final report practicum v sara sibila
DESCRIPTION
Author: Sara Sibila DuróTRANSCRIPT
Final Report:
Practicum V
Sara Sibila Duró
Tutor: Melinda Dooly
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INDEX
1. CONTEXT OF THE SCHOOL .............................................................................................................. 3
A. General overview of the school ....................................................................................................... 3
B. English as a second language (ESL) in the school ............................................................................ 3
C. TYPICAL DAY IN MY INTERNSHIP ................................................................................................... 4
A. Timetable ......................................................................................................................................... 4
B. What did I observe? ......................................................................................................................... 5
D. DEVELOPEMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE ............................................................................. 7
E. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE ........................................................................ 11
A. Analysis of the main problem encountered during the implementation ....................................... 11
B. My “eureka” moments .................................................................................................................. 13
C. Questions for reflection ................................................................................................................. 14
F. MODIFICATION OF YOUR TEACHING SEQUENCE .......................................................................... 17
A. PLANNING INSTRUCTIONS ............................................................................................................. 17
B. TIMING .......................................................................................................................................... 18
C. ASSESSMENT ................................................................................................................................. 20
G. LEARNING AND GROWING AS A TEACHER ................................................................................... 22
H. CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................. 22
I. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 24
A. Books and Articles ......................................................................................................................... 24
B. Websites and links ......................................................................................................................... 24
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1. CONTEXT OF THE SCHOOL
A. General overview of the school
“Escola Catalunya” is a state school placed in
Navarcles, a small town near Manresa. It is the only
Primary School in the town.
As a general structure, the school is divided into two
different buildings which are named according to their
roof colour: the green building and the red building.
The office, the kitchen, the dining room, the
audiovisual and media classroom and the library are only in the green building whereas
the other areas are almost all duplicated. Pupils start P3 in the red building and they stay
there until 2nd
grade of Primary. Then, in 3rd
grade they move into the green building.
It is a double-line centre despite having triplicate P3, P4, P5 and 1st, 3
rd and 4
th courses.
What means a total of 9 classrooms for kindergarten and 15 for primary, making a total
of 507 students. This course the staff consist of 35 teachers, the school also has a
religion teacher, a TEI (Tècnic en Educació Infantil), two “vetlladores”, a porter, a clerk
and a person who takes care of the maintenance of the centre twice a week. During the
week, teachers have 5 hours for meetings taking place from 13h to 14 h, as the centre’s
schedule is from 9 h to 12:30 h and from 15 h to 16:30 h.
B. English as a second language (ESL) in the school
Pupils are exposed to English since they start P4. Their
first contact with the language is through stories and
games which are aimed to approach them to this
language from a “playful” perspective. The school is
very conscious about the importance for learning
English, thus they try to provide pupils with as much opportunities to get in touch with
it as possible. Every year, for example, pupils from the different primary grades assist to
a theatre play in English which they previously work in class.
English lessons are run through the use of textbooks and worksheets that guide the
vocabulary and content to be taught. Nevertheless, the English teachers are aware of the
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importance for practicing the language through communication, thus they try to engage
pupils in different communicative tasks on each unit.
In the next table I summarize the English lessons that each grade take during a week:
HOURS/WEEK GROUP DIVISION LANGUAGE FOCCUS
Kindergarten
(P4, P5)
1 hour Whole class Vocabulary games and story-
telling
Key Stage 1
(1st and 2
nd
grade)
2 hours Whole class Book and worksheets
1’5 hours Small groups (mixed
ages)
Story-telling
Key Stage 2
(3rd
and 4th
grade)
2 hours Whole class Book and worksheets
1 hour Small groups Oral English
Key Stage 3
(5th and 6
th
grade)
2 hours Whole class Book and worksheets
1 hour Small groups Oral English
According to this schedule, we can see that the older the pupils are, the more time they
devote to English and the more importance the school gives to the oral communication
in that language. Regarding the Key stage 1, where I taught in most of my trainee period
in the school, I would like to point out that this year has been the first in which they
have implemented 1’5 h/week of “tallers” where they work with English from a more
communicative based perspective. Thus, they use story books to engage pupils using the
language in activities such as theatre plays or songs.
