Time out, take five

• How confident do you feel about observing?As regards observing, I have to confess that I’ve always used to believe that as a teacher trainee it was just a task to be done, I mean a simple assignment for Methods. Now let me say that If it hadn’t been for those “assignments” (as I wrongly used to called them) I would have never been able to notice the many different ways that “we” teachers have to handle a certain situations, to motivate our students, to do funny activities, etc
• How have your ideas about observation changed since you first read the tittle of this unit?Hmm mirror, mirror, on the wall, to be honest I think that tittle perfectly describes the role that observers and the observed should have, this idea of being a kind of mirror that reflects, or help you to see the action that takes place in the classroom more clearly. Because of this, I believe that from now onwards I will try to pay more attention to every single moment of the class; from a simple warm-up activity to a more complex one, so that I can see not only the teacher, but also the students on action!
• How confident do you feel about making observations?Well, actually after having observed a couple of times, I think I feel confident enough to keep on doing it and learning from it!
• What do you think you, personally, can learn from observing? A lot of things!! As I’ve mentioned before, through observations it is possible to learn how to make an activity more motivating, the different kind of games you can play so as to practise certain topics, how to handle certain difficult situations in the classroom, or at least to see how other teachers behave in certain situations, and then think how you would have behaved if that problem would have taken place in your class, etc