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.