The school also has an English Blog where teachers, students and parents can see some
of the activities done in class. You can access the blog by clicking in the following link:
http://englishescolacatalunya2012.blogspot.com.es/
C. TYPICAL DAY IN MY INTERNSHIP
A. Timetable
As I said before, I devoted most of the time teaching in the Key Stage 1 and in P5 as my
school mentor, Begonya Corrales, was the one in charge of those courses. Nevertheless,
as she has a reduction in her working hours she finished her lessons by the midday.
Thus, in the afternoon I was allowed to see other courses and work with the other
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English teachers in the school: Meritxell, Sílvia and Dolors. That, allowed me to
observe in detail and acquire a more specific idea of how the English subject was taught
throughout the different grades. Moreover, it was also very enriching for me as a teacher
as I saw four very different ways of teaching English.
During my internship my timetable was the one attached below. So that, in the
mornings I taught with Begonya in the red building and in the afternoons I moved to the
green one to teach Key Stage 2 and also Key Stage 3 with the other English teachers.
B. What did I observe?
As I have had the opportunity to work with different teachers which had quite different
perspectives about how to teach English. Furthermore, I’ve seen all the stages of
learning in the school and various strategies and methodologies used by the different
teachers.
Starting with P5, which are the youngest kids that Begonya taught, I’ve observed that
the Syllabus is based on the one hand, on storytelling, so that during all the course she
works from the vocabulary and structures that appear in different stories such as “the
Goldiloks”, “Little Red Ridinghood” or “the three little pigs” which are stories that
pupils already know. Thus, it is easier for them to comprehend the story even though
they don’t understand all the words. From each story they did some worksheets which
consisted on: matching some pictures with words (for example the characters with their
names), drawing something related to the story (as with the “Little Red Ridinghood”
where we worked on their favorite food), etc. And on the other hand, Begonya also uses
songs to engage them to use English which are usually accompanied by gestures. What
is defined by James. J, Asher as TPR (Total Phisical Response), commonly known as a
very powerful and useful tool to be considered by language teachers. Due to the fact that
in P5 pupils only have one hour lesson per week, the teacher starts the class with a
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“good morning” song that pupils sing to a puppet “Chikey Monkey”. I’ve realized that
in that way they all start more focused the English lesson. Over the course, I’ve also
observed that they have had a positive development in the acquisition of English as a
second language even though they rarely produce any sort of sentence by themselves
but they were almost all able to understand the instructions which were always given in
English.
Regarding the lessons observed and taught in 1st and 2
nd grade (key Stage 1) I must say
that the Syllabus is mostly based on the course book they have, “Explorers 1” and
“Explorers 2”. Regarding the timetable, Begonya seemed a bit reluctant to the idea of
having two hour lessons per week with the whole group, she had to manage it due to her
reduction in work hours. She told me that she had had to cut out in many activities
which were not such based on the course book as it was very difficult for her to manage
a class of 20-23 students doing some activities such as role-plays, games, etc.
Nevertheless, she always looked for some space for interaction and creative activities in
which the pupils had to use the language and apply their knowledge. For example, at the
end of each unit she asks pupils to do a written production related to the topic in which
they are working, such as writing a description of themselves when working on the
body parts.
I really appreciate how begonia tutored me as she always tried to find time to share with
me different materials that she uses, provide me with a great amount of resources and,
of course, helped me with my teaching. Moreover, what I liked the most was that she
always allowed me to teach when it was possible. That, made me feel more confident as
I saw that she trusted in me.
I have also learned from the other teachers whom I have been teaching with, especially
from Silvia, which was the English teacher from the upper cycle (Key Stega 3) and with
whom I have been many hours in class too. Moreover, as Silvia was Carla’s tutor she
led us teach together and try new activities in class, what was a very interesting
experience but also a bit stressing as she sometimes led us only 10 minutes to prepare
the class. Nevertheless, due to the fact that we had a little time to get prepared, we had
to do our best and overcome different situations that helped us grow as teachers.
Finally, we always managed it as she was always there for giving us a hand.
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D. DEVELOPEMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE
Planning this project was really special for me as I took the idea from a project I did
when I was in the 3rd grade of primary, in my town’s school. My English teacher at that
moment was who made me interested in English as we used to do very nice things. One
of them was a theatre play called “At the restaurant” in which we dressed up like
waiters, costumers and cookers. We sent the video to a competition in Barcelona and we
won. Thus, as I have a very nice memory from that ages and especially from this
project, I thought that it would be a good idea to take the same idea and see how can I
made pupils feel as good as I felt then.
