informe final - nc

Universidad de Concepción

Facultad de Educación

Departamento de Currículum e Instrucción

Final Report

Colegio Villa Nonguén

Name: Nicolás Contreras

Professor: Erica Becar

Subject: Taller de Especialidad

Program: Pedagogía en Inglés




IDENTIFICATION OF THE SCHOOL

School’s Name: Colegio Villa Nonguén

School’s address: Río Loa 75, Concepción.

Type: Semi-private school

Headmistress: Sr. Vicente Cabrera

Head of the Curriculum Department (UTP): Alejandra Casanueva

Mentor teacher: Katya Álvarez

Courses assigned: 5ºA Primary School

7ºA Primary School

1. WORKING PLAN

a) Detailed description of the working plan

In the school, every teacher follows the program provided by the Ministry

of Education every year. In English, the program is accompanied by a English

book (Travellers.Alvarado, Lina. 2015) that is not fully related to the program

provided. For that reason the teacher decided to use the book just in specific

times as an aditional resource instead of being the primary source for the

classes.

The level of English of the students is not enough to use all the materials

provided by the Ministry. The students are more advanced in Reading and

Listening Skills, but they can not accomplish good results in production skills as

speaking and writing. In consecuence, one of the main goals this year was to

develop the basic capacities on those skills even when the program expects a

higher level for fifth and seven year.

The students presents a high level of interest on the subject, being in

many cases the favorite one in both classes. Nevertheless, the interest on




improving their skills (especially production skills) is not present. They got

used to Reading and Listening activities so they are not that interested on

explore new abilities.

To accomplish the goal, we decided to gradually increase the level of

difficulty of the activities along the semester and try with a new design for

classes working in competitions and with team work every class.

5th year

Name of the unit: The place where I live.

Learning outcomes: 1) Complete and write, according to a model and with the

support of visual language, not literary texts (such as

postcards, mini books, shopping lists) and literary texts

(such as rhymes, cartoons) with the purpose of sharing

information around the topics of the year..

2) Writing to perform the following functions: Identify and

express quantities; for example, there is a / an / one ...;

There are two / twenty ...; It is a / an....

'In the House' : The introduction for Unit 2, The place where I live, started with

a short presentation of different types of houses. Then a hand craft was

introduced; a 3d model of a house with its different rooms was presented.




The students decorate their own houses with colours and the items

correspoding to each room. The idea of this introductory activity was to use the

house created for the rest of the unit as a source of vocabulary and refference

for future activities.

The activities in which this craft was used include:

Introduction to provide information to questions What / Where / Who.

Identify and describe objects and places.

Describe positions of objects; with on /in / under.

One of the problems I faced with this activity was that some students lost their

crafts and could not find them. However since we worked in groups the rest of

the classes the students shared their material with the rest of them.




There is/are: I begun with this topic in the class after the hand craft. Despite of

the fact that it could seem simple, it was used to assess the class at the end of

the semester, because with it other contents were taught (the questions What /

Where / Who; positions of objects; with on /in / under; Quantities for describing

people and objects). The method used was to present different activities in

which the students combined the topics of the unit and participate orally:

Example:

T: Where is Bob?

S: He is in the living room.

T: what is in the living room?

S: There is a table.

There are three sofas.

At the end of the month the students were assessed by presenting a Individual

work in which they had to draw three different rooms and ask what is in the

_____? and create three different answers using there is/are.




It was possible to deepen on the topics because at least three classes were

cancelled because of holydays and administrative meetings. However, the unit

was not supossed to be fully covered until August so that, the rest of the unit will

be presented on the second semester.

7th year

Name of the unit: Sports and sporting events

Learning outcomes: 1) The students will demonstrate understanding of

explicit information and main ideas in instructional,

descriptive and narrative texts which have a direct

language and have connection with item sports and

sporting events.

2) the students will express orally through monologues

and dialogues (6 exchanges) very short and very simple,




which describe the functions of states, actions and skills in

the past.

Sports descriptive texts: I spend two weeks teaching the students how to

ellicit information from short texts by searching specific information using what/

where/when/who questions. The method was to present the class a text to read

and give them some minutes to find the information to the question. As long as

one the main goals was to develop their Speaking skills the feedback in each of

those activities was through oral questions. Nonetheless, the answer was not

that good, most of the students didn't want to participate. Some of them

explained that they were too shy to speak.

We design a series of drills and activities to improve their oral skills so at the

end of June they were ready to fulfill the outcome spectations of 6 exchanges.

Oral presentations: The last two weeks an assessed work was presented, the

students had to select one of four different sportsmen (Alexis Sanchez, Michael

Jordan, Neymar Jr o Serena Williams). The student extracted 6 pieces of

information that call his/her attention from the text (For example: Birthdate,

popular sports, clubs that have played, etc.) and in the class period, the

students rewrited the selected information creating with it at least 6 different

sentences.

The new sentences have to be presented orally as a short biography. The

students were more enthusiastic after the previous preparation.

Additional Work:

I also did some collaborative contribution with the rest of the levels of the school

(from nursery school to 8th grade) every day, by personal decision since I

considered it as a unique and new experience because this is the first time I am

in a primary school. I helped the teacher with the classes and class

management instead of administrative work.




