FINAL REPORT MARIA ARRUFAT PIJUAN
PRÀCTICUM V 2012 - 2013
UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA
FACULTAT DE CIÈNCIES DE L’EDUCACIÓ GRAU D’EDUCACIÓ PRIMÀRIA
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INDEX INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A TYPICAL DAY IN YOUR INTERNSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 DEVELOPMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE . . . . . . . . . 12 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE . . . . . . 13 EXCHANGE VISIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 INTERNSHIP PRESENTATION DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 YOUR ON-GOING DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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INTRODUCTION
During this internship, I have been in the English classroom with the three teachers that carry out this subject in the different levels. Moreover, I have also had the opportunity to be in some lessons of the kindergarten English teacher. Throughout this paper, I will try to show my experience and my learning process as well as how I planned and carried out my teaching sequence.
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Escola Benviure (Castellbisbal)
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A TYPICAL DAY IN YOUR INTERNSHIP In this particular school, there are three different English teachers for Primary Education and each one teaches in a different cycle. However, I have only been with one of them but I had the opportunity to be with all of them and see different ways of teaching. It has been really enriching.
Primary Education Initial Cycle 1
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Medium Cycle 3
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Upper Cycle 5
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During the day in the school, I was asked to help and participate in all the activities proposed for the teachers and for the students. However, I am going to describe one day with my tutor, who is the initial cycle teacher.
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This lesson is one hour long and it is repeated twice: each time with one half of the group. They start the day singing and dancing a song to say hello. Then, they sit on their chairs. “Your pencil case under your desk, please.” The teacher tries to catch their attention in order to explain what they are going to do in the session. In addition, they will only have what they need on the table in order to avoid distractions. They normally do one or two pages of the text book. The activities often require listening skills and they do not need to write anything but the teacher sometimes gives them tasks where they have to copy the vocabulary. “The language skills are taught in the order of listening, speaking, reading and writing” (Richards & Rogers, 1986, p. 59) Finally, they listen to another song which is not always the same or they play a game called ‘Anna Says’. This game is known as ‘Simon Says’. The structure of the units in the book is always the same and students know what they have to do in most of the pages. Hence, students are used to this methodology and they feel comfortable with it. What surprised me is that the explanation of each activity is at the bottom of the page and it is written in tiny print. Therefore, students are not used to see any written 8
word and the teacher has to guide all the steps. “The language may be presented entirely orally at first; written representations are usually withheld from learners in early stages.” (Richards & Rogers, 1986, p. 59) Apart from the book, the teacher does many activities with flashcards and the digital whiteboard to review the language again and again. However, they have no chances to do oral productions beyond answering questions from the teacher.
During this time, students are in the playground. The English teacher is not responsible for them so she goes to the teachers’ room.
Every day during this slot, the teacher does Arts and Crafts in English. It is a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) lesson and they work on different techniques. This subject is part of the school project called English across the Curriculum which is focused on working oral skills with split groups. The aim of this project is to improve the students’ linguistic competence in English. On Tuesdays, the teacher is with first graders and she has the help of another teacher. Both teachers speak in English all time and pupils are able to understand the key words and instructions. 9
When children go to the school canteen, teachers have one hour to meet with other teachers. These meetings are carried out periodically and, during this time, they share important information about how the course is being organized. Then, the teachers have lunch. Most of them have lunch in the school and it is time to share experiences.
In the afternoon, there are two lessons of 45 minutes and children are normally naughtier. Hence, the teacher uses this chant to get silence: “One, two, three, look at me!” The methodology used is exactly the same in both grades but the quantity of lexicon and the difficulty of the activities are less with first graders. “Recognition and discrimination are followed by imitation, repetition and memorization”. (Richards & Rogers, 1986, p. 59) What is remarkable is the use of repetitive structures and dialogues during the lesson. Thus students are able to understand them and respond. According to Richards & Rogers (1986), this repetition of dialogues about everyday situations and sentence patterns of the target language is related to the audio-lingual method. “The use of drills and pattern practise is a distinctive feature of the Audio-lingual Method.” (Richards & Rogers, 1986, p. 60)
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What I have learnt is that‌
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DEVELOPMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE My planning process Collecting information from the school. I asked for information about the students to the teacher and I shared my ideas with her. She only advised me from her experience in the school.
