetitive story with them. For example, if I were teaching my students the same verb to go, I would invent or borrow a simple, bats story. Then I would repeat to go over fifty quantify in that story. Prior to beginning the story I would briefly explain to go and write it on the board.Students are repeatedly exposed to important, high-frequency words in context, similar to what happens in the true immersion experience. Like the true immersion experience, TPRS builds fluency well. This better fluency is possible because the pedagogy imitates a part of the true immersion. The disadvantage to TPRS is that the grammar is delayed. A first-year TPRS student talent say something weird like, I eats peaches, because he hasnt only learned that it should be said, I eat peaches. I conclude that TPRS is the most effective pedagogy.Compared to the traditional grammar approach, it builds fluency faster. The TPRS students I speak to report that they feel like theyre learning more and more engaged when compared to their introductory grammar experiences. I believe that building fluency is the most important thing I can offer language-learners, and therefore my introduction to TPRS was the most important pedagogical event in my world. Because pragmatism is central to my teaching philosophy, I will most certainly use this technique.Class room management is one of the most important skills a teacher can have because it really refers to whether or not the teacher has the class on-task and learning. If the class is not on-task, then learning is not taking place I will briefly tell the story of my experience with eighth-grade students re schoolroom management and then explain why this knowledge is very important. When I took the reins of my new classroom at C R Anderson Middle School, I purposefully did not pitch my cooperating teachers agencys and routines.I thought that changing to my teaching style today would be too abrupt and instead gradually transitioned to my different style. Things went swimmingly for several weeks students were on-task and learning. Then I completed the transition from the students familiar routines and procedures to mine. A week or two after all old routines and procedures were gone, I began to lose control of my students. I was flabbergasted by some of the behavioral problems that appear ed, often in students that had never been problematic before.I could fancy that I was losing them, so I tightened up discipline and started giving out detentions. Although my tighter discipline quieted the class down, it was not an effective solution because 1)I was spending class time giving out detentions and 2) they really werent on task, they were merely more quiet. I read an excerpt from a Master Teachers book on classroom management (Mr. Wong) and it changed my life. I completed that the reason my students were no longer on task is because I had failed to return them with routines and procedures. For example, I did not implement a seating chart.This was a procedure that the students were used to and its absence created a sense of anxiety that translated into classroom management problems. I re-implemented the procedures and routines that had been in place with my cooperating teacher and immediately got my students (for the most part) binding ontask. I cannot stress how im portant routines and procedures are for keeping students on-track and learning. Without solid classroom management, I may just as well be course a study hall. Because a teachers purpose is to be teaching, my acquisition of this critical skill changed my life.I owe a thanks to my cooperating teacher, Mrs. cock Cooper, Mr. Wong, and SOE instructors for providing me with excellent classroom management materials. Lastly, I have learned humility. I am in general a confident person and force pride in being competent in my subject. Student teaching taught me that I did not know everything. I would hate to be in a profession or job where I felt like I was done learning or where I felt bored. I now know with certainty that I love teaching, and knowing that somewhat a career before looking for a job is important.I am not the unassailable best classroom manager, nor am I the absolute best at TPRS. I do, however, have very good tools and experience to guide my mastery of these subjects, an d I am extremely optimistic and desirous to continue teaching as a professional. I am glad to my cooperating teachers, their schools, and the SOE for the professional support and guidance they provided. The sense of humility I now possess is what allows me to continue to grow professionally, and continued growth, above all new(prenominal) qualities, is important to me.