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.