Introduction.

Hello, everybody welcome to my teaching practicum blog. My name is Fatima Arias, I am twenty years old and I am studying teaching at Don Bosco University. This is the second practicum that I am taking, the first practicum that I took was with kids and all that I can say is that it was an unforgettable experience because I learned many things that I did not know before but now it is time to practice and put all my knowledge and skills to work by teaching English to teenagers. I feel excited and with a lot of expectations about this new experience because I am sure I will learn many things and, all the knowledge that acquire will be useful for me as a future teacher.

I have always said that teaching is meaningful and rewarding so for that, I decided to choose this profession because I am able to transmit all my knowledge to different people and it is something meaningful that makes me feel proud of myself. Also, I want to be a teacher because thanks to all my teachers that I have had a long this process I have learned  many things that I want to put in practice for the future so, thank you for molding me and teaching me amazing things to become a better teacher. To conclude, I would like to say that I am ready to learn new things and improve everyday to be an amazing teacher who inspires the life of other people.

Physical  Development in Teenagers

Before I read information about physical development in teenagers my knowledge about this topic was a little bit different from what I know after reading.

What I knew

I knew that teenagers present many physical changes during the adolescence period and they might start experimenting changes in their body around 11 or 12 years old. Also, I knew that boys usually present physical changes later than girls. In addition to this, I was conscious about the physical changes that boys present, some of them are the voice change and the facial hair. Unlike to girls, they experience radical changes like the period or menstruation and the appearance of  pubic hair.

All this information presented above was a little bit of what I knew before reading about teens but now it is time to explain the information that I have read related to the teenager development.

After reading

According to the Raising Children Network "the period between child hood and young adult is a period of rapid changes". This means that, the physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes are happening during the adolescence period.What I found pretty interesting about the article “Physical Development” is the fact that some girls can start experimenting changes before the age of 12 the same happens with boys they can start as young as nine years old; as a consequence of the puberty the physical changes include: 

in the case of girls:

Breast development

Growth of pubic and body hair

The start of periods

And for boys physical changes include:

Growth of the penis and testes

Growth of body and facial hair

Voice changes.

Something that it is important to point out is that during this period teenagers can have the opportunity to get some skills like playing an instrument, learning a new language or practicing any sport, so it is a good time to encourage teenagers to do something meaningful and useful for them.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, I can say that teens go through many critical changes in their bodies, and they might be very sensitive to how others perceive their physical changes but as a future teacher I have to think about effective lessons and how to keep their self- esteem high by doing meaningful activities like group work where they will be able to take risks easily or as it is mentioned in the book “ Teaching across levels” making competitions between classmates it is a good way to make our students participate in class and keep their self- esteem high.

References

Andrea Ramires.(2007).Learner VariablesI: Teaching across levels.Oxford University press. 

Physical Changes during adolescence. Raising Children Network. (2016).

Phychosocial development in teenagers.

What I knew

Before looking for information about psychosocial development my knowledge about this topic was that during this period the teenager goes through many emotional changes and they experience things very intensely. Also, I knew that teens tend to be more sensitive to social approval and what other people think and say about them really matters. Likewise, peer pressure it is an important issue for teenagers because friends are important and as far as I know peer pressure is critical for the teenager development that is why teens are always looking for acceptance from friends and from themselves.

After Reading

I have found pretty interesting information about this topic and I am going to start by saying that “Physical development is linked to the hormonal and neurodevelopment change”(World Health Organization, 2005). This means that, the intellectual and emotional changes are taking place during this period.

Erick Erikson described this process as identity versus identity confusion; so as a result, teenagers are in search of their identity, goals and beliefs to be accepted in the society. Apart from the search of identity there are two important aspects to mention and take into consideration, the number one is sexuality and the second one is the relationship between family and friends.

According to the book “Human Development” sexuality can be influenced by the environmental factors or it can be partly genetic as a result, teenagers tend to have a sexual behavior, so for that, it is important to know that teenagers have a great risk of pregnancy or even worse a sexually transmitted disease.

The second aspect that the book point out is the relationship between family and friends. The first thing that we need to know it is that the relationship between family changes, teenagers want to have more intimacy as a result, conflicts with parents become more frequent. Second, the relationship with peers has a negative or positive influence. Also, in this stage teenagers worry about the physical appearance and they may think that if they break stereotypes they cannot be accepted in society.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, I can say that during this stage teenagers have to deal with emotional, personality and social changes and, all this factors affect the family and school environment. So, as a future teacher I need to be aware of these changes and find suitable activities to apply in the ESL classroom. Also, we teachers have to keep their self-esteem high by saying students that mistakes  are allowed so in that way teens do not have to feel nervous or frustrated about what other people are going to say about them, something to take in consideration is that teenagers hate embarrassing moments so we need to avoid that in class.

References

Diane E. (2016) Human Development.

World Health Organization (2005) Adolescence: Phychosocial and Social Developmet.

Cognitive Development in Teenagers

What I knew

cognitive Development in Teenagers

What I knew

What I knew about cognitive development is that at this stage teenagers can solve more complex problems. Also, the ability to reason is increasing, and they consider different opinions and points of view.

After reading

After reading information about this topic, I can define this process as the capacity to think and reason in a complex way by reflecting on the way teenagers make decisions.

According to the book “Human Development” there are two ways of thinking:

Concrete operations: this process is called this because children (6 to 12 years old) can think concretely and what they are thinking about it is physically present (e.g. subtract or divided).

The second thinking process is called formal operations by this time adolescence can develop more complex thinking, including abstract thinking, they can create new ideas or make questions and they can consider different points of view according to the criteria they have.

Something that called my attention while reading this article is that some indicators are indicating a progression from simple to more complex thinking development, and these indicators are the following:

Early adolescence: complex thinking is focused on school and home environments.

Middle adolescence: complex thinking is focused on futuristic plans for different possibilities.

Late adolescence: complex thinking is focused on personal decisions, idealistic views on specific topics also, is focused on making career decisions.

Conclusion.

During this process, there are really important changes happening in the teenager’s brain but the intellectual capacity is increasing and they can solve more complex problems so as a future teacher, I can put my students to work in solving a complex task with logical thinking but, of course, I need to be aware of the attention span because with many changes happening in the brain their attention span can be shorted. So for that, I need to look for interesting tasks or topics that called the attention of my students we do not have to work only with worksheets because that could be so boring for students.

References

Diane E.(2016) Human Development. Cognitive Development.

Renata Sanders (2013). Adolescent Phychosocial,Social, and Cognitive Development. Pediatrics in review.