From the first moment, I knew that I wanted the students to act but that I didn’t want to
give them a text that they only had to learn by heart. From my experience, I’ve realised
that it is better if I can make them feel that they are important part of it. Nevertheless, I
was a bit worried and lost at the beginning about how I could direct the project, but my
peers really helped me during the tutorial sessions. When I presented them the idea, they
really seemed to like it so they gave me some ideas on how could I organise the
teaching unit. I really liked the point of turning it into a role-play activity in which they
had to write the lines for the play. Because as Ur (2005) points out role-play “is close to
genuine discourse and provides useful practice in the kinds of language the learners may
eventually need to use in similar situations outside the classroom”.
From this first draft, in which I only knew that I wanted them to write the dialogue for
the final play (output of the project), I tried to work backwards and see what should I
teach pupils before they would be able to write for themselves. As it is known,
“backward planning” can help the teacher to fix the activities and sessions more
coherently with the final output that he/she wants to achieve as it requires thinking step-
by-step what pupils should know before reaching each objective.
Thus, I decided to present this first idea to my school tutor to see
which her first impressions were. Firstly, she seemed a bit
confused as she told me that 2nd
grade children wouldn’t be able to
write an entire theatre play. Nevertheless, she offered me her help
and she showed me some resources that I could use to introduce
the project. From these resources I took a book called “Today is
Monday” by Eric Carle, which is related to what we were going to
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work on, meals, and which also has a song that I thought would be nice if we could use
for the play. In that moment, I had very clear how to introduce the project, which was
the main goal that I wanted the students to achieve and where did I want them to go.
Thus, I started to plan the different sessions for the didactic unit and the materials
needed.
After having the first scheme of the project, I presented it to my peers in the practicum
session which turned to be really useful. First of all because as had to explain it to my
peers I had to have it very clear to make others understand it. Therefore, I was able to
see which the main weaknesses of the project were and also which were the strengths.
Moreover, sharing ones work with peers who may also have the same difficulties as you
have is not that “exposing” and lets us share more freely our impressions and ideas. The
main change I did from the feedback received in this session was to decide that I was
not going to give many directories to them when writing the dialogue, thanks to the fact
that they made me see that I needed to give pupils some more freedom if I wanted them
to develop their language skills. Therefore, I decided that each group would write the
dialogue for the costumers and the waiter and that pupils would be allowed to choose
and go as far as they wanted.
From that moment, I had the ideas much clear and I felt really proud of what I was
creating as I saw that my peers really liked the idea and supported me with good
feedback. Then, while working with the template that I was given by my university
teacher, I started to go deeper onto the project’s objectives, aims and also on the
different activities planned. Some of the main problems I encountered during this last
step of planning, were the timing and the assessment. On the one hand, I found it very
difficult to fix the timing for some activities as I knew that not all the pupils were going
to work at the same rhythm and that I may need to change it during the lessons. Hence, I
tried to come up with a reasonable timing for each of the activities. Moreover, as I was
given only 5 sessions for the implementation and the project seemed to be quite
complex for second grade children and I wanted them to do many things to get prepared
I had to cut on the time for some activities. On the other hand, regarding the assessment,
I might say that I was struggled in many occasions as I wanted to do many observations
and assess all the process but I didn’t came up with the right tools to do. Thus, I decided
to use some observation charts for the teacher and also assess some of the mini-outputs
from different activities.
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As it is said planning is always a cycle of changes.
In other words, you cannot think about your
planning as it is going to be always the way that
you thought. You must be prepared and ready to
adapt it to the different situations and possible
unexpected situations that may require some
modifications. The image on the left illustrates
which could be a good definition of the “cycle of
planning” which includes the planning itself, the
plan B to be carried out in case that is needed, the implementation, the collection of
evidences which are later analysed and evaluated and the final reflection which would
lead the teacher to improve the previous planning. As a teacher, I have experienced this
cycle among the months that I have been designing and implementing “at the
restaurant” project. Here are the main changes that I have gone through:
In the first draft I had planned to do 5 sessions and to ask each group to write the entire
theatre play, after the feedback received in class I realised that it would be too much
work for second grade children so I changed it into each group writing half of the play
that was going to be divided into four scenes: welcoming, ordering the starters, ordering
the main course and ordering drinks and deserts. Moreover, the school tutor gave me
another session so I was able to give pupils some more time for activities which weren’t
DRAFT 1
•5 sessions
•each group write the entire dialogue for the play
DRAFT 2
•6 sessions
•each group write half of the dialogue for the play
DRAFT 3
•8 sessions
•each group write one part of the dialogue for the play
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as fast as expected (such as the creation of the menu that finally took us two sessions
instead of one). Once pupils started writing the dialogues, I saw that it would be not
possible for them to write half of the play in time so I talked with my school mentor and
we decided that it would be better to give each group just one scene and record only one
theatre play. It took them a lot of time as it was a kind of activity they were they were
not used to. In the end I was allowed to have two more sessions, so that the project
lasted 8 sessions, as the English teacher saw that pupils really enjoyed it and she
thought that it would be a better idea to give them more time to prepare and study for
the play.
