Where has my voice gone?

Friday, 9 November 2007. By the end of the class, my tutor brought me the opportunity to explain the Past Continuous. And I did it successfully as everybody seemed to understand its forms and its use. I had previously prepared the task at home because I didn’t want to fail to make a good impression. Later on, I contrasted the Past Continuous with the Past Simple by writing a simple but clear example on the blackboard. As my tutor told me that they had learnt the differences between both tenses last year, I preferred not to explain the theory but to encourage students to suggest the forms and use. It is a good way of making them think and reflect. In a word, everything went alright except for my voice. My tutor told me I needed to project my voice so students from the other side of the classroom could hear my instructions properly. And it is very difficult for me! It is really hard to be able to “impostar” your voice. According to my tutor, “impostar” is setting a higher tone without damaging your voice, which makes students understand better your commands or explanations. Anyway, it is a quiet class. Some of them often get disrupted but they are definitely adolescents. I recorded this short participation in my MP3 but as it was situated on the teacher’s desk and I was continuously going around the classroom while teaching, the quality of the recording is awful. By now we are not allowed to make use of our videocamera. We cannot even take photographs of students while they are on task. My tutor has to ask for permission but she thinks that it will be practically impossible to record our “practicum steps”. I don’t know how I will cope with it.