Reflective Account Using Gibbs

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I am currently on a teaching practice placement in an adult education college in the south-west of England, learning how to teach GCSE maths to various groups of adults. As my placement is in the early stages, I am mainly assisting the class tutors and have just started planning and delivering a small part of each lesson. The incident occurred in an evening class during which I was due to deliver my very first session. The class tutor had been teaching the learners about fractions, and my task was to continue with this instruction, looking specifically at how to multiply two fractions. However, when I was due to teach the session, I got to the whiteboard and became so nervous that I struggled to speak to the group. I felt myself visibly shaking and was unable to articulate my first sentence coherently. The students were quite understanding, as they are all mature students who are aware that I am new to teaching and am nervous, but the class teacher was unsympathetic and responded by taking over the lesson whilst I sat at the back of the room trying not to cry. I left the session as soon as the class was over, and did not speak to anyone. Feelings I felt extremely miserable at the time and even considered leaving my teacher training course. I was also embarrassed and upset by my own inability to speak in front of the group, but I was also extremely angry with the class teacher for her response in the presence of the learners. I felt afterwards that she had not given me sufficient time to compose myself, and that she should have allowed me to address my nerves. The situation left me very distressed and I rang in sick the following week; it was only when I reflected on the experience that I decided I needed to speak to the placement supervisor. I also realised later that feeling nervous is a natural reaction to speaking in public (Jones, 2000) which made me feel less

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