Reflective writing Nº1: The English classroom

I. Introduction
• What do you think the cartoon provided below is illustrating? Why? Answer briefly.


One of the situations that teachers fear most is being involved in the situation shown in the picture, because the domain of the course is an important factor in the educational process, and when the teacher is relaxed in this respect, it is impossible to regain the respect and order. Therefore, it is impossible to teach the classes and the contents properly, likewise pose many other problems not only for the integrity of the teacher, but also for their students that are not learning at all.
We, as teacher always have to consider that students are naturally restless and we have to provide appropriate activities but above all, we must adapt to the styles of each course and achieve the point in which they can learn effectively.



II. Reflective writing
• Taking into account the information you collected during the observation stage, and the team teaching stage

1. Reflect on the students’ behavior in the English classroom.
2. Have you seen your students behaving this way? Support your answer.
3. Propose ideas to deal with disruptive students in your school.

In the course where I am doing my professional practice, students are very young (average 7 years old), and it is very difficult to get an appropriate response from them. First of all, they always want to play and release the energy they have, and secondly, due to their age they want to go to the toilet every time they need disrupting the class at every moment. But as time goes by, I have learned that I have to set the rules at all times and repeat them as many times as necessary until they understand and learn how to behave during classes.

During the observation period I did not observe a more personalized supervision to students, not even to those who show more difficulties learning the language. But sometimes, and with the intention of giving a more personalized class, I walk through the class post by post attending each student with difficulties. In such opportunities some students start making a mess at the other extreme of the class while others begin to get excited until I react and call their attention.
When the end of the class is coming, children start to act impatiently because the break is near (that happens within the last ten minutes). So I tend to engage them with the activity providing feedback, because they like to make comments on their perception.

In the specific case of disruptive students, I could see that in this particular class children are generally intelligent, sometimes above average, but the problem is that they are hyperactive and they do not like to be sitting down or quiet for too long. When I give the lesson they learn fast and easy meanwhile the rest of the class are still processing the information given, they get bored quickly and start annoying other students, interrupting the class.

Moreover, children are used to being competitive, so I encourage them to behave properly saying that the row which behaves better will go out to the break first. Then, those who do not behave in a good way leave the class later. To me, this sort of motivation usually works.

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June 24th, 2010

2º Grade
Unit: “Outdoor”

Use of preposition of places such as “in, on, under and by”, students practice this with their hands, then the teacher shows flashcards about prepositions that students have to guess what the pictures shows.
Phonetic and meaning differences of the words “bag and bug” because students have to do exercises such as “The bug is in/on/under/by the bag”
Questions and answers in singular and plural form: “Where is the ball? It is by the tree” and “Where are the flowers? They are under the table”
Students play a game projected by data show.
Feedback.


8º Grade
Unit: “Food and Health”

The teacher reviews the homework with the class.
Test: Dialogue in pairs about invitations
Meals of the day.
Practice the use of infinite pronouns.
Use of some and any.
Feedback.


Note: In 2º I was supervised, and the students were very kind with me and with the supervisor teacher. They paid attention about the instructions especially in three of the activities. The first one, when we practice the prepositions with our hands (they learned it very fast), then when they have to count the elements of a picture with the question “How many..?”, and finally with the final game. I think they had a good time, and the best of all, they learned.
In the case of 8º, most of the time, the students were giving a dialogue in couples, and they were very enthusiastic about it. The grades were very good; they did not have any bad grade, and most of them had a seven.



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Post- observation feedback

REFLECTION


I feel that every teacher expects to be as perfect as possible with respect to their lessons and to classes in general, but the reality at schools is always in movement and has a lot of variables such as behaviours, relationships, moods, personalities, resources, enviroment, etc., that make every teaching environment unique, but it is always very important to do our best to meet our students needs.

In my case, I think that I am good, taking into account my teaching inexperience, because I have had the possibility to observe how other teachers work, and I am not so far from them. The good thing, I think, is that this observation period has allowed me to refine my own style.

Anywise, in relation to the first observation in my professional practice, I could say that when I gave my lesson I was a little scared because my students are very young and they are naturally restless. On my lessons plan I have to consider a lot of time for each activity because they are easily distracted. But I think that it is part of the task of being a teacher, and each course and each school has its own idiosyncrasy, and I suppose this is considered during the observation.

On the other hand, it is important to consider that few weeks ago I was an observer of the classes that my guide teacher was given, and during her classes the students were restless and noisy, but she knows how to deal with them because she has worked in that school for years and she knows them very well, their names, learning styles, etc. Considering my inexperience, I was afraid the first day I gave my classes, but during the lessons, students were kind, they were interested in my class, and the best of all, they learned fluently and fast. That was really heart-warming!

In relation to difficulties prior to the observation, as time goes by I realize that I did not have all the freedom to teach I would have liked, first of all, because I was the practicant teacher and I probably arrived to change the style and the rhythm of the guide teacher. In relation to this, my guide teacher had already presented the units to the school with the contents and activities of the semester, activities that I could not change at all because the guied teacher was always telling me that I had to respect the time and the contents of the unit given.

Every time I planned my lessons I considered some different activities but during classes my guide teacher forced me to use unexpected worksheets with which I lost lots of time setting aside the activities I had planned despite the fact that my guide teacher used to say that I could do anything I wanted and that I sent her the lesson plans on time.