"You are free to do whatever you want"
The exchange of ideas The meetings with my classmates and my tutor from the university were useful. They helped me a lot to take the best decisions for my teaching sequence.
Drafting I have made several versions of the teaching sequence. You can see my decisions until the final version in this document:
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COMMENTS
FINAL VERSION
ON THE TEACHING SEQUENCE
OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE After each session, I collected the general impressions and the incidents in a grid. Here you can see it:
THE IMPLEMENTATION THROUGH THE
SESSIONS
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EXCHANGE VISIT I have done this exchange with Eugenia Maria Gil, who was in the Escola Sant Jordi (Mollet del Vallès), and we prepared a lesson together to implement in both schools. This was the information taken into account to do the exchange: -
The exchange had to take place on Tuesdays. The activity had to be done in initial cycle. Both schools use the same course book. We had permission to record the lessons in both schools. We had freedom to choose any kind of activity. Both schools had whiteboard. We had a 45 minutes long lesson to do the activities. We would have between 12 and 14 students each time. First graders were working on animals during those days. They usually use greetings with their teachers. There was not any special case to take into account for the planning but there are some students with a lower level of the target language.
Therefore, we decided to do the same activity but adapting it to the different levels. Then, we could compare them. 14
Watch this presentation to have more information about the decisions we took and how the activity was developed:
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INTERNSHIP PRESENTATION DAY
My group and I decided to talk about how we used technology in our teaching sequences for Practicum V because we realized that it was the common aspect of our designs. This video is a brief summary of my group’s presentation:
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Doing this presentation has been helpful because it made us reflect deeply on the reasons why we used technology in our teaching sequences. In other words, we had to think about how technology was present in our planning and why it is important in schools daily life. Accordingly, we have convinced ourselves about the importance of training competent students in today’s world. The fact is that they will need this kind of knowledge in their future life. Furthermore, it has been a chance to share experiences and points of view.
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YOUR ON-GOING DEVELOPMENT Which was the starting point? I had a good knowledge about how to teach other subjects such as science or mathematics but, when I started this internship, I had a rough idea of what English teaching is. What have you done during the internship? I have been taking advantage of every opportunity I found. I had the chance to be in different learning environments and I observed different teachers. Which are the most valuable things you have learnt? THERE IS NOT A PERFECT TEACHER; TEACHERS ARE ALWAYS LEARNING I think that we have to bear in mind these ideas and try to be critical with our own practices. It is the only way to be better than yesterday but worse than tomorrow.
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Who are you now as a teacher? - I am really motivated to continue learning and teaching; and it is key to grow as a teacher (Suslu, 2006). - I am aware of my weaknesses thus I can improve them. - I want to teach English for real communication and discovering new and different points of view. “Learners learn a language through using it to communicate. Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities.� (Rodgers, 2001) STUDENTS NEED TO HAVE A REAL PURPOSE TO LEARN ENGLISH Which are your personal goals from now on? I would like to have the opportunity to apply what I have learnt during these years. If it is not possible, I would like to prepare some materials based on situations where communication in English is necessary. BEING CREATIVE IS THE WAY TO ENGAGE STUDENTS EVERY DAY Have you modified your teaching beliefs? Definitively, yes! Now, I am aware that the way I learnt English is not probably the best one for everybody. Moreover, I think students are able to learn more than I expected in the English classroom. Therefore, the teacher is responsible for teaching more than a language. 19
CONCLUSIONS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Halliwell, S. (1992). Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. New York: Longman. Huang, I. Y. (2008). Role Play for ESL/EFL Children in the English Classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, XIV(2). Richards, J., & Rogers, T. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Language Teaching Methodology. Washington. RodrĂguez, B., & Varela, R. (2004). Models of Teaching Foreign Languages to Young Children. Suslu, S. (2006). Motivation of ESL teachers. The Internet TESL Journal, XII(1).
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