The first week in teaching practice (sunday 30/9/2012)

Today I did half a lesson on the mat and I introduced the shape of the week which is square and ask the students some questions about it. They were good listening to me and I tried to talk in English mostly with doing some gestures rather than explain everything in Arabic. The reason that I did half a lesson is my teacher wanted to finish the base assessment on numeracy that she is doing it and all of the teachers must to finish it this week however my teacher want to finish it tomorrow so the students will enjoy to do some activities that related to the theme. Therefore, I helped my MST with the assessments during the activity time and she thought that this will help me for my action research. Moreover, it was good for me to do this kind of assessment to see how my MST is assessing the children and to take a look to the student's level.

My first day in the Kindergarten

My first day as student teacher in a new school which is Al Zayediyah Kindergarten was good however I was little nervous especially that nobody of my colleagues with me. I start my day with greeting the principal and introducing myself to her and to the teachers. They were very kind with me and welcomed. Moreover, I met Ms. Vivian the head of English teachers and she introduced me to my MST Ms. Jeanette she seems very good teacher, kind and helpful. She explained everything that I may need for the next week and I explained for her what I have to do as well. In addition, there are some things that I'm concerned about which is my teacher let the Arabic teacher explain everything that she says and I can't blame her because they are second language learner but I'm worry that the students will get used to have an explanation in Arabic and they will be always waiting for that. Furthermore, they are using lots of worksheets which are good and they contains good activities however it's different than my previous experiences. In addition, the big issue that I'm thinking for a solution for it is the size of the classroom which is very small and there is no space for the children to move freely. Finally, I enjoyed my day sitting with the children and try to interact with them to get used to me.

Interview

 

Observation

 

 

EACE 471 Reading of literature

Some advises to help the new teachers

Being in the school for the first time as a student teacher could be exited and nervous for most of the students. I can remember my first experience, I was excited to teach and to deal with young learners however I didn't know how to start and what is the first thing that I have to do. These are some advises could help new training teacher

 

1.      Observe the children while they are learning independently it will help the student's teacher to know the students well and know what they are interested in.

2.      Use big stories with different colorful picture to grab the student's attention and its very good strategy to introduce new lesson.

3.      Ask the students to bring something from their houses that they like or prefer and talk about it in front of his/her friend for this strategy will build their self-esteem.

4.      Involve the multimedia and the popular culture in their learning to hold their attention on the lesson.

5.      In some lessons we can use creative arts such as drama, music and dance to make the learning more effective and fun.

6.      Always remember to keep you introduction of the lesson short because the attention span of the young students is short and they get bored quickly even us if we were doing the same thing for a long time we will get lost.

7.      Don’t forget the important thing about the classroom management which the children should have routines in behaving in the classroom and outside the classroom.

8.      Rewarding the learners and using the good reinforcement are very important to support them to do better and better next time also it will encourage the other students to imitate the student who did well and it build their self-esteem as well.

9.      Treat the students equally and always tell the students what the wrong that he/she did and ask him/her what should to do instead of that.

10.  Sometimes the lesson will not be as you planned for and sometimes the students will not be in the mood or they will not be listening so don’t be upset and be flexible and move to do some fun activity with them so they will be learning without they know that.

11.  The last thing that I want to share it is something I had problem with and one of my college teacher support me to try it and it works well. It was about using role-play and imagination strategy with kindergarten students. At the beginning this strategy could be difficult especially with children however after several time of practicing the students will get used to it. After I used this way of teaching I figure out that my students become good thinkers, solve problems, speak and work collaboratively. On the other hand, be careful of doing role-play for the first time when you have your college mentor or the school mentor observing you.

The mind map of my action research

The final project

Hello,

My name is Fatima I'm 22 years old. I'm married from five years and I have two boys. I'm a student in Al Ain Women's College.

This is my final year in studding Early Childhood Education. In this semester I have to do a big research "action research" that I have to write 6000 words about a topic that I'm interested in to learn and to make improvement on it. Moreover, in this research I have to write about the topic that I will apply in the school for 6 weeks and write what I planned for and what happened during the lesson. Furthermore, I have to support my project with relevant quotations and with my reaction about it.