I.F.D.C. LENGUAS VIVAS

TALLER DE PRÁCTICA DOCENTE 2015

Trabajo Final de Evaluación Personal de la

Práctica Docente

Tercer Período

I.F.D. Nº13

Alumna Practicante: López, Fernanda Emili Estefanía

Trabajo final de Evaluación Personal de la Práctica Docente

Tercer Período

Introduction

I started my third practicum period as an English teacher trainee at I.F.D. N°13

in the secondary level there. As I had done the two previous periods, I decided to

continue doing my practicum here. Before I started practicing, I had two observation

sessions where I was able to observe the dynamics that took place within the

classroom, as well as the teaching approach the course teacher used and how

students reacted to such approach. I also tried to get to know students and recognize

their strengths and weaknesses.

I had to teach a fifth year class with 17 students. Although many of these

students had attended this school in the previous four years, they did not seem to

remember previous knowledge. Students did not make use of the language during the

lessons observed and they participated only in games. Whenever they had to

doexercises in English, they contributed poorly to the lessons.

The approach used was mainly grammar-translation, because the teacher

explained the topics making use of L1 and the focus was on the translation of the

words. However, this time I noticed the importance of warm-up activities, since the

teacher started the lessons in an encouraging way to catch students’ attention.

Audiolingualism was used since mechanical exercises were done. Students were never

challenged to use the target language to imply real meaning. This group of students

used no English at all and communicated in Spanish. Sometimes they read aloud what

the teacher told them to but only the ones who felt encouraged to do so.

If I have to start thinking back so as to establish the first objectives I set and to

reflect about the third period of my practicum, I would say that the initial aim was to

improve different aspects as instructions and using L2 in the classroom. At the same

time, I wanted to be able to recognize differences among children of different ages and

their different needs. This time one of my aims was using ICT whenever it was possible

and to give students the possibility of reflecting about what they had learnt up to that

moment and then relate it to new content.

In my opinion, I made use of a lot of interpersonal skills and classroom

management strategies so as to involve students in the learning process. As these

were lessons of 40 and 80 minutes, I had to dedicate a lot of time to lesson planning

and to revising different authors from Didactics III/IV. It was my first time teaching

adolescents in a state school; therefore, it involved a lot of effort from my part to help

students this age to learn English.

Development

Firstly, I decided to focus on students’ needs by taking into account their age

and that they were not used to having English lessons taught in L2. As I was going

teach 8 lessons, I decided I could use ICT, audio and visual material which would help

them be interested in learning. I also tried to use a controversial issue for them to give

their opinion too.

Students were not used to speaking in English and to receiving instructions in

this language either. It was a teacher-centered classroom and I think I tried to develop

a more communicative approach to teaching and learning and to put the focus on

students. Lessons were formed by a meaningful context in order to teach new

language items. I also made use of the technological tools and audio material for

students to learn English in a different way.

I planned the eight lessons I had to teach following the guidelines above. I tried

to improve the aspect of giving instructions and to develop context which would catch

students’ attention. In contrast to the previous periods, I had to plan some lessons with

some of the content included in the coursebook this group of students was working

with. It implied a lot of effort from my part since I had to look for activities which would

suit this material.

For the first lesson, students had to write their personal profile. They first

focused on revising a model so as to discuss what they were supposed to include in

their personal paragraph. They made a revision of the use of present simple and they

talked a lot about themselves. It was a good opportunity to know a little bit more about

them. For the second lesson, we could watch a video and comment about it. The topic

was the one of “heroes”. They had to learn a lot of vocabulary related to “accidents” so

we made a lot of practice for them to learn the new expressions. We used pictures and

students could practice by completing a fill-in-the-gap activity which formed part of a

newspaper article. They then did a reading comprehension activity and worked with

pre-, while and post-reading activities. In this lesson, students assessed themselves

and we all enjoyed both lessons.

