It’s hard to believe that this lesson is the second last of my practicum. Something that has become increasingly clear to me in the last few weeks is that not everything goes according to plan and that is okay. In fact, sometimes nothing goes to plan and that is also okay. To say that this class was chaotic would be an understatement. I experienced a few significant classroom management obstacles that in my mind impacted the quality of the lesson. Additionally, the activity I had planned did not work as intended. As students left the class, I felt defeated. This was by far the worst class of my practicum. Instead of focusing on the negatives of this lesson, I want to focus on what went well despite the negatives. This was no doubt a challenging lesson, but I was able to deal with all the challenges and still be outwardly calm and patient with students. The activities did not go exactly as planned, but the students were engaged and clearly learning English. We didn’t meet our objective for the lesson, which was to practice clarification. However, the students did gain experience in giving and following directions.
Nothing in this lesson went according to the plan and that is okay. For me being able to look past the negatives and see this lesson as a learning experience is a big step. I hope that in the future when I have a class that doesn’t go according to my plan that I can take a deep breath and use it as another learning experience.