In many classes I was late about the contents because I did not consider working with extra worksheets because in my opinion, the explanation, the workbook and sometimes extra worksheets (regardless the type of activity) would be more than enough. But the guide teacher thinks that worksheets are needed in every single class and I should respect her and the unit contents but without considering funny or different activities because I had to spend a lot of time in every unexpected worksheet (at least 15 minutes each, considering that every class there was more than one). Unfortunately, my complaint was late because the week before the supervision the teacher said that worksheets must be used during the classes to support the content and I had to include them.

Apart from that baffling situation, I think that the students have learned and the supervisor teacher had the opportunity to witness that.



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June 17th, 2010

2º Grade
Unit: “Outdoor”

Use of There is/There are to express the name of natural things such as flower, cloud, tree, and puddle in singular and plural form.
Briefly review about numbers.
Students work with a worksheet about the lesson with listening.
Test about the unit.
Feedback.


8º Grade
Unit: “Food and Health”

Review about food and meals, and use of “I (don’t) like”
Countable and uncountable nouns.
Use of a/an/nothing - any/some – indefinite pronouns for things and people.
Listening: Students listen a dialogue about a boy and a girl panning a date “Invitations”. Students have to practice this because they will have an oral test about invitations the next class.
Homework.
Feedback.


Note: In 2º we had a test, they use to respect that instance, all of them are quiet during the test. But when some of them finish, is very difficult to keep them in calm and seated. I have to think how I can keep them entertained in order to they respect the rest of the class.
In the case of 8º, I like that class, because they are easy going and they are few students. Generally they are interested in the class, especially with different and entertained activities.

June, 10th 2010

2º Grade
Unit: “Outdoor”

Students sing a greeting song.
Review about previous class vocabulary through mimic.
Questions with modal “Can” e.g. “Can you hit the ball?” and students answer with “Yes, I can" or "No, I can’t ” (showed with faces on the board)
Reinforce the use of “There is/There are” adding the question “How many.... are there?”. Students add to the question some nouns about natural elements, such as flower, tree, cloud, and puddle.
Using a data projection students played a game including all the previous lesson.


8º Grade
Unit: “Food and Health”

Students practice vocabulary about food with its plural forms and they identify it with a food pyramid.
Use of question “Do you like... ?” with the answer “Yes, I like / No, I don’t like”
Students listen and read a story named “Picnic in the Countryside”
The rest of the class they were working in worksheets and exercises on the book.
Finally, using a data projection we played a food game.


NOTE: It was very difficult to play the game with 2nd graders. The major problem was that they were very anxious waiting for the break and some of them could not play because they were still writting the lesson on the board. To these students read or write in English is very difficult due to the fact that they do not have had a good base and they are still learning to read or write in Spanish.

In the case of 8º grade they were very enthusiastic about the game because they like playing instead of work on the lessons with normal explanations or with worksheet. The only bad thing was that we had little time to play. I have to accept that I spent a lot of time organizing the group, explaining the rules, and start the game.




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June, 3rd 2010

2º Grade
Unit: “Outdoor”

In this class we always start singing a greeting song.
I showed to the class some flashcards with pictures about weather, and they had to guess the name, such as sunny, snowy, rainy, etc.
Theatrical explanation about some outdoor actions such a catch, kick, hit, and throw the ball.
Then they worked with a worksheet about weather and outdoor actions


8º Grade
Unit: “Food and Health”

In the first period I review the last unit answering their doubts about it, because they had a large test about this unit.
In the second and the third period they had a test that included three abilities (grammar, reading, and listening)
Due to they were very complicated because the test seemed to be so long to them (two pages and three faces), I had to give them more time to do it up to the end of the class.





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The Heritage Day

Last Thursday, my eighth-grade students and I celebrated the Heritage Day, obviously in Valparaíso. We had a good time and the students really ejoyed it.

Something that called my attention was that many of them did not know that city, even though all of them have lived in Viña del Mar their whole life.

There, we visited some hills such as Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción, which are the most famous hills in Valparaíso. For them the most exciting thing was to travel by elevators. They were also amazed by the boulevards with beautiful landscapes, and they just loved taking lots of photos with their friends.

In my case, I had fun with them specially because they were very calm, happy and nice.

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Mi primer Consejo de Profesores

Por primera vez en mi corta carrera como profesor he asistido a un consejo, no sabía cómo era el formato y debo reconocer que pensé que sería distinto, es decir, asumí que sería similar a una reunión de apoderados, por suerte no fue así, ya que, éstas últimas, lamentablemente, tienen fama de ser aburridas y poco productivas. En fin, no fue así, debo suponer que debido a que se trataba sólo de profesores, todos los presentes dan valor al tiempo y tratan los temas en forma precisa, respetando estrictamente el tiempo destinado para cada punto.

Para ser mi primera experiencia, fue grata y provechosa, todos me recibieron con amabilidad y respeto. Además, dejando de lado mi estatus sólo de observadora, me permitieron participar activamente, puesto que recibieron mi opinión respecto a un taller inicial, aprendí cómo planificar actividades generales para la escuela y lo más ‘rico’ puedo decir que fue la once a la que me integraron.

Y aunque alcancé a mostrarme agradecida en su momento, aprovecho estas líneas para agradecer abiertamente al director de la escuela don Mauricio Garrido, a las inspectoras Frida y Cecilia, y a mi colega (que gusto decir así) y profesora guía, Diane Cámus.

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Practica Profesional - Pedagogía en Inglés