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A typical day in my Internship

This is the first section of the final report of my Practicum V. Prior to the description and the reflection about a typical day in my internship, it would be convenient to briefly introduce the main characteristics of the school in which I have been during this second semester. The school is the Centre d’Estudis Mollet, and it is a public school located in Mollet del Vallès (Barcelona). It addresses primary and secondary school, and it has currently about 350 students approximately.

A typical day in my internship started at 9 a.m. Unlike Practicum IV, in this second period I only attended the foreign language courses. Therefore, I was always with the foreign language specialist during the whole day, from 9 to 5. It is valid to mention that my tutor is the only foreign language teacher of the school, and he teaches French and English languages at the moment. During my internship, I had a clear role in the class, which basically was to be kind of a teacher assistant. Among the tasks I did, I can highlight the correction of students’ assignments and exams, the preparation of the materials needed for the lessons, and the special support for the students with learning difficulties.  Though I also had the opportunity to teach some lessons in different grades, I basically spent much time (in some cases too much), just observing the class, and analyzing some aspects related to it.  Even though I had long periods in which I was just sitting at the back of the classroom and acting as a mere spectator, this was also something quite useful for my learning, because I had the chance to observe many interesting aspects and learn both from the teacher and the students.

Related to my teacher, it was really meaningful to see his planning and the way he managed the different groups. He definitely had a good capacity to adapt methodologies, resources and materials depending on the age of his students. Regarding this last issue, I would like to underline the great difficulty to succeed when there’s only one English teacher for all the grades. Another positive thing related to the English teacher concerns the management of the class. He is, undoubtedly, a skilled class manager, and he knows how to act and face almost every kind of situation. I could notice that he is an experienced professional, and he actually told me in more than one time that, in most cases, experience is always the best teacher.  One of the things that caught my attention most of the methodology of my teacher was that he often used L1 in his foreign language classes, especially when explaining the instructions of the tasks to carry out. This is something that I didn’t understand at the beginning. After three weeks in the school, however, I realized that the use of L1 could become necessary in some class situations. This theory or idea is actually supported by other authors and experts in L2 Teaching. According to Cook (2001) the L1 can be used:

-as a way of conveying L2 meaning

-as a short-cut for explaining tasks, tests etc.

-as a way of explaining grammar.

-for practicing L2 uses such as code-switching

It is evident that the universal theory doesn’t exist, but I partially support Cook’s theory. From my point of view, the use of L1 in the FL classroom helps students to have a better knowledge of L2. Having these two languages in constant contact allows children to make comparisons between them obtaining a deeper knowledge of both languages. I would also like to emphasize that, as English teachers, we shouldn’t abuse the use of L1 in the classroom though.

Regarding the students, there are also some aspects to point out. On the one hand, since I have been in at least six different classes, I could see a little part of the learning process of all the groups during the primary school period. It has been really rewarding to be a witness of their evolution in their L2 learning.  In relation to the English level of the students of this school, I consider that they actually have a higher level than what they really demonstrated. In addition to this, one thing that really surprised me was that, in general, most graders had really good listening skills, but really low speaking abilities in L2. Even in the highest grades, they weren’t able to produce language quite fluently, but they perfectly understood a whole class taught in English. 

Development of the Teaching Sequence (TS)

This second section of the report regards one of the main tasks we were asked to do in Practicum V, which was the planning and the design of the teaching sequence. In order to make this point easily understandable, I’m going to split it into different subsections which address the main information concerning the planning process.

1.-Topic of the TS

The teaching sequence was basically focused on types of aliments that help people to have healthy eating habits. The aim was to work on two specific types of food, which were vegetables and fruits. It was planned to be implemented in 6 sessions of one hour each one. 

2,.  Why this topic?

Being completely honest, I didn’t have much flexibility to choose the topic of the TS. After a conversation with my school tutor, he told me that he had to finish working on the textbook he normally used for the English courses, and there wasn’t time enough to let me have 6 sessions to implement other TS. Therefore, I was asked to choose one of the didactic units in the textbook, and create my own TS from its content.

3.- Selection of materials and tools

Taking into account the Technologies course in the university, one of my objectives with this TS sequence was to have a final output made by using a technological tool or resource. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible, due to the lack of educational technology materials in the school. In fact, there were only a projector and an interactive board for the whole school, and the days I had to go to teach my sessions (every Tuesday) they were always used by another group.  In relation to the materials and tools used, I tried to adapt them to the students, but I also felt kind of limited in terms of the variety of resources.  In other words, I decided to choose those materials the students were already familiar with.