From this process of planning and implementing a project I have learned to adapt
myself to different situations such as realizing that an activity is not working and having
to stop the class to direct it in another way. I have also learned to ask for help, which I
now see as a good and necessary strategy to improve, thus I do not have to see it as a
sign of failure but as an opportunity to learn from others. And last but not least I have
developed more critical thinking. Not only with other’s work but also with myself,
which is a very necessary skill to take into consideration as a teacher.
Finally, as to conclude with this point, I present a word cloud which summarizes all
what planning means for me after this period.
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E. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE
Once finished the implementation of the project and as it was expected I may say that
there have been many moments from reflection. Some of them which lead me to
congratulate myself and also to get surprised but also some others from which I had to
reflect and that also helped me growing as a future teacher. Thus, in this section I am
going to present and analyse some of these moments.
A. Analysis of the main problem encountered during the implementation
First of all, I would like to reflect about one of the main problems that I encountered
when teaching the “At the restaurant unit”. This problem refers to giving instructions.
For this reflection I have selected a quite small sample of one session recording. It
belongs to the first session of the project which was aimed to introduce the teaching unit
and to start working with the main vocabulary that pupils would need. This excerpt of
the video specifically belongs to the warm-up activity where I was explaining to the
class what to do.
From this video, I would like to focus on how the instructions were given and which
strategies were used for doing it. For that purpose, I am going to reflect on the strengths
and weaknesses that I observe from the teacher giving the instructions. Even though it is
me who is teaching I would try to be critical and analyze it the more objectively the
possible.
Regarding the strengths of the explanation I may say that the teacher used a great
variety of strategies, especially during the first part where she introduced the activity.
Some of the strategies that we can observe on the recording are:
- The teacher uses examples to make pupils understand the instructions. For
example when she tells them that they have to use different colours, she makes
an example by pointing to the pupils in the table next to her and saying “blue,
yellow and pink”, pointing to a different child for each colour. Moreover, she
With the following link you would be able to access the video. The concrete timing of
the excerpt being analyzed is from minute 1:11 (when I start the explanation of the
warm up activity) to minute 4:38 (when I finish the instructions).
http://youtu.be/xwYnAIlmmVs
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shows the pupils a model of what they are supposed to do what gives support to
her explanation.
- The teacher monitors pupil’s understanding. For example when she wants to
make sure that every child has picked up a different colour; she walks around the
tables and checks it.
- She models what pupils are asked to do. When she explains them that they have
to write their name on the paper using the colour that they have chosen, she
models it by making the example for some pupils in one table.
- The teacher asks for pupil’s translation in some points of the explanation to see
that they are following and to make sure that everyone understands it. For
example, we can see that when she is explaining them that the words they write
must be about food and drinks she takes profit of one pupil who translates those
words into Catalan.
Nevertheless, there are also some points in which the way that the teacher gives
instructions could be improved:
- The teacher translates some sentences which could have been easily understood
by the pupils. When she explains the pupils that they are going to do a
competition she automatically translates the word competition into Catalan
without giving them time to decode that information.
- When summarizing the instructions, she gives too much information in one beat
and it appears to be not very understandable for pupils as it is quite disorganised.
As to conclude with the analysis of the video and positioning myself now in the paper
of the teacher, I might say that, even though the first time I watched the video I felt that
I did it really bad, I can now say that it was not that disaster. I have realised that most of
the weaknesses present when giving instructions could be solved with more carefully
planning before. Moreover it seems that I was not confident enough so that I did not
give my best. The activity presented in the extract was a quite simple activity but it was
very difficult to understand for pupils who had never done it before. Thus, I would have
had to think about how could I explained it and maybe not doing it so fast, as it was also
too much information for them to understand in three minutes. Moreover, during a
feedback session in the university, where I presented my reflections and I showed my
peers a short piece of this video, I was given the idea of using an example to
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demonstrate what to do just after giving the instructions. So that I could have chosen
some volunteers to come to the front and do an example of the activity. In that way I
think that I may have avoided some groups in which they were all dictating to one
member who was writing or groups in which all the members wrote the same words.
