REFLECTIONS ON FIRST WEEK

The first week of the practice teaching was very enjoyable and useful form e. I saw my school teacher fort he first time this week. She is a really nice and positive person. She is trying to give us as much possibility as she can for practicing. She has five different classes which are on the same age and same level, and she prepares only one lesson plan for the day. She uses the same lesson plan for these five classes again and again through the day. We will have the chance to practice every week, after observing her two times.

Since we are doing our practice teaching in a kindergarten, we learn different things. For example, repetition becomes more important with the kindergarten students. They do not write anything, they do not read; so, the only thing they can do is, repeating. They repeat some sentences while they are circling pictures, connecting or showing them. They repeat some words and sentences after the teacher. They talk about pictures, listen to songs, draw pictures, they move, they play games, etc. they are not aware that they are learning something, they just enjoy themselves. The teacher has to be really active in classroom and this is really tiring.

At first, we did not think that the students would be so good. Their teacher does not speak in Turkish in the classroom. The explanations, the instructions, the warnings, everything in the classroom is in English and they all understand what the teacher is talking about. They usually listen to the teacher and do what she asks. They have some classroom jargon, and they all know what the teacher means when she use some specific words. For example, when they are making a semi-circle with their chairs, the teacher begins, ‘tik tak, tik tak, hurry up; tik tak, tik tak, hurry up!’ and the students also say the same thing and they rush to their places.

When there is a problem with the classroom, for example, when the students speak a lot and begin to walk around, the teacher warns them by saying ‘What’s the problem Ana 1?’ or she says, ‘Be happy flowers now!’ and everybody is silent and at their chairs. Sometimes the teacher closes her eyes and counts, ‘One, two, three!’ when she opens her eyes, everybody is silent and they sit on their chairs.

Sometimes, not the whole class, but some specific students go crazy and the teacher asks them if they want to lose their happy faces for that day. These happy faces are sticked on a cartoon for each day and each student, and if the students become too naughty, the teacher takes their happy faces for that day. At the end of the week, if a student has his/her all happy faces still on the cartoon, s/he gets a sticker.

The teacher always appraises her students by saying, ‘Well done, Gökhan’, ‘Congragulations, Ali’ etc, after each answer to a question or participation in class. She usually do not say simply Can or Karya, she says Cancım, Karyacım and so on. These work really well because the students are really young and they need appraisal.