1st assessed lesson.

My first assessed lesson was on the Wednesday of week 2. I had already had the opportunity to teach a couple of lessons at Jesuitas beforehand but really having the opportunity to plan the lesson myself felt good. The lesson itself was a reading and speaking lesson on stress, given that this fell during the student’s end of term exams it was perhaps a fairly appropriate topic. The class was a first of Bachillerato class with 29 students. I was able to use a range of CELTA techniques, freeing myself from the course book's lesson structure gave me a lot more flexibility and it was good to see the students responding well to the more student focussed approach to teaching. All in all, the lesson went very well, the students enjoyed it and were able to complete all the tasks properly which as much as I can ask for as a teacher. Ms Piedad, my tutor was also very pleased with the lesson. It was also something of a watershed moment for me, this was the first lesson I had properly planned and taught since CELTA and while it was assessed, it was a very different feeling to the constant sense of anxiety that accompanied all my CELTA lessons, it made me feel much more confident as a teacher, I'm really looking forward to working properly as a teacher, it's a good balance between being enjoyable and challenging, as well as having very good job satisfaction. Teaching in a large Spanish school is an interesting experience, it has significant differences from CELTA (much larger classes, teenagers rather than adults) but it's also quite different from being in an equivalently sized UK school, the atmosphere and attitude is more relaxed and frankly happier.