Final Self-Reflection
Li Xinxuan (202100133) Final Teaching Reflection
My three-to-four-month internship is finished. During this time, I experienced
teaching and managing students in a real classroom environment at Adventist
International Mission School (AIMS), and I gained many valuable experiences and
skills.
First of all, by assisting the homeroom teacher in preparing teaching materials
and managing the students, I learned a lot of practical teaching skills. Observation
during the first two weeks of my internship was indispensable, as it allowed me to
understand what a real classroom is like, and gave me a clear understanding of the
teacher’s teaching style and strategies for dealing with students and the students’
characteristics. With this background knowledge, I knew what to do when I started
assisting the homeroom teacher in managing the students. I learned a lot of specific
strategies for managing students, which included ways to get students’ attention (how
to get them to stop talking and focus on me when they are being very noisy), and
ways to deal with students’ behavior problems. In addition to managing students,
preparing teaching materials gave me a lot of ideas about teaching, which includes
instructional activities that I can implement in my teaching and ways to engage
students through activities.
Secondly, I’m grateful that I got some periods for teaching. These experiences
of teaching in a real classroom have been invaluable to me. Before my internship, I
did microteaching in the methods courses, but my audience was my classmates who
were taking the same course as me. And my internship gave me the opportunity to
experience real teaching in the classroom. When I planned and delivered a lesson, I
thought about whether my students would understand, I paid attention to what I said,
and I chose my teaching activities carefully. Unlike my previous demos when I did
microteaching, in my teaching I would pay attention to the students’ feedback, and if
they didn’t understand what I was saying, I would repeat it.
Lastly, I’m grateful that I got to be in this class with some of the students with
special needs, which gave me a more realistic experience of the kinds of situations I
might face in actual teaching. There are two boys in the class who are most special,
and I have learned a lot from them. One of them is dyslexic, as a result, he is not very
interested in learning much of the time. The school arranged for a teacher to tutor him
in reading, and the homeroom teacher and I supported him as much as possible. In the
second quarter, he made great strides in his reading and received perfect scores on
many of his word dictations. I'm very happy that his attitude towards learning has
changed so much. The other boy’s main problem was behavioral. Due to various
factors, he is very sensitive to what teachers and classmates say to him in class, and
whenever he is upset, he cannot learn properly and even gets angry. I’ve tried a few
times to talk to him in a way that has good results. But there are times when I can't
control my anger especially when he fights with other students. But when I realized
this, I started to make conscious changes. So far, the student hasn't changed very
significantly in terms of results, but working with him has taught me a lot of practical
skills for dealing with special students.
In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude that I was able to have this
opportunity to do an internship from which I learned a lot of skills in different aspects
of teaching, managing students, dealing with problems, preparing teaching materials,
and more! These experiences are essential for me to become a teacher.