I had the opportunity of participate in the 'Concepción English Teachers'

Network' as a representative of my mentor teacher. I discovered the importance

of collaborative work among teachers in order to improve professional skills and

generate bigger events. One of those eventsI participated was the development

of a Spelling Bee contest, in our school, with the participation of 13 different

schools of the network where I provided decoration and preparation of the

facilities.

I prepared material for an English extra curricular workshop. There I prepared

some presentations to motivate the use of English and its importance. I

arranged a visit of some English native speakers friends to the school. The

students were astonished by this opportunity and ask them about their country

and likes.




b) In which way the diagnostic report is related with my working plan

The diagnostic report provide me valuable information of the students

socio economicall background. However, the most important information I

received came from the students. They explained which were their interests and

likes.

In the diagnostic report I discovered some of the problems they had the

previous year so that I was prepared in advanced to act against those

problems. Both groups were very disruptive in classes, most of the negative

annotations were incidents related to misbehaviour in class hours.

In addition to the planification of the class, I decided to use a method that

make them more responsible for talking in class time. I used 'Classcraft'




(www.classcraft.com) a online program which provides rewards and punishments

according to the behaviour and participation of the students. What is more, it

includes team work , so the students are responsible the rest of their team

behave properly if they do no want to be punished as a team. They could select

some special privileges as long as they accumulate rewards. The students

were very interested on the program and had a better behaviour along the

semester. This program did not introduce changes to the units, it worked as

alongside the normal classes.

Some of the problems presented on the diagnostic report were related to

academic achievement. Those problems persisted on the beginning of the year,

in the first unit assessment the students of the 7th grade had very low marks. In

consequence my mentor teacher decided to have a special meeting with all the

teachers who had classes with the 7th grade. Of that meeting, some decisions

were decisive. They decide to stop giving homework and prepare not only

assess by tests but additional work. The second mark of the year showed

important changes on the academic level and especially in the level of

responsibility the students had for their marks.

c) Goals imposed in this period, Were they achieved? Why? How?

First of all, the mentor teacher assigned me those grades because she

thought I could present a different methodology which could improve motivation

of the students for the subjet and at the same time their marks.

The first goal motivation, in my opinion, was accomplished, not just

because of my intervention but for the commitment of the students with the

subject and their behaviour in general. The incorporation of the 'Classcraft'

program was decisive since the students were ready to participate and pay

more attention. In the other hand, they discovered that their actions could

damage other students and were more well behaved. They expected the next

activity especially if it involved a reward or challenges for the team.

http://www.classcraft.com/




The second goal, the marks, was not that well accomplished. There was

some improvement, but some students misunderstood confidence with

relaxation and keep low marks. Even though, some others tried and improve the

results.

The introduction to the basics of speaking skills was accomplished, but

there is not a reference point to discover if that improvement was enough.

Despite of the better results, the level is not that high as the level expected on

the Ministry program and the book.

A personal goal that could not be achieved was to get some extra

preparation for working with Special Education Needs students. The teachers

were not prepared to work with them. The school has a program to work with

those students but when their have to be assessed the same instruments are

used and the scale is the only thing that is different. I have to recibe more

preparation to work with students with learning disabilities.

2. SELF-REFLECTION

a) What can be improved in the future?

The most important thing that I expect to improve in future is how to give

the students more responsibility for they own learning. Most of them got used to

forget their materials, books, tests dates and homeworks. In consequence they

want to leave the resposibility on others, family and teachers. The excuses are

part of their reality.

I know that changing this problem is not a single class event.

Nevertheless, I expect to be a teacher who can help students to be more

responsible for their own future regardless their reality.

Secondly, the student misundertand confidence and kindness with

relaxation and disrespect. I discovered that I want to be friendly but not to be

overcome by the students.




In addition, the level of authority a teacher shows is highly related with

the behaviour with the students, so I need to balance friendship and ahutority in

classroom.

In the administrative side of the practice, I discover that teachers have

low or no time to prepare their classes. If I want to have time for living, I need to

be more responsible with deadlines and planification. Many teachers nowadays

have sleeping problems because they planify on weekend nights and holydays

and I do not want that for me.

b) Specific learning outcomes achieved

Learning outcomes from the contents

The students were able to:

Identify main idea and details arranged in a chart or table.

Speak some basic sentences in English.

Elicit information from texts.

Identify past or present information according to the use of temporal

markers.

Use different vocabulary from the topics of the units.

Create short biographies of famous characters.

Use wh- questions to get specific information.




Learning outcomes as a teacher

I cannot prejudge students based on what other teachers say

about them.It is my responsibility to discover it by myself.

I want to be as democratic as possible, but I do not want to be

overcome by students and their demands.

Always have a plan B. Some classes will not work as expected, by

computer problems or others I should be prepared.

To be prepared with several options for the students, they are

different.

The responsibility for the learning depends of the teacher but it is

not only his/her responsibility. Family, friends, and the student

himself are involved.

To be natural but to make a real effort to create interesting

materials and search for constant improvement in order to be a

better teacher.

To keep being positive. Maybe, a student's life is not going to

change in a single class but with the time I can make a real and

transcendent contribution to the rest of the school community.

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