I believe that one of my strengths in teaching is my ability to engage students and capture their attention during the lesson. Although this did not fully happen in every class, I was still happy to see that the students’ participation, activeness, and overall classroom atmosphere remained quite positive and conducive for learning.
However, one of the challenges I faced in classroom management was handling students who felt sleepy during class. I tried my best to remind them in the friendliest way possible without embarrassing them in front of their classmates. Unfortunately, this sometimes resulted in students continuing to struggle to stay awake and actively participate in the learning process because I was not firm enough in managing the situation.
I also realized that this issue was partly caused by my lack of clear classroom rules and expectations at the beginning of the lesson. Through this experience, I learned the importance of balancing friendliness with firmness in order to maintain students’ discipline, attention, and active participation throughout the class.