4.- Type of activities

As I have mentioned before, I couldn’t choose the topic of the TS. However, I was totally allowed to design its activities by myself. Prior to the planning of the activities carried out in this TS, I took into consideration some aspects related to the methodologies and the ways the group was used to be taught.  After my observation on this issue, I noticed that 2^nd graders were accustomed and felt especially comfortable doing activities such as games or simulations, and that’s one of the reasons why I decided to choose these kind of activities. Besides, my own experience with other classes in previous internships proves that games and role playing are certainly engaging for children of these ages.  Apart from the reasons mentioned above, there are also some theories from experts in education that justify the use of these kinds of activities in the L2 classroom. According to several authors, we can find many reasons why simulations and role plays are definitely useful resources for the learning of and L2. The list below shows just a few of them:

• Role playing/simulation is an extremely valuable method for L2 learning. It encourages thinking and creativity, lets students develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively nonthreatening setting, and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for learning to occur. (Tompkins, 1998)
• Authentic language experiences: Role play activities give students practice communicating in authentic ways and situations. This will give them more confidence when presented with those scenarios when they are outside of class. (Maxwell, 1997).
• Empathy: When students are participating in role play activities, they are likely to be supportive of their classmates as they understand that putting yourself out there in these types of activities makes you vulnerable. This type of supportive and understanding atmosphere increases empathy among students.
• Communication skills and grammar: According to Celce- Murcia, “These techniques facilitate a match between structure and social functions and can be used both for communicative and focused grammar practice”.
• Cultural factors: “language learners can gain a deeper awareness of the target culture by means of experiences in which they role play authentic situations (Maxwell, 1997)

To end with this subsection, I just would like to mention that the idea of the poster as the final product came from my tutor in the school. I deduced that it is something related to the school policy, because all the grades in this school use posters for their projects.

5.- Grouping and assessment

Regarding the former item of this section, and If we have a look at the TS, the activities were planned to have different types of grouping. Though the students were more used to individual grouping, I thought that it was a good idea to make them work differently, and propose them teamwork activities (e.g. final product).  In relation to the second concept of this point concerning the assessment outline, the TS had also different evaluation materials. Among the materials used for the assessment, I can underline 2 rubrics (final product and role play activity), a word search puzzle, and a worksheet (final exam). One aspect that I would like to emphasise about the use of rubrics in my TS is that I considered them one of the most suitable assessment materials. In fact, as Fiderer (1999) affirms, well-designed rubrics increase an assessment’s construct and content validity by aligning evaluation criteria to standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment tasks. In order to elaborate good rubrics for the TS, I looked for some examples on the internet, and I created my own adapting these ones to the features of my activities.

I finally would add that I didn’t consider other types of assessment apart from the teacher assessment when designing the TS. This was probably one of the weak points of the TS.

6.- Contribution of my peers, school tutor and university teacher

The final version of the TS was the result of my work and the valuable contributions of other people.  On the one hand, I had the contributions from my Catalan classmates, which notably helped me to improve the TS. On the other hand, I also had the opportunity to receive feedback from the American students. This international exchange provided me with a different point of view, and it was certainly insightful for my learning. Both my tutor in the school and the university teacher were also supposed to give me their feedback on the TS. My school tutor was really busy, and he couldn’t give a hand with my planning. Regarding my teacher in the university, I neither had the feedback from her, but in this case because of a personal issue (I had a car crash the day we had a meeting to talk about the TS).

As I have already said, the contributions of my peers and teachers were useful for the improvements and modifications made in the TS. Thanks to my Spanish peers, for example, I changed the order of the sessions, and the video on healthy food that was thought to be implemented in session 4 was moved to the first class. One of my peers suggested me to use it as an introduction of the topic, and I found it a very good recommendation. The American peers proposed me to change some features of my TS, as the time allocation of the final product and other sessions, or some of the features and instructions of the game (session 2) and the role playing activity (session 3). 

TEACHING SEQUENCE
 ANNEX 

Implementation of the Teaching Sequence (TS)

The implementation of the TS was, with any doubt, one the most challenging tasks in Practicum V. During the 7 sessions, I experienced very different feelings and sensations. I really had moments in which I felt up and really proud of my performance and, on the contrary, moments of frustration and sadness. Anyway, it was precisely in these moments when I was down when I learnt most.

As I have already done in the previous section, this point is going to be also divided into different items, in order to explain session by session in more detail.

