Teenagers and Education.

Teaching Practicum II

My name is Fernando Canales, I am 21 years old, and I am studying Teaching of Languages at Universidad Don Bosco, El Salvador. This is my fourth year in this carreer, and I have learned lots of important things during this period of time, not only in academic terms, but important things to help me out in my daily life, and learning to give priority on what deserve it. I did not learn English in an academy before started the University, but studied it by myself, because it has been something that I really wanted and liked to do, learning and mastering Enlgish and other languages. During these four years at Universidad Don Bosco I have to thanks to some special teachers that have trusted in me, helping me out in my carreer, guiding me and giving me advices to become a good teacher. 

Rigoberto Rivera is a teacher from Ilobasco, Cabañas, who in espite of strugless and adversity could became a Literature teacher. He is a teacher from Canton Cerro Colorado, I lived with him for a period of time, and while I was at that place I figure out how difficult it is for rural teachers to be working in a school where they have to teach not only the subject of their speciality, but all of the basics subjects, inclunding English. I realized that there were not English teachers for those schools, and the principals was fighting to get the only one that was available for that area. Teachers, inclunding Rigoberto Rivera had to teach English classes, even if they did not know English, without any material, without any capacitation, without nothing. Being aware of that situation, in a period of time in which I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life, I decided to try to change that situation, starting helping to him to prepare his classes, teaching him some basic things that might help him in the teaching of English process. I felt proud of myself when he was greateful for my help, because even if it was not something very professional, or with all the knowledge that I have now, it worked for him. For that reasson, for the satisfaction that I felt while while seeing that it had worked for him; for the opportunity to help Rigoberto, my uncle; for the feeling when you are transmiting and teaching something that really could help someone else in their real life, I decided to study Teaching of Languages. I want to be a really good teacher, and I am working on that, and I am going to achieve it.

I have had the opportunity to teach in different places, and I cannot explain how I feel at that moment, I have learned to love my carreer, and I have learned to love teaching. The very first time that I taught an English class was in the teaching practicum I. I did not have any experiene, but I was anxious to teach, and my first class was the one that I have enjoyed most, the one that I remember with some special feeling. Of course, I continue teaching, and continue enjoying the very moment of teaching. Then, I had an opportunity in a project of Universidad Don Bosco and the "Departamento de Arte y cultura" in which I was teaching to children from the area of Soyapango and Ciudad Delgado, I was there for 3 months, 3 months in which I acquired experience working with real students, and the real enviroment with children, it was a really nice expirience. Now, I am working by my own as a particular English teacher, I have 10 students now on weekedns, I am teaching them, and at the same time I am practicing what I learn at the University, putting into practice the knowledge that I am acquiring in my Teaching classes. I want to start this new Practice with adolescents, because I know that it has some difficulties, but I want to get experience, and I want to know how to deal with those difficulties.

I have introduced myself, sharing some of my experiences in teaching and learnning English, and the reason why I decided to study Teaching of Languages. Now we are going to focus our attention in the course "Practice with adolescents" and the future activities that we are going to develop. Keeping in mind the activities that we are going to develop, we should have an clear objective for this course, and I have my objective for this course:

"By the end of this course I will be able to use the theory based on teenagers learned during the semester, dealing with adolescent students in my Teaching Practice taking in consideration they needs"

The theory I have learned about adolescents.

Before to continue, we have to explain what adolescense is. Adolescense Is a period in which biological, psychological, sexual and social development is taking place, and is consider as the beginning of the puberty, the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood. It is characterized by cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional development There are some authors that explain the individual development in different stages in their theories, based on the physical, psychosocial and cognitive development. I knew a little bit of each stages about the development of adolescents before started an investigation about them. For instance, physical changes that affect adolescents during the puberty, the "end of childhood". Is well known that puberty is triggered by hormonal changes, which may affect moods and behavior. During puberty, boys and girls undergo an adolescent growth spurt. Primary sex characteristics (the reproductive organs) enlarge and mature, and secondary sex characteristics appear.

Physical development in adolescents have different effects in their behavior, they could be possitive and negative effects. Adolescents might not mature all of them at the same age, and there is a theory that explains that Studies reveal that youth who mature earlier or later than their same-age peers are vulnerable to at-risk outcomes such as problems with coping, antisocial behavior, and emotional distress (Brooks-Gunn, Peterson & Eichorn, 1985) adolescents who are “off time" (earlier or later) in the development in the puberty experience more stress than the ones that are "onn-time" (Susman & Rogol, 2004, p. 30) At the moment of teaching we have to take in consideration different aspects that could be affecting the teen students, not pressuring them to make the activities. 

