Life of a Teacher

I completed two days of filling in for Mr van Der Merwe, who is the grade six and seven English Home Language teacher. For the first day, I completed tasks such as checking the register, break duty, monitor and assisting the learners and mark the grade seven learner activity books. I taught the grade seven learners comprehension, my lesson was not finished on time as some of the learners had to leave for cricket. On the second, I taught the same classes and completed the same tasks except I taught the grade seven learners dictionary skills instead. Disciplinary on these two days was not controlled due to learners having big personalities and lack of disciplinary routine. The feelings I experienced when taking up the responsibilities of a teacher, were that I was nervous of making a mistake or humiliating myself in front of the learners, I was worried that I would disrespect the Mr van Der Merwe in making the mistakes. I am ready to be a teacher, I have never felt so passionate and committed to becoming a teacher, I cannot wait to arrange my classroom and have a teaching style of my own. The things that I am concerned about are the way I discipline the learners; I cannot manage to control the learners and their voice levels. I struggle with the way I approach the learners; I may come across as too strict with them. I am concerned with how I present my lessons; sometimes the learners may not understand the explanations of the concepts. I was struggling with my time management during the lessons. I tend to lose the learners interest in the lesson and therefore I lose out on time. The things that I still need to learn include; my disciplinary routine with the learners. I have struggled with it since my first teaching experience. I would like to work on my attitude towards the learners and make myself not be as strict as I am with them. I must work on my concept explanations and try and make sure that they become understandable for the learners. I need to work on my time management by making use of watch or a clock. I need to work on finding ways that I can get my learners to stay interested in my lessons by making the lessons look interesting.