Session 1 (1 hour)

This first session was used to introduce the topic of the TS. I started the class playing a video on healthy food, Afterwards, there was a question-answer activity to work on the content of the video. The sessions ended with an activity in which children had to design a chart in their notebooks and fill it in with the target vocabulary.

This first activity of the TS was actually certainly easy to carry out. The students already had some previous knowledge of the topic, and they shown a positive attitude and a good predisposition to do the activities proposed. Almost all the students finished all the tasks on time, even those who needed more help. The first session was actually a good starting point for the TS.

Session 2 (1 hour)

In this session I planned a game to revise the vocabulary worked on the previous day of class. These second day of the implementation was one of the most difficult ones. As it is mentioned in previous sections, the students were used to play games in L2 courses, and I thought that I would be a good idea to use this activity in my TS. My first difficulty was to explain the rules and instructions of the game in the target language. I tried to do it the first time, and we started playing. This first attempt was totally a failure, because I realized that they didn’t understood how to play. I explained the instructions a second time, but in this case, mixing L1 and L2 to ensure they understood my indications. I succeed with this second explanation, and we could start with the activity. Another error committed by the teacher was to present the activity as a competition. Since the class was divided into two teams, they had to compete to win the game. I noticed that some of the students that were in the team which was losing were not participating basically because they didn’t like to lose.  Some of them even seemed to be very angry at the end of the activity. Apart from the critical incidences already mentioned, one of the aspects which was especially challenging for me was the management of the class.  After 5 minutes playing the game, the class was certainly out of control.  As the video shows, the students were yelling, not respecting the rules of the game and my directions, having inappropriate attitudes with peers, etc. What was the consequence of this? The main consequence was actually the end of the game, but not only this. The English teacher (my tutor) had to intervene to restore order in the class, and it was definitely an awkward situation. There was another activity prepared to carry out in this session, which was the word search puzzle. We finally did it, but because of the time lost during the game, some of the students couldn’t finish it on time. Therefore, I had to let them a few time to complete it in session 3.

Session 3 (1 hour)

The third session of the TS was dedicated to work on structures through a role playing activity. In general, I was certainly satisfied with the results of this session, even more if I compare it to the previous one.  Even though I also had to use L1 in some parts of the class, especially when explaining the features and instructions of the role play activity (video), the students shown a very positive attitude and the willingness to do things properly. They were asked to work in pairs for the role play, and with only some exceptions, they perfectly understood their roles in the activity. The only difficulty that I experienced was with some students who were not using the materials needed for the task (flashcards) in an appropriate way.  I solved this issue easily by explaining to them again the purpose of the activity, in order to make them understand how these materials had to be used. 

 As it is shown in the video, I was moving around the classroom, trying to help every pair to properly do the activity. At the same time, I took advantage of these moments to assess them on this activity, and obtain all the information needed to fulfill the rubric.

From my point of view, it would have been a good idea to dedicate more than one session for this activity, in order to consolidate their learning.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time enough to add extra time for this activity. Anyway, the results of the rubrics were not bad in general.  

Session 4 (1 hour)

There is not much to comment about this session. Students were basically asked to do a worksheet (final exam). Since they were accustomed to do exams almost every two weeks, it was easy to carry out the activity. I just spent a few minutes explaining the exercises to be done, and they started working on them. The results of the exam were simply satisfactory.

Session 5, 6, 7 (3.30 hours)

The last three sessions of the TS were planned to carry out the final product, which was the poster of the 4 menus. In the planning of the TS, I firstly established 2 sessions for this activity, but I had to make changes on this because I realized that it was totally impossible to do it just in 2 hours.  There are many aspects to analyze about this phase of the TS, which are explained below.

Firstly, I started session 5 providing the students with an overview of the final product. They were basically told about the main characteristics of the activity during the first half an hour.  After that, the session was focused on the main characteristics of a menu. I am especially satisfied with my performance in this part of the session. It was actually one of the moments of ‘wonder and amazement’, in which I felt totally confident and I could explain almost everything with no need to use the L1 in many occasions. Note that the students’ attitudes notably helped me to succeed on that.