If we talk about teenagers development we have to consider introduce an explanation about Cognitive Development, and how it affects adolescents. Cognitive development is the progression of thinking from the way a child does to the way an adult does. I know just a little bit of this topic, but as far as I know there are two areas of cognitive development that occur during adolescense: First, adolescents develop more advanced reasoning skills. Second, adolescents develop the ability to think abstractly. 

Jean Piaget's theories have provided a starting point in the study of the changing nature of cognitive processing in the development from childhood to adolescence. Piaget described how adolescence brings forth the capacity to think logically and abstractly (Piaget, 1955) adolescents, in contrast to children, become more aware of their surroundings and able to direct their own thinking, learning, and problem solving. suggests that adolescents are cognitively different from their childhood counterparts in that adolescents have the capacity to see and understand the world as others see it. This means that adolescents (both early and middle) are more generally prosocial in thought and action than their childhood counterparts (Eisenberg & Morris, 2004). Further, it suggests that for adolescents, fostering and maintaining relationships become more complex as the ability to imagine multiple roles for themselves and multiple perspectives of others deepens.

Knowing this information we might focus on some areas during the teaching process to help out our students, focusing our attention in mental abilities and process related to knowledge, such as: thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering. We can take advantage of this stage in our classes, because they are always arguing for the sake of arguing, and as teachers we have to look for some strategis or activities in which we can take advantage of it. 


Talking about the different situations that affect adolescents, we could not forget the Psychosocial develpment, as I concern this is the one that most affect adolescents during the puberty period, because of many reasons, for instance: Peer pressure, confussion, the necessity to belong or be part of something, aspects of the society, etc. As a teacher, and as a student I can figure out of this situation while teaching classes, or remembering my adolescense, when I experienced this stage. 

Erik Erikson's 1950 theory of identity development has had a significant impact on the understanding of adolescent social and emotional development. According to Erikson, the sense of people of who they are display throughout their lives and is driven by the struggle between their “internally defined selves and those selves that are defined, confirmed, or denied by others” (Nakkula & Toshalis, 2006, p. 19). The constant negotiation between these two selves shapes who a person is and who he or she will become. There are eight stages in life during which certain struggles are primary. During adolescence, the primary struggle is over the central question of “Who am I?” Adolescents yearn to be themselves both in relation and reaction to others, and they need relationships in which experiments with identity will be embraced.

But as we have studied, in this period of time, there are different aspects that affect teen students, they also present changes and madurations in their brains that affect their behavior in many aspects. Teenagers are constantly confronted with decissions, and their brain is not completed mature, is still developing the frontal cortex that is the one in charged of taking decisions with criteria. They generally use the limbic area to take their decissions, teens base their decissions in emotions. There are plenty of aspects that we have to take in consideration when teaching to adolescents. An example of that is: Students require a sense of safety and belonging to feel confortable in the classroom, and teachers are responsible to help them create that enviroment for the acquiring knowledge process.

There are some videos that you can visit to learn more about the brain of adolescents. We are going to share the links if you want to visit them:

• The Teenage Brain Explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiduiTq1ei8&
•  The Teen Brain: Under Construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Ya0mHsIgM&
• The Teenage Brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIqVvyHeSiY&

• Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zVS8HIPUng&

• Adolescence: Crash Course Psychology #20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzyXGUCngoU&

• Identity vs. Role Confusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70yDo6cexyY&

After finished presenting this information we can conlude that Teachers play a significant role in the lives of adolescents, and knowledge of adolescence equips them to be sensitive to the diversity in youth's experiences and the competing forces in their lives. Armed with this knowledge, teachers can offer safe spaces for youth to explore and test their emerging ideas of who they are and who they want to become.

References

Brooks-Gunn, J., Petersen, A. C., & Eichorn, D. (1985). The study of maturational timing effects in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 14(3), 149–161.

Eisenberg, N., & Morris, A. S. (2004). Moral cognitions and prosocial responding in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (2nd ed., pp. 155–188). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Nakkula, M. J., & Toshalis, E. (2006). Understanding youth: Adolescent development for educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Piaget, J. (1955). The language and thought of the child. New York: Meridian Books.

Susman, E. J., & Rogol, A. (2004). Puberty and psychological development. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.). (2004), Handbook of adolescent psychology (2nd ed., pp. 15–44). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.