Nevertheless, I am very proud of the way I run the class as it was my first session in that
group and the first time they saw me in the school.
B. My “eureka” moments
Along the implementation of the project I have had very nice heart-warming moments
where I have felt very proud of the pupils and even of myself. I am really proud of the
results achieved with the outcome of the project, the theatre play. From the first
moment, I was warned by my school mentor and other teachers that pupils won’t study
their lines and that it was going to be very difficult, and what is even worse, I really
thought the same. Nevertheless, during the previous week of the recording session many
teachers in the school told me that the 2nd
grade children were studying and rehearsing
the dialogues during the playground. That fact, made me realise that pupils were really
engaged and motivated with the project. Moreover, there was one girl in the class who
had no support at home with her homework, what normally leads to not bring her
homework to class. Thus, we expected her not to study and know her lines for the play
so we gave her very simple sentences so that she could learn them by practicing in class.
The day of the play, when she saw me arriving to school, she came and told me that she
had been studying and that she knew what to say. I was extremely surprised when I saw
that she was able to remember everything and I saw in her eyes that she was really
proud of herself. That day I really understood the importance to work through projects
as they allow the teacher to contextualize the activity and to work through engaging and
motivating activities that can fit into different learning styles and even engage those
students who have more difficulties and give them the chance to felt really proud of
their results.
Videos of the final plays are available with the following links (you may not be able to
found them without the links):
2nd
A: http://youtu.be/UOii1zj6nEk
2nd
B: http://youtu.be/2zUCE3TAdbY
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C. Questions for reflection
1. Was the planning appropriate?
As it was expected, I have had to go through many changes and modifications on the
planning. So, as teachers, we must though about planning as a “guideline” which should
be flexible. Even most of the activities planned were appropriate and worked properly
and as it has been stated in the section 3 of this report, it would have been a good idea to
plan more detailed instructions for the activities as it seemed that they were sometimes
too complicated for the students to follow.
“63 tactics for teaching diverse learners, k–6” is a book for teachers that presents a
wide range of teacher-tested instructional methodologies that can be used across
different subjects and grade levels from the elementary school. The model presented
focuses on planning, managing, delivering and evaluating instruction. In the first part of
this book the authors provide the reader with a visual scheme of which steps should be
followed in order to plan instructions (figure 1). They divide the planning into three
principles: decide what to teach, decide how to teach and communicate realistic
expectations. Each of these principles is developed in more detail in different chapters
each.
Figure 1
As the authors state, “Effective teachers carefully plan their instruction. They decide
what to teach and how to teach.” (Alogozzine, B. Campbell, P. & Wang, A. (2009),
pp.1). Thus, I really found this a very good resource to keep in mind when planning
projects, not only for language lessons but also for other curricular areas.
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2. What instructional strategies did I use to achieve the goals of the teaching
sequence?
According to the “Glossary of Teaching Strategies” provided by the National Center on
Educational Outcomes” (see references) the main strategies that I have used during the
implementation of the teaching sequence have been:
- The use of body language to complement my explanations. Moreover, I used
too when trying to catch pupils attention.
- Paraphrasing and emphasising some parts of the explanations given in order
to make pupils focus on the most important parts to be understood.
- Adapt the language to their level so that I tried to avoid difficult structures and
long sentences.
- Use of different supporting materials. In some occasions I tried to take profit
of the different objects in the class, such as the menus they did with the Spanish
teacher for my explanations or I also prepared different materials such as
pictures, comics, etc.
- The use of their mother tongue language is also a good strategy to use but it
has to be carefully planned as the teacher is supposed to be using the target
language and take profit of pupils’ translations or paraphrasing into their mother
tongue.
- Examples were very frequently used when giving instructions as they are a very
good strategy to model what students are expected to do.
- Designing Hands-on activities in which pupils had to actively participate in the
project.
