Teacher self analysis I have been teaching now for about one

I have been teaching now for about one month, so I thought I would sit down and take advantage of this TEFL assignment to really take a good look at myself. I teach English level 3 (out of 10) integrated, integrated meaning that it involves grammar, speaking, writing and listening. In my course I have a text book which I use as my main material. The text book supplies me with a CD for listening exercises, various lesson plan ideas, quizzes and tests. The book is very useful and is called World View 2. My students are all Spanish speakers and the majority are Costa Ricans.

To begin positively, I would like to analyze the things I believe I do well as a teacher. In the classroom it is my goal to always get every student involved. I constantly am calling on students and asking them questions and I have them come to the front of the room and play teacher when we are correcting homework. I want my classroom to feel safe so, the students aren't afraid to participate or make mistakes. I also try to base the material being learned on real life. For example, last week we were learning adjectives for physical descriptions and the difference between is/have. For this lesson I had the students answer questions like 'Describe to me your perfect man/woman, what would he/she look like'' Questions like these make the students relate to me and to the rest of the class on a personal level. The last thing I ever want to have a 'cold' classroom. I am a very young teacher and I try to let my age, personality and style come through every time I teach.

Now on to the aspects I need to work on as an English teacher. I have received several evaluations from different sources: my boss, my students and peers. All of the evaluations have been very positive however, I have received constructive criticism. Mainly, their comments/concerns have been that I speak too much in Spanish (my student's native language) and that I speak too quickly. I 100% agree with these comments and everyday I have them present in my mind. I struggle with teaching lower levels for various reasons. One reason is that I am a very sarcastic person. I love to tell jokes and stories and when lower level students don't understand me, I turn to translation. I realize this is not the right thing to do, but I get frustrated when I have to repeat myself 5 times and the student still looks at me like they are a deer caught in headlights. I need to learn more patience. Another reason why I use the translation method is because that is how I learned Spanish. I took Spanish lesson for five years so; I think I teach how I was taught.

In conclusion, I love to teach and I really care about my students. I obviously need to improve in many areas but, with only 7 weeks of teaching under my belt I feel as if there is a lot of room for improvement. Constructive criticism for me is an amazing tool, which should be used over and over again throughout one's career. I want to end this essay stating my goal as an English teacher:

To teach everyday like it was my first. To never lose the passion, motivation and drive I have right not. To give every student I will ever have the attention he/she deserves.