Reflective Writing

Reflective Writing Carolina Romero Abarca Teaching Practicum English Pedagogy 2009

Reflective writing Nº1: The Observation Stage I. Introduction • What do you think the cartoon provided below is illustrating? Why? Answer briefly. It is a married couple who are going to watch TV in a living room. I can say that they are married because of their ages (they both look old). In fact, the woman was not sitted comfortably on her armchar if the man was not her husband, excepting he was an electrician but he does not look like an electrician because he does not have any tool to work ; actually, he looks very relaxed since he is smoking a pipe. II. Reflective writing • Taking into account the information you collected during the observation stage, 1. Reflect on the importance of the initial observation period in final practicum. According to Allwright (1988), observation is a procedure that allows to register the events of the classroom that can be analyzed later in a thoughtful way. So, initial observation it is a good tool to improve the teacher’s development since it gives us the opportunity to collect information about the class before starting teaching; for example: Observe the way the teacher uses to teach. This fact can be really helpful since we can continue using the teacher’s way or we can change it (in the case it is not effective). Moreover, we can do a survey about students’ opinions, likes, dreams, etc., in order to make activities according to their interests. We can observe students’ behaviour. So, when is our turn to teach, we can set our own rules to improve the environment of the class. We can observe students’ relationships in order to do group work, which it s a good technique in order that all the students can participate in the class. 2. Refer to the observed issues in assigned school, and explain if these issues caused a change on the expectations you had about this particular period.

Before I started attending this school, I thought that this period was a waste of time. I only wanted to start teaching. When I met the class, I thought that it was a disaster since when the teacher was explaining a topic almost nobody was paying attention; so, I would not have any chance to perform in a good way and I would get a bad grade in my teaching practicum. However, the next two classes I could observe that only few students were trouble makers and started attracting the attention of the rest of the students. Afterwards, I analyzed this situation and I thought that the solution for this problem was asking them some questions while I was explaining something in order to a keep them concentrated on the topic .However, still it is really complicated to keep them interested but at least I found out that this class is not a complete mess. Apart from that, I could observe the level of English of the students in order to make my classes comprehensible; otherwise, I would have started teaching in a really complicated way for them. I think these two issues were the most relevant for me in order to change my expectations about this period. 3. How did you feel? Provide one example you consider most relevant to support your answer. At first, I felt like a stranger in the classroom since the teacher never introduced me to the students (he did it just a week before I started teaching). However, it was a good experience since it made me feel more confident about my teaching performance due to all the events that I could observe. References: Allwright, D. (1988) Observation in the language classroom. Londres-Nueva York: Longman. Cambra, M. (1992) Les observacions de classes al servei de la didàctica de la llengua estrangera, Temps d’Educació. 8, 333-354.

Reflective Writing : Team teaching Stage Why teachers sometimes use Spanish to teach English?

I have asked some teachers this important question, and they answered me that they sometimes speak Spanish because they wanna speed things up a little bit. When students are exposed to a new language for first time, it it is really difficult to understand without knowing anything about that language. From my point of view, it is completely true. However in Chile 10th or 12th graders have been exposed to English for many years and they continue using Spanish in the classes. It happens because most of the students do not like English due to the fact that they think that it is not useful. So teachers have make a great effort to motivate their students to learn English in an interesting way obviously. Another reason is that some teachers have very low expectations about their students. They think that the students are going to fail because they are bad at science, maths, etc. And, another important reason is that public schools have few hours for this subject (2, 3, or 4 hours).

Reflective Writing: Teaching Stage Reflexion about Sandra's performance

What I observed in Sandra's class was: In the introduction part, she greeted the students in English ; she asked about the date of the class; and she asked about the absent students . I think this part was very good since she used a lot of body gestures, she said all this part in English because it is a daily routine, and she only asked about the people who were absent ; so, she saved a lot of time due to the fact that she did not call the roll. In the core of the class, she started asking about what they did last class. Then, the students started checking their notes. I think this part took a lot of time because Sandra waited many minutes until the students answered. Afterwards, the students were doing an activity of the book in order to be prepared for the next step. Then, Sandra checked the answers. In the while-stage, she taught the structure of “going to”; she showed some flashcards to the students. The problem was that some students could not see the flashcards because they were too small. In the following minutes the students were doing some activities of the same book. The whole class lasted around 50 minutes. Suggestions: Sandra should use larger flashcards or body gestures to teach “going to”. However, if the school has resources such as , a projector , computer , etc., she should use them. Besides, she should not use the book the whole class since the students get bored easily; she should try applying different types of activities; for instance, games because the students are children. By the way, they are very quiet ; so, she should take advantages of it. When, we were watching the video of Sandra, some classmates said that her class was very traditional. I could say that the class was traditional and it was very similar to my own way of teaching; however, for me it is very complicated to do a class with a communicative approach since in large classes it is not possible that all the students can speak; moreover, we have to take in mind their level of English (in most of the cases, in large classes the level of English is very low). For these reasons, sometimes it is necessary to teach grammar to the students in order that they can associate what they are learning to their own language.

Final Reflexion Before I started this process, I felt very worried about teaching because I had never taught students from high school. I was really scared since many people had told me that in Liceo Barón there were bad students. Then, the first day that I had to attend the future class arrived. I met my guide teacher , who is a great person, and he told me a little bit about the students. They were in first grade and all of them were around 15 or 16 years old, so they were a little old. Afterwards, I knew that all of them were taking the first grade for second or third time!! So, for me was a really challenge to plan activities for them in order that they can feel motivated for learning. In the observation and team teaching stages, I realized that just few students were troublemakers. Once, I observed that while the teacher was explaining something , some students were listening to music, laughing, etc., and the other students were paying attention to the teacher. The problem was that the trouble students started attracting the rest of the students' attention, so the class turned into a mess. For this reason, I decided to make activities where all the students can participate in. I asked them to make groups of 4 or 5 people. These activities ,where I used work group, were very motivating for them because I always prized them giving some points for the future evaluation. I think in this process I tried to do different activities, I think that I could do almost everything !!!!! However, sometimes I felt a little frustrated when I wanted to say something in English and the students did not understand me, so I had to repeat it in Spanish. I think that public schools do not have enough time to spend on English subject, just 4 or 3 hours! Besides, we were on a strike, so we lost many classes. I suggest that for a future teaching practice, I would be better to do it in a private school because it has more English hours and it is not going to be on a strike!