WHEN THINGS GO WRONG IN CLASS 

By: Humberto Escalante

     At the very beginning of my teaching practice, I had to face a lot of troubles with my pupils because they were so hyperactive. They didn’t pay attention in class, and didn’t want to participate in any activity that I gave them. The classroom was not big enough in order to make activities that required move around that was another thing that I couldn’t control.

     As an external factor, I can say that the location of the school is not very suitable because it is located in one of the noisiest streets. Heat and noise are factors that disrupt students learning.

As I said previously, at the beginning, I faced a lot of troubles with the students. Since I started to work with them, there were some trouble makers that drove me crazy, but I tried to do my best with them. I wanted they feel comfortable with my class, and enjoyed them.

     There were a lot of activities that took too much time because I had to be working with all of them. I had to attend to any doubt that they could have, and helped some of them because they didn’t understand what the activity was about and some other things.

     Sometimes I didn’t have too much time to finish my class or the activities that we were doing because the organization in the school was not too good. Some teachers didn’t pay attention to the time for each class, and they decided to finish their classes few minutes before. The noise of the students running around made my students felt anxious to go out as soon as possible.

     Well, I consider that all of the activities that I carried out worked perfectly. Some of them, as I said before, took too much time in order to be done, but all my students, at the end of each class, were anxious, excited and expectant to the next class and activities.

     One of the most difficult situations that I had to face was that in the school where I did my teaching practices, there were many children that were children of gang members. As they knew their parents status, sometimes, they thought that they were untouchable. I was terrified when the teacher told me that, but she said to me that everything is going to be ok, that I had to teach what I had prepared, and if there were some difficulties, I had to tell her immediately. Thanks God I didn’t have any problem with my students. I tried to punish them in a really sweet way; I looked for the best ways to talk with them, such as, talking about cartoons and videogames. Then I started to relate my activities with the games that they liked and with their favorite cartoons.

     I have to be sincere and accept that I did not use any tip for the chapter 8. I tried to work in my own way, and I consider that it worked. Of course, it did not work not with the same results, but It was an amazing opportunity to see if I have the ability to create my own tips for teaching. However, it was my pleasure to teach children that drove me crazy, but nevertheless filled my teaching practice of satisfaction and great joy.