The third lesson involved a lot of practice for the exam students would have in

the following lesson (4th lesson). They reviewed the present continuous by watching a

quite interesting video. They also made a connection with the present simple by

signaling the proper adverbs of frequency used with both tenses. Students created

sentences on their own using the visual material designed for this lesson. What is

more, students practiced the use of the expressions “don’t mind/like/love/hate/dislike”

to express preferences. For the fourth lesson, I designed an exam which assessed

students’ knowledge of the first unit of the book they were working with. I

contextualized the lesson by including a funny video of Mr. Bean in an exam situation.

The exam consisted of a reading comprehension section, a grammar section and a

writing one. I believe students could work quite well since only few of them didn’t pass

such exam.

I really enjoyed the fifth lesson. We continued working with accidents and their

reactions. I acted out as if I had had an accident so as to begin the lesson in a different

way. Students quickly understood what they were going to learn. They revised

expressions about accidents and typical reactions. Then they mimed both sets of

expressions and interviewed their partners about their own reactions. The sixth lesson

was quite interesting since students watched a video related to the use of past

continuous at a specific point in the past. The video discussed what the people were

doing when a blackout occurred. Students first understood the use of that tense and

then completed a chart with their partners’ answers. They did a reading comprehension

activity about a newspaper article and ended the lesson role playing different

situations.

The last lesson I had with this group involved a lot of information about myself

and my relationship with English. I took pictures of myself an introduced the topic of

present and past abilities using can and could. They did a reading comprehension

race. There were activities displayed in four different locations around the classroom.

At each of these stops there was a multiple-choice activity or fill-in-the-gaps activity.

The lesson ended with students doing a role play situation.

Unluckily, I couldn’t finish my practicum period in this school. I had to do the last

lesson with one of my groups. I.F.D. N°13 has been closed down since it has got many

problems in its building and lessons have been suspended in all the levels. Therefore, I

had to teach the last lesson with one of the groups I usually work with and record it. For

this lesson, I planned to teach different expressions related to anger. We watched a

short trailer of “Anger Management” and discussed it. I then presented a Power Point

presentation to teach different expressions. Students then watched a different video

which showed solutions to the anger problems. They then read a newspaper article

and worked with it. In the end, they all discussed their personal situations related to

anger.

If I have to think forward, I would change the fact of finishing the period

in the same school where I started it. I think it would have been nice and interesting to

say goodbye to this group of students. I will try to see them when the lessons start (if

they do). I have no complaints about lesson planning since I took a lot of time to revise

previous Didactics and the one I was doing at the moment of the practicum period. The

bibliography provided by the tutor was of real use. If I think inward about this period, I

couldn’t be happier. I’m getting closer to the end of such a tiring year so far and the

feeling is priceless. I felt completely excited to work with adolescents and it’s been a

great first experience with them. I am completely satisfied with the way I’ve developed

this practicum period.

Conclusion

At the end of my third and last practicum period I believe I could change a lot

from the previous two periods. It took a lot of patience from my part since many lessons

were suspended due to the institution building problems. I dedicated a lot of time to

reading different authors. I learnt from the experience of previous instances and I could

exchange information and comments with other partners since I had mates in this last

part.

I think it is important to take into account that although state schools are having

great problems, a lot can be done in the classrooms. Students really appreciate when

you prepare lessons and bring different materials to the classroom. They notice we

care and they are motivated to learn.

Even though there were two teachers in charge of this group during my

practicum period, I did not receive comments about my lessons than the feedback

sheets. Nevertheless, if I have to think outward about this experience, I believe state

education has a lot to do but I’d like to think there is still hope. I couldn’t avoid thinking

on the fact that this group will go to university the following year, then who is to blame

for the lessons they are missing? As I said before, I attended this school and I have to

say I suffered many of the problems that today still happen. It does not matter who is to

blame since the only ones who suffer this are students. That is a normal thought

nowadays. I hope this changes in the future. Mostly of all, I hope I can contribute to

changing this in the future.