In this document we can find a huge list of strategies that any teacher can use in his/her
lessons for different purposes. Some of them could be used to make him/herself
understood, to see pupil’s impressions or doubts, to engage students in different
activities, etc. Having seen such a big list I sincerely think that I could have used some
others during the implementation such as:
Chapter 1 of this book is available in the following link:
http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/26484_Chapter_1_Decide_What_to_Teach.pdf
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- “Collecting anonymous student generated questions” which consist on
asking pupils to write one question anonymously and then picking some of them
at random to answer. In that way the teacher also facilitates to those shy students
who are afraid of asking in front of the whole class to participate by giving their
question. Moreover, this strategy could also have been used by changing it so
that instead of questions pupils could have write opinions about the project, still
anonymously, so that I could have had a general overview of their thoughts and
impressions for the project and in that way I could have modified aspects which
pupils didn’t like or found useful, for example.
- “Response cards” which can be pieces of paper in which pupils have to write
answers for some questions that the teacher asks them. In the teaching sequence
this could have been a good strategy to use during the activity in which we were
ordering the “mixed-up menu” as we worked all together and my impression
was that only few students were actively participating and answering whereas
the others were just looking and listening. With this strategy I could have had
them all participating and it could also have helped me to assess their
understanding and knowledge.
3. Did I use good classroom management strategies?
In the class where I was teaching there were some pupils with behavioural problems
so I was a bit worried about how to manage some activities, as some of them were
based on collaborative work. Thus, I asked for help to my school mentor when
making the groups, so that the pupils in each group get on well with each other.
Nevertheless, I took for guaranteed that by doing this I would get all the groups
working well. Now, I realise that was not a good choice. During the activity, there
were some pupils who did not do anything or groups which found very difficult to
reach a consensus. Thanks to the feedback received in one of the practicum sessions
I get one idea which I am sure would have helped in this situations. One of my peers
in class told me that it would have been a good idea to give different roles to each of
the pupils on the groups, so that they all knew what they were in charge for.
Moreover it would have created positive interdependence between them as
everyone’s participation on the group would have been vital for the accomplishment
of the activity.
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In that way, taking into account that “The purpose of cooperative groups is to make
each member a stronger individual in his or her own right” (Johnson, Johnson, &
Holubec, 1998, p. 4:17) and that pupils were not used to work cooperatively, giving
them different roles could have helped me when scaffolding the development of the
social skills that they need for cooperative tasks.
F. MODIFICATION OF YOUR TEACHING SEQUENCE
Once finished the implementation of the teaching sequence, I might say that I am now
more capable to look at it with different eyes and think about many changes that could
be done in a future in order to improve its success. As is has been stated before,
planning includes a process of reflection which can help the teacher to see which
aspects went on the right way and which should be modified. Nevertheless, this process
of reflection may not be carried out just by taking into account first impressions, such as
the ones I wrote in the blog after each session, the teacher should carry out a deep
analysis on the different activities, objectives, assessment tools used, etc. to carefully
plan the modifications needed. For example if as a first impression you see that there is
one activity which seemed not to have been very useful or meaningful you should not
only modify the activity but also look for other factors that may have also influenced
and collect data that help you corroborate your feelings.
Once finished this process of reflection and also self-evaluation I can now state which
would be the changes that I would like to make for further implementations. These
changes are presented below divided into three categories: instructions, timing and
assessment.
A. PLANNING INSTRUCTIONS
First of all, I would need to work more on the instructions given to pupils for the
activities as they were not really planned and detailed in the teaching sequence. Thus,
my mistake was to think that if I knew what the activities were about and what I wanted
the pupils to do I would be easily able to explain them. Nevertheless, it was not that
simple, as they were very clear in my mind but not for the pupils. So, even I had a good
level of English I struggled in some explanations and it was sometimes hard for pupils
to understand what I wanted to say.
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As teachers, it is really important to make children understand what we expect from
them. A very simple and understandable way of doing it is by modelling what they are
supposed to do. Hence, the main modifications that I would do regarding the
instructions given would be:
- I would try to prepare beforehand the set of instructions to be given in class. I
have realised that it is very important to prepare instructions which are simple
and clear for the students. Having a good level of English does not necessary
mean being able to simplify the language such as for low proficiency English
learners.
- I would include more examples while explaining some activities. As an
example, in the activity where pupils had to brainstorm foods and drinks it was
really difficult for me to make them understand that each one in the group had to
write their own even though they shared the paper. Thus, for this activity it
could have been better to support the explanation with an example, so that pupils
could have seen how the activity was going to be carried out.
