WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT? WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT?

                We need to know that classroom management is important to create the conditions in which learning can take place. If we want to succeed in a course, we need to have the skills to create and manage a successful class. It is necessary to take into account that our attitude, intentions and personally are huge influences when managing a class. Moreover, our relationship with learners is important and helps us to do a good job.

One main goal of classroom management is to help students to learn effectively. Students cannot understand or learn a new topic if they are not paying attention. Teachers who do not have manage over the class make students to feel bored and disappointed about the class. Therefore, they do not learn anything. Teachers also need to take into account the activities they develop because by watching all the actions that happened they can think on possible options to better them.

Principles of classroom management:

1.   Be Aware of the behavior of students

2.   Be Calm all the time and Consistent that sometimes thing can go wrong

3.   Be positive and give praises to good behaviors

4.   Be flexible

No one can tell you the right way to do something. There is no perfect lesson, no single correct answer, or no single route through a lesson. Our total lesson is creating by our choices. We cannot predict that the routes we take will work or not until we try.

What are your motives for teaching? What rewards or incentives do you get from teaching? How might your motives interfere with your ability to put the needs of students ahead of your own?

During my major, I have discovered many reasons that make me want to teach. At the very beginning, I was not even sure if I wanted to teach, but all the experiences I have had make me want to become a teacher.

First, I really enjoy when students learn from me, that happiness you feel while others learn significant knowledge from you. I also enjoyed my teaching practice at the kindergarten because children were very affectionate and they made me feel good. That is why I wanted to have more experiences on teaching and now I am having completely different experiences with teens but they are still good for me.

I consider there is no better reward that the good you feel while teaching. Of course, everyone expects to have money as reward for his job; however, teaching makes people want more than just money since good teachers expect to become a significant part of student’s education and life.

Moreover, I have notice that some students do not have good backgrounds in junior high due to they do not have good teachers who really care about their education. I also have had bad experiences with bad teachers who only care about fulfill the hours the institution gives them. They do not matter if students enjoy the class or if the students even learn something from them. Therefore, I would like to become a good teacher that prepares students properly and in this way students will be ready for future challenges because they will have good backgrounds.

I believe my motives to teach do not interfere with my ability to put the needs of students first because my reasons to teach focuses more on students and on the proper learning for them.

WHAT I LIKE AND DO NOT LIKE ABOUT WORKING WITH TEENAGERS

Adolescence is an interesting stage in human beings` lives, but it is also a complicated and difficult stage especeally when adolescense is related with education, since teenagers do not care much about learning. That is why working with teenagers becomes such a difficult task.

During my teaching practicum, I have had many experiences working with teens. What I like about working with themis that they are very enthusiastic and they have a lot of energy. For this reason they need to be busy all the time. It is very important and good to develop many activities with them.
I am working with seventh grade in my teaching practicum. They are getting use to English because it tis the first year they have this subject. Some of them are interested on learning a second language and they ask a lot of things in class. On the other hand, there also students who do not care about the class and about learning English. They get easily frustrated becuse they do not understand.
They also like to participate a lot when I carry out an activity or an exercise, what I like about them because they like to participate even though they make mistakes, they even get kind of angry when I do not let them participate all the time. I do it in order to give the chance to other students who are shy or have problems with the topic.
My students get happy games due to their teacher do not like to do these kinds of things because he says the learning need to be serious and that he see these things worthless. Luckly, he gives me the opportunite to play games and carry out activities like warm ups and time fillers, and I think he have realize these activities are good for teens.

However, there are some things that I do not like about working with teenagers

• Teens get distracted easily with things are not related with the class. If they are sitting near of friends they talk too much and they do not pay attention.
• They also do no like to do homework assignments,neither the ones I gave them nor the ones their teachers assign them.
• Teenagers do not put much effort on learning English, which sometimes makes me feels sad or dessapointed because they are not conscious of the importance of a second language.
• It is very difficult for them to write properly. They have a lot of problems with spelling.
• They do not study at home because they are satisfied only with the classes they receive. Even though I encourage them to study hard, they do not do it yet.

I have learn a lot working with teenagers. As normal in the teaching process, I have had good and bad days with them. However, I like to work with them and I am enjoying this experience

WHAT CAN THE WORLD WIDE WEB OFFER ESL/EFL TEACHERS?

The World Wide Web can offer a wide variety of sources to teachers. By using the web, teachers can develop their classes better and they can make the learning process easily for students. Teachers can find information about topics that are going to be develop in class and also they can find strategies to teach, vocabulary, practices for students, and activities that can help learns develop in class. Teachers can even find examples of lesson plans which focuses on reading, listening, writing or speaking skill; they can easily chose the ones that their learners need.

