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 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.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.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.The incident occurred in an evening
class during which I was due to deliver my very first session.I left the session as soon as the class was over, and did not speak to
anyone.