B. TIMING
Secondly, I have also realised the importance of the timing as it is a key point for
carrying out a successful lesson. During the implementation I had to adapt myself and
the teaching sequence to many changes on timing:
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On the one hand, it seemed really difficult for me to imagine how long some of the
activities would take before having implemented them before and without knowing the
class properly. Thus, some of them need to be revised during the implementation.
Nevertheless, it always depends on the class being taught, so the timing must be flexible
according to the needs of the pupils. Apart from that, there were other situations which
were not predicable and also influenced the timing too, such as the changes on the
number of sessions. At the beginning I had planned 5 sessions, as it was the only
possibility I was given, but in the end I was allowed to do 7 sessions. It was a really
positive change as I could give pupils more time for some high-cognitive demanding
activities such as writing the dialogues (what I am sure influenced in the results) or for
rehearsing the final play, what gives us the opportunity to work more on the language
repetition and focus on pronunciation. Thus, for further implementations I would keep
the number of sessions that I finally did as it may not have been successful in less than
7.
On the other hand, there were also some other problems which weren’t my fault but
which I should have taken into account in advance. Those problems refer to the use of
the technology. In the first session, for example, we were supposed to watch a video
from You Tube, but the Internet in the school was not working so we couldn’t do it.
Nevertheless, I think I spent too much time trying to get the video working that I lost
valuable time that could have been profit in other ways. The solution of this problem
could have been planning some “plan B” activities or even download the video before
the session.
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C. ASSESSMENT
Assessment really worried me when planning, as I wanted to assess all the process in
order to assess the development of each pupil. So, as I wanted to do a formative
assessment, I created some charts for the teacher to assess pupils through observation in
each of the sessions carried out. Nevertheless, when implementing the teaching
sequence I realised that it would have been impossible for only one teacher to use them
in class as the items for the observation were quite general (e.g: active participation) and
difficult to observe while running the class. For that reason I think that I should have
prepared more carefully the materials for the assessment.
After having had a session on Formative assessment in the university I have really
understand what it means. So that not only is an assessment that takes into account the
process and the development of the students but also is an assessment that has to inform
both teacher and students (NCTE, 2003). For that reason some of the modifications that
I would do in the assessment planning are:
- Revise the purpose of some activities which are going to be assessed and
share it with the students. For example, at the beginning of the teaching
sequence I carried out an initial assessment through a brainstorm activity where
pupils had to write as many names of food and drink as they could remember in
only 5 minutes. From this activity I came up with numeric data according to the
number of words that each student wrote and how many of them were spelled
correctly. At the end, when I analyzed this data I realised that it was not very
useful, neither for me nor for students, as it did not inform of the knowledge
acquired. After talking about this with some peers I realised that it could have
been useful if I had planned a similar activity at the end of the teaching unit as it
would have informed about the knowledge acquired and it would have allowed
me and also pupils to compare the final production with the first one. A similar
problem occurred when assessing an activity which consisted on each pupil
creating a menu. The purpose of this activity was to see if pupils had understood
the main parts that a menu had and which dishes should be in each part.
Moreover I told them that the best menu would be the one used in the final play
as to give a purpose for them to do the menu. At the end, with my school mentor
we decided that choosing only one menu was not fair so we used a different one
that we created for the play. Thus, I realised that the activity may not have a
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purpose then so I asked my practicum peers about what should I do: eliminate
the activity or if they had any ideas. One idea that I liked a lot was to re-organise
the way how the session was planned. There were two main activities for the
session which were to organize a mixed-up menu all and to create a menu. The
first one was to do with the whole class together whereas the second one was
individual. The change on the planning for this session would consist on the one
hand, on asking pupils to work on the mixed-up menu in groups, so that in this
way they can create the meanings on their own and take profit of the discussion
with their peers and then bring their conclusions to the class so that we reach an
agreement all together. In that way not only they would learn the parts of the
menu and some dishes but also they would have a real purpose for using the
language. On the other hand, the creation of the menu would be done with the
whole class after the discussion so that they apply the knowledge acquired and
the purpose of doing the menu is still for having one for the final play.