Once the students already knew all the necessary instructions to do the activity, we could start with the set-up. The first step was to form the workgroups. The groups were decided by me, taking into account all the learning rhythms in the class. In this way, what I wanted to do was to have advanced students with students with learning difficulties in the same group. From my point of view, this was a great success because, in general, they shown a collaborative attitude from the very beginning. In relation to the grouping, however, I made a big mistake. I had planned to assign roles to every student of each group, but in the implementation I forgot to do it.  This oversight brought consequences in some of the groups. These students were not very used to group work, and the assignment of roles was especially important in order to avoid the problems I had. Some of the students presented big difficulties to work with the others, and some of them even decided not to participate anymore in the task. Facing this situation with some of the students, I took the decision to negotiate with them some conditions to ensure the good teamwork. I ask the students who were not participating about the reasons for their behaviors, and most of them came up with a similar response. They told me that they didn’t feel comfortable in their groups because their ideas were not as important as the ideas of others. They basically felt underestimated, and to invert this situation I gave them an important role in the group (e.g. student in charge of the materials). After these little modifications done, the students worked satisfactorily.

Ups and downs of my perfomance

After the analysis of the videos and my performance in the implementation of the TS, below I present a list with the highlights of my performance, including the ups and downs (improvable aspects) of the implementation:

Ups:

-Good organization and planning: I consider this point a key issue of my success in the implementation of the TS. Though I had to change some things along the implementation, as the time allocation and the features of some activities, this good planning ensured that everything went more or less the way I expected.

-Clear explanation of the contents required: At the beginning of the implementation I felt a bit nervous, but I gained confidence throughout the different sessions. I think that all the contents were satisfactory transmitted to the students. The results of the assessment prove that fact.

-Time allocation: Although I had to add extra time in some activities, in general terms, all the task carried out respected the planned time.

Downs (things to improve):

-Grouping:  I should have planned this issue better in order to avoid some problems that I had with some students.

-Management of the class: This is probably, the weakest point of my teaching. As I have already mentioned in previous sections of this report, there were some moments in which I couldn’t manage the class as a wish, and I needed help from my tutor in the school.

-Overuse of  L1: Though I have supported the use of L1 in the L2 class, I think that, in my personal case, I often abused the use of my first language when teaching the lessons of the TS. This is something that I should improve for next occasions. One of the videos recorded shows that fact I am referring to.

Exchange visit

Ppt exchange from charlie2985


This is the PPt we presented at the University, summarizing the main important things of the implementation of the exchange activity.

My on-going development

After this Practicum, I can affirm that certain things have changed and evolved in relation to my thoughts on education. From a personal perspective, I think that I have experienced a clear improvement in some areas, which I'm sure would not have been possible without doing this stage.  In global terms, my conception of education has also changed somehow.

If I have to describe myself as a teacher right now, I would say that I am just a beginner, but a beginner much more prepared than one year ago. However, right now I am, above all, a student eager to get experience and to dig deep into the world of education and teaching. This Practicum has brought me the opportunity to prove myself that I am completely valid to teach. This evolution that I am referring to has been caused by different motives. For example, the activities and assignments done during this period have also helped me to improve my teaching skills. On the one hand, the design of the TS has been really useful to make me work in a more organized way and to improve my planning. Apart from this, I have acquired agility when developing teaching sequences and I have perfected my written skills. On the other hand, and thanks to the implementation of the TS, I actually realized the important role that planning plays in teaching. The implementation was also the perfect way to “put me on the spot”, and experience teaching in its real essence. It was through the implementation when I could analyze myself as a teacher, and reflect on my own characteristics, trying to enhance my abilities and minimizing my weak traits and, above all, being critical with my own professional practice. Related to this last issue, it is also necessary to mention the importance of teaching the students how to become critical thinkers. I would like to emphasize this point again, and say that it is essential to educate children in order to make them adapt to present societies, and to take informed actions, based on thought and analysis (Brookfield, 2011).

This experience has been obviously enriched by some people I have been in contact with during this period of time, such as my school and university tutors and my peers, both from the US and the UAB. I could mention several contributions from all these people, but I’ll try to be as precise as possible and highlight the most important ones.

Regarding my university teacher, I basically consider that she has broadened my horizons in relation to education and, particularly, to the L2 teaching. She has given me new and updated educational theories, resources, tools and meaningful advice that will be of great use in my future professional career. My tutor of the school, however, has helped me transmitting his own experience as a teacher. Thanks to him, I could understand a little better the current educational and social reality. He has made me realize that sometimes, there is a big distance between theory and practice, and this is something that I really appreciate. In addition to this, he also has shown me a possible methodology for the L2 teaching. Concerning my classmates, I would like to mention that they were very helpful in the preparation of all the activities. Apart from this, thanks to their contributions I have finally convinced myself to trust more in teamwork. Being honest, I wasn’t a supporter of teamwork so far, but this experience has brought the opportunity to see all the benefits of working cooperatively. The contributions from others definitely make your work better.

Conclusions