Szymon's Blog

      This week for my Phonetics Diary I watched another video from the English with Lucy channel, this time about the difference between three different English accents - Canadian, American, and British. I later realized that it was much more focused on vocabulary and culture than pronunciation, but since it was a series that would later focus on pronunciation much more, I thought it would still be valuable to share. I had a lot of fun hearing the differences between the different regions and realizing which set of vocabulary I have absorbed into my own speech.     The first conversation was about what the letter  'z' is referred to as - 'zee' or 'zed'. The first option is used in American English, while the second in both British and Canadian English. Personally I've grown quite accustomed to both. I feel like even early in my education I would hear both, however out of laziness and my time in the US, I most often just use 'zee'. I also loved the c...

    On  April 1st we had the privilege to attend yet another webinar, this time with Mr. Ben Shifrin, who works at the Jemicy School in the US. Even though the talk wasn't as long as a lot of the other ones, it was filled with so much wisdom and new ideas. In this blog I will discuss my thoughts and opinions on this experience and what exactly we were able to learn.       This webinar centered around the idea of n euroscience in education, especially dyslexia. We discussed a lot about executive functions, which are the 'management team' of the brain. I especially loved hearing about creating a r isk-free and comfortable environment for the best results in learning, since this is the aspect of education I've always been most interested in. We also discussed the factors that disable such an atmosphere, like anxiety, or how d yslexia has nothing to do with intelligence, but rather the ability to decode language. One of my favorite parts of the talk was al...

     On March 29th we had our second webinar this semester, which was on the topic of working in an international preschool with Ms. Marta Arkuszynska. It was very interesting to hear how such a place is organized and to be able to compare it to my experiences with Polish kindergartens. The presenter gave us an in-depth look into how their lessons are arranged and what makes their facility and system so special.     Ms. Arkuszynka showed us the timetable of the Canadian preschool, which consisted of circle time, meals, garden play, French, rest time, and common room time. I was especially interested in circle time, which I was able to observe during my student practice.  It is the part of the day, when the whole group sits together, greets, sings songs, talks about how they're feeling, shares their thoughts, and integrates together. What I loved is that the presenter mentioned that the part about feelings is quite extensive. In Polish schools we often hear ...

3A) MY CHALLENGES/ AIMS FOR THE FUTURE  What are the areas I still have to work on? What is my action plan? What/who will help me to achieve my goals? The number one goal I want to work towards is having a stronger presence in the classroom. As I mentioned in my previous reflections, both my mentor and I agreed that I am quite soft-spoken and sometimes lose control over the students because of it. My priority is creating a positive and comfortable atmosphere and because I do not want to jeopardize that in any way, I sometimes lose some of the authority. I get scared of being critical or harsh, because that positive environment is so important to me. However, I do think I need to learn to put my foot down and be a bit more serious, when things get out of hand. I need to find that perfect balance between the two worlds. My plan is to try to take small steps into the direction of having a stronger voice and more control to feel out how far I want to go. I'm sure there will be uncomfor...

2A) ATTITUDE TOWARDS PUPILS  Can I maintain classroom discipline? Am I respectful and kind towards all pupils? Do I correctly recognise and assess pupils’ skills and needs? Do I differentiate instruction according to pupils’ individual profiles? The area of classroom discipline is probably the aspect of teaching that I still need to work on the most. I am naturally quite soft-spoken and relaxed, which means that I sometimes do not have the biggest presence. I also care a lot about how comfortable and happy my students feel, that connection with them is my number one priority, which means that I create quite a relaxed atmosphere. That unfortunately means that students can sometimes start acting up, talking over one another, and I need to bring the peace back into the classroom. My mentor has mentioned this as the area where I am still lacking and I absolutely agree with him. It's a tough line to walk. My priority is rapport, understanding, and mutual respect, which often means that ...

1A) MY POTENTIAL AS A TEACHER  My professional attitude. Am I interested in entering the teaching profession? What are my attempts to perform competently? Am I creative and flexible? Am I mature enough to work in this profession? (work under pressure, accepting criticism, being open to others’ needs) I think as I entered the student practice I was quite insecure about my teaching skills. It was my first time doing any sort of practical work related to teaching. I definitely do not think I was ready back then. However, right now, as I have completed the practice, I feel ready. These last couple of months have been incredibly transformative for me as an educator. I got to observe an incredible mentor and slowly work my confidence up through the microteaching and conducting lessons. There were plenty of issues along the way, as I described in my previous blogs, but I think those were the moments that made me stronger. Knowing where I still lack has allowed me to work on myself and bec...

      March 24th was the last day of my student practice. I cannot believe how quickly this experience has gone by, but I will be sharing my overall thoughts and feeling about my growth in a later post. For now I wanted to reflect on my last lesson, which I actually got to do with two different groups. It was definitely a bittersweet moment, as I've grown quite close to the students, but I am also very happy to be able to say that I successfully finished my student practice journey.     The last lesson I did was an English class about poetry analysis. This group of students have done a lot of lessons with poems, different kinds of them, figures of speech, etc., so I wanted to revise all that knowledge, but also focus on a new aspect - searching for meaning. While they've done this as well, I wanted us to look at the works even closer than ever before and understand exactly what every single line means. I also chose a poem on the topic of climate change and globa...