- Include more variety of assessment tools. In the university some of my peers
presented a very interesting article about formative assessment. 25 quick
Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom (see reference in
bibliography) provide a great number of tools which could be adapted and used
in different moments of the teaching sequence. Apart from using observation
charts as the one I planned for the unit other assessment tools that I would like to
use are:
o “My top ten list” (pp. 38): in this worksheet students have to write 10
ideas that summarize their learning. It could be used before asking them
to write the dialogues for the play in order to make them think about
what they should take into account for their writing such as some
expressions that they have seen in the sample text, important words, etc.
o “Nothing what I’ve learned” (pp. 44): this activity could be used to make
the pupils aware of their learning process so that after each of the
sessions they would have to draw and write what they have learned.
Thus, if for example there are many kids which did not learn nothing the
teacher could revise the objectives and the activities in the session as
they didn’t worked properly.
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Nevertheless I would keep some of the assessment moments planned such as the
peer assessment for the play in which the group performing was assessed by the
audience as it was useful for them to see what were they expected to do and it
was also a way in which they had to be attentive to the performance. Moreover I
think it would be a good idea to include some other moments for peer
assessment as, as Melinda told us in class, we have to learn to do them so that
not always the first can be taken into account.
G. LEARNING AND GROWING AS A TEACHER
The whole process of planning, implementing and then reflecting on the Teaching unit
that I have created has really helped me on learning and growing not only as a future
language teacher but also as a self-critical person. Thus, to illustrate this process I have
created a slideshow which would guide you through it.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1280DZWZt2iot_MKV1R5JNPA6tzZw6xzPhm
NXGZogWQw/edit?usp=sharing
H. CONCLUSIONS
The previous sentence, stated by Albert Einstein, fits perfectly when trying to
summarize the experience that I have had while working on this report. During this
process of analysis and reflection, I have learned to be a better teacher with more
resources and also more competent in her job. Moreover, I have had the chance to
analyse both strengths and weakness of my teaching as an opportunity to grow.
At the beginning, when I started to plan the teaching unit I was a bit worried as it was
the first time for me teaching English in a school. Even though I have been working in a
language school for 6 years this time I was nervous as I was used to have only 6-7
pupils per class. Nevertheless, the fact of having some experience on teaching English
had also been very useful in some “critical” moments. For example, when I had to plan
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to
stop questioning.”
Albert Einstein
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activities without having so much time, such as when we taught with Carla in the Key
Stage 2 and Silvia asked us to prepare the class just 10 minutes in advance. On the same
way, I have realised that it is in those “critical” moments I did my best as a teacher and
that they were where I was braver ton trying new things. Although those situations
pushed me out of my comfort zone, I can say that I managed quite well in all of them.
Furthermore, I honestly think that they have played an important role on the developing
of my teaching skills.
As to conclude with this report, I must say that having to work on such a deep and wide
reflection has really helped me on becoming more professional. I have learned how to
critically analyse not only others’ practice but also mine, how to see the weakness as an
opportunity to improve and the importance of learning from others. Thus, I now feel
that I am most prepared to face my first year after the degree with lots of energy and
illusion to start working and continue learning and growing as a teacher. I’ve become a
more confident teacher, more capable of learning from others and also from my own
mistakes. I am really excited with the new phase that we will be starting in just now and
I really expect having the chance of applying all what I have learned this year in the
university.
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I. REFERENCES
A. Books and Articles
- Alogozzine, B. Campbell, P. & Wang, A. (2009) 63 Tactics for Teaching
Diverse Learners, K-6. Corwin.
- Clive Beck and Clare Kosnik. Growing as a teacher: Goals and Pathways of
Ongoing Teacher Learning. Sense publisher. Rotterdam, 2014
- Cummins, J. (2000). Lenguaje, poder y pedagogía. Madrid: Morata, 2002
- Dodge, Judith. 2009. 25 quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated
Classroom. Scholastic Teaching Resources.
- Johnson, D., Johnson, R.& Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the
classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
- Lightbown, Patsy & Spada, Nina. 1999. How languages are learned. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
- Masats, D., i Unamuno, V. (2001). Constructing social identities and discourse
through repair activities. A S. Foster-Cohen i A. Nizegorodcew (Eds.), Eurosla
Yearbook, Volume I (p. 239-254). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.
- NCTE, 2003. Formative Assessment that Truly Informs Instruction.
- Ur, Penny. 2005. Discussions that work. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
B. Websites and links
- http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/presentations/nceo-lep-iep-ascdglossary.pdf
“Glossary of teaching strategies”. National Center on Educational Outcomes
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