Reflective writing

Reflective writing

Learn how to write a reflective text about a learning experience.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and tips and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

In January I spent three weeks volunteering as an English teacher in my town. I've been thinking about becoming an English teacher for a while so it was a good opportunity to see what it's like. The students had all just arrived to start a new life in the UK and they had a range of levels from beginner to intermediate. They came from a variety of countries and had very different backgrounds and experiences.

For me, the most important thing was the relationship with the students. I was nervous at first and did not feel confident about speaking in front of people. However, I found it easy to build good relationships with the students as a class and as individuals and I soon relaxed with them. It was a challenge to encourage the lower-level students to speak in English, but at least they understood a lot more at the end of the course.

At first, planning lessons took a really long time and I was not happy with the results. Classes seemed to be too difficult for some students and too easy for others, who finished quickly and got bored. I found it was better to teach without a course book, adapting materials I found online to suit their needs. I learned to take extra activities for students who finished early and that was much better.

I still need to continue improving my lesson planning. I would like more ideas for teaching mixed-ability groups and I want to plan the whole course better next time. That way students have a focus for each lesson and a sense of progress and of what they've covered. I'm also going to put more confident students with beginners when they work in pairs so conversation activities give everyone more chance to speak and students can help each other.

Overall, it was a really positive experience and I learned a lot. I've decided that I would like to become an English teacher in the future.

Tips

  1. Reflective writing is more personal than other types of academic writing. You can use the first person (I ... , My ... , etc.) and explain how you felt.
  2. Think about the experience in detail. Explain what went well and what was challenging, and say what you learned in the process.
  3. Use a structure:
    • Short introduction to the situation
    • Evaluate the most important things about the experience, including solutions to problems
    • Say what you would do differently next time
    • Say what you learned overall.
  4. Keep the focus on your learning process and what you will do better in future.

Discussion

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Average: 4.3 (28 votes)

Submitted by GiulianaAndy on Thu, 08/07/2021 - 01:42

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My last challenging learning experience was exactly during this semester. I started university classes this year and I'm a freshman. In March of this year I started my online classes from university as an international business management student. I've been thinking about becoming a founder of a company in the future so I need to study this career. My classmates are any age I mean they are from 16 to 21 years old. They come from variety of districts and have very different backgrounds and experiences. For me, the most important part of the university is to present the projects on time and give a plus to some things (I mean to do something different with the project). It was challenge to getting used to working with my classmates, but at least now I have a really good teamwork and I do every homework with it. At first, distributing and avoiding the group meetings was so difficult. The majority of the members in the teamwork only talked about their personal lives during the work meeting , so I decided to delete the meeting style and starting with the work distribution for each member of the team, but it didn't work at the beginning because people were used to giving me their parts only one night before the presentation's day and I was not able to complete the work with their parts only in one night, therefore I decided to add a time limit and if they hadn't given me their parts until that time limit I would have eliminated them from the group and it works. Since that day the members of my teamwork always give me their parts until the deadline. Overall, it was a really positive experience and I learned a lot. I've learned how to talk to people whom don't like to help with the teamwork.

Submitted by Ehsan on Wed, 16/06/2021 - 06:09

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My last challenge was learning to trade in Forex.

Submitted by German on Thu, 04/03/2021 - 01:39

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My last challenging experience was the first semester of the master. It was difficulto to me because was a new experience and in a university very important in my conuntry therefore I was so nervous. Fortunately, It was a great experience and I could learn a lot.

Last week I decided to ameliorate my english level. So i did a challenge to learn more and more.Indeed i made an action plan and everyday i had a task to do .Until now all things are alright .I did all tasks as my schedule plan. I feel happy and exhausted beacause i learn new things and i want to acheive my goal to speak english like a native speaker .Sometimes i scared to feel boring or to make mistakes without correction. But thinks to internet we can learn , correct and improve our skills.

Submitted by Abrarhussain on Mon, 01/03/2021 - 08:49

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Teaching training course was the last challenging learning experience of my life. That was really challenging learning for me.

Submitted by Jamilalucente on Wed, 20/01/2021 - 12:05

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Im a personal student, I realized that I needed to improve my english speak, so I decided to take talk classes with other students people. It´s been nice, because I've broken my obstacle of espeaking in english.

Submitted by saifZU on Thu, 26/11/2020 - 06:13

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From the day I'm born i couldn't learn Mathematic, even when I tried to hard to learn it i guess, anything you don't like it you will not learn it.

Submitted by cittàutopica on Fri, 02/10/2020 - 21:23

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My last challenging learning experience (which even now lasts) concerns learning a German, which is a very complex language, also for people who, as me, has studied classical languages.

Submitted by YaMaCa on Fri, 02/10/2020 - 21:14

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Actually, I have a big challenge in front of me. Despite I am not working, I have a narrow daily calendar. I am doing a Master in Project Management, also taking one course to improve English. Additionally, I continue learning the German language. At the end of the day, my brain is full of new information.

Submitted by kyawkyawsoezhu on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 15:01

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As I'm challenging my self to study English 30 days straight, so I think I can say that this is my last challenging experience. I haven't done any study for a very long time so it's very difficult to motivate myself to study again.