We, as future teachers, need to get into technology because students spend a lot of time on the web world and for them it is very easy to use any of the tools that internet offers. That is why teachers need to encourage them to use technology for educational purposes.

“One of the key problems in education reform is that traditional teaching fails because students have no use or interest in much the material as it is presented, yet in order to expand their understanding of a given subject, they must become involved in the entire teaching process. For example, producing a physics experiment in order to actively discover the results, in addition to exploring the social context in which the original experiment was performed, has more educational value than merely hearing a lecture about how some scientist first attempted the experiment several centuries ago.” Using any web tool in the classroom will make learners to feel more interested in the classes because these tools are unusual ways of learning and learners are interested in most of the things that internet can offer them. Engaging students from a variety of angles and allowing them to feel as if they are a part of the subject matter will often lead to them becoming more interested in (or at least more willing to discuss) that subject. Therefore, they invest more mental energy and thus commit the concept to memory with a better comprehensive understanding of it.

In addition, the web is a very useful source for teachers and students, but they all need to use it in the appropriate way and take advantages of all the tools it has in order to improve or skills and better our skills. 

How can the standard-features word-processing programs be exploited for teaching writing skills?

Word processing programs allow people to produce typed documents on a computer screen. Although the lines between word processing and desktop publishing have become increasingly blurred, the programs still differ in the way they produce documents. Word processing programs essentially produce documents as a stream of text, whereas desktop publishing produces them as individual pages. Despite this difference, most word processing programs allow at least some desktop publishing capabilities, such as inserting text boxes and graphics at any location on the page. 

Some of the features we can use are:

Basic features help us to save time writing text and make changing text easier and more flexible.

Language features help teachers and students to correct their work and do various languages, spelling, and usage exercises, check and correct spelling, suggest words, check grammar and usage.
Web features allow teachers and students to connect documents with Internet resources and create web page announcements, reports, and projects.

On the other hand, when students do receive instruction in typing and text editing, it is not surprising that they become skilled at these tasks because they are in contact with them and the instructions give them a guide for using them in the appropiate way.

 

 

Do you think technologies (e.g., videos, computers, etc.) should play a central or a peripheral role in second language teaching and learning? Why?

I think technologies should play a central role in second language teaching and learning because teachers can take a lot of advantages of technology in order to make the teaching and learning more effective. The usage of technology in the classroom can make the classes more intesting for students due to it is an unusual way of teaching; therefore, students learn more since they are interested and they pay more attention to the classes. Moreover, technology offers a wide ways of improving a second language. Students who study a second language need to learn how to use technology to improve their skills because it is not enough only with the classes their resive. However, technology sometimes can distract students with other things such as social networkings (facebook, twitter, hi5, tagged, etc) or web sites like youtobe. And they will not use internet or technology for the right purpose insted they will waste their time in unnecessary things and learning will not take place. In order to avoid this, teachers need to educate first themselves on the good usages of technology  and then educate their students , as well. Technology is an important and big source of knowledge but we have to learn how to use it; if we do this we will see the results on the improvement of students. But we also need to be really careful  and we need to make sure we use technology to a rela purpose. For example, a computer can`t teach studentsany more than a blackboard or a cassette recorder can. It will all depends on what you do with the tools. By using technology we allow students to be an active part of their own learning because they use it to go over their classes out side the schools or in their  houses. It is important to use different methods that technology offers us due to studets do not take seriously or they get bored when they have to read a book or when they have to go to the libraryand investigate, but if they have to read an information on a blog, they watch a video, or they have to make a discussion with their classmates on facebook, they will feel these more interesting and they will be more willing to participate on them. As a conclusion, we as future teachers do not have to be afraid of using new methods of teaching or using the technology to give our classes; indeen this has to play a principal role in our teaching.

What do you think is the role of research to understanding teaching?

The role of research in improving our understanding of teaching is truly important becuse we need to know some theories about teaching and also how to develop them in class. By researching about different methods and techniques teachers can know which of them fit better their students` needs. Moreover, teachers can see that there are many different ways to manage a class and do different things to avoid monotone. And this will be helpful for students because they will not feel bored in class and they will be more interested on the class. As  result, they will  learn easily and their affective filter will be low,since doing different activities in class help students to overcome shyness or fear to participate.

Even though research is important and very necessary to understand teaching, it is more important to have experiences on teaching. There are alot of things teachers cannot learn by research; therefore, they need to live such experiences that can be good, sad, bad, dissapointed or exciting. And these experiences are more valuable at the end, since it is something teachers live by themselves in which they take decisions and act according to the way they see things. They can react differently depending on the kind of situation or their personality.