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