On the week beginning the 31st of October I went on my first of many weeks of placement within the BA Education course. I went to a small primary school minutes away from me and learned a lot whilst I was there. I really enjoyed my placement and am looking forward to the next one.
Strengths
I realised that I was more confident at interacting with pupils and staff than I thought I would be. I consistently was able to communicate clearly and loudly enough for pupils to hear and understand what I was saying. In addition to this I also made eye contact with who I was communicating with and used positive body language all week. For example I was not sitting with my arms crossed. As I was in every class in the school throughout the week from nursery all the way to primary 7 I realised that I was able to adapt my language to suit the pupil that I was talking to with ease. The staff within the school were all very welcoming and encouraging which gave me more confidence to push myself outside my comfort zone when communicating and approaching the pupils and other members of staff.
Area of Most Progress
The area that I feel I progressed the most in was simply my confidence. At first I thought that children would rather interact with their own teacher who they are used to rather than me but as the week went on I realised that the pupils also valued my opinion and wanted my help as well. In addition to this I noticed at the beginning of the week that I was not really using hand gestures a lot which may have come across as showing that I was not as enthusiastic as I wanted to show. I worked on this throughout the week and by the Friday I felt as though this had significantly improved, and will continue to improve with the more practice that I get.
Areas Requiring Progress
During the week I had to complete two self evaluations. I found this challenging as it was hard to judge what I had done well and what I had not done well as I can not see myself communicating from an outsiders point of view. However the help of the peer evaluation and advice from teachers assured me I was on the right track with my self evaluation. Furthermore, I had a bad habit of asking pupils a question and not giving them enough time to think of an answer, instead giving them another question to help them answer the initial question. I have learned that it is important to allow children to think and give them time as they can not always come up with an answer straight away.
Action Plan
As my next placement is a long time away I want to work on my communication skills in my everyday life so that when the next placement comes around I am more than prepared to go feeling very confident in my communication skills. In order to do so I think my part-time job will come in very handy as it involves serving customers and also being out on the shop floor welcoming customers and interacting with them. I think this will massively increase my communication skills as I will be able to get a lot of practice with a huge range of people. In addition to this I will also get to practice my communication skills with the upcoming situated communication presentation assignment, which will test my skills in front of an audience, something which I do not have a lot of practice in. The previous points mentioned should help me to strive to be a more effective communicator in the future.
