Final report practicum v sara sibila by popartmisions

Final Report: Practicum V Sara Sibila Dur贸 Tutor: Melinda Dooly

INDEX 1.

CONTEXT OF THE SCHOOL .............................................................................................................. 3 A.

General overview of the school ....................................................................................................... 3

English as a second language (ESL) in the school ............................................................................ 3

TYPICAL DAY IN MY INTERNSHIP ................................................................................................... 4 A.

Timetable......................................................................................................................................... 4

What did I observe? ......................................................................................................................... 5

DEVELOPEMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE ............................................................................. 7

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE ........................................................................ 11 A.

Analysis of the main problem encountered during the implementation ....................................... 11

My “eureka” moments .................................................................................................................. 13

Questions for reflection ................................................................................................................. 14

MODIFICATION OF YOUR TEACHING SEQUENCE .......................................................................... 17 A.

PLANNING INSTRUCTIONS ............................................................................................................. 17

TIMING .......................................................................................................................................... 18

ASSESSMENT ................................................................................................................................. 20

LEARNING AND GROWING AS A TEACHER ................................................................................... 22

CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................. 22

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 24 A.

Books and Articles ......................................................................................................................... 24

Websites and links ......................................................................................................................... 24

CONTEXT OF THE SCHOOL A. General overview of the school

“Escola Catalunya” is a state school placed in Navarcles, a small town near Manresa. It is the only Primary School in the town. As a general structure, the school is divided into two different buildings which are named according to their roof colour: the green building and the red building. The office, the kitchen, the dining room, the audiovisual and media classroom and the library are only in the green building whereas the other areas are almost all duplicated. Pupils start P3 in the red building and they stay there until 2nd grade of Primary. Then, in 3rd grade they move into the green building. It is a double-line centre despite having triplicate P3, P4, P5 and 1st, 3rd and 4th courses. What means a total of 9 classrooms for kindergarten and 15 for primary, making a total of 507 students. This course the staff consist of 35 teachers, the school also has a religion teacher, a TEI (Tècnic en Educació Infantil), two “vetlladores”, a porter, a clerk and a person who takes care of the maintenance of the centre twice a week. During the week, teachers have 5 hours for meetings taking place from 13h to 14 h, as the centre’s schedule is from 9 h to 12:30 h and from 15 h to 16:30 h. B. English as a second language (ESL) in the school

Pupils are exposed to English since they start P4. Their first contact with the language is through stories and games which are aimed to approach them to this language from a “playful” perspective. The school is very conscious about the importance for learning English, thus they try to provide pupils with as much opportunities to get in touch with it as possible. Every year, for example, pupils from the different primary grades assist to a theatre play in English which they previously work in class. English lessons are run through the use of textbooks and worksheets that guide the vocabulary and content to be taught. Nevertheless, the English teachers are aware of the

importance for practicing the language through communication, thus they try to engage pupils in different communicative tasks on each unit. In the next table I summarize the English lessons that each grade take during a week:

Kindergarten (P4, P5) Key Stage 1 (1st and 2nd grade)

HOURS/WEEK GROUP DIVISION 1 hour Whole class 2 hours

Whole class

1’5 hours

LANGUAGE FOCCUS Vocabulary games and storytelling Book and worksheets

Key Stage 2 (3rd and 4th grade)

2 hours

Small groups (mixed Story-telling ages) Whole class Book and worksheets

1 hour

Small groups

Oral English

Key Stage 3 (5th and 6th grade)

2 hours

Whole class

Book and worksheets

1 hour

Small groups

Oral English

According to this schedule, we can see that the older the pupils are, the more time they devote to English and the more importance the school gives to the oral communication in that language. Regarding the Key stage 1, where I taught in most of my trainee period in the school, I would like to point out that this year has been the first in which they have implemented 1’5 h/week of “tallers” where they work with English from a more communicative based perspective. Thus, they use story books to engage pupils using the language in activities such as theatre plays or songs. The school also has an English Blog where teachers, students and parents can see some of the activities done in class. You can access the blog by clicking in the following link: http://englishescolacatalunya2012.blogspot.com.es/

TYPICAL DAY IN MY INTERNSHIP A. Timetable

As I said before, I devoted most of the time teaching in the Key Stage 1 and in P5 as my school mentor, Begonya Corrales, was the one in charge of those courses. Nevertheless, as she has a reduction in her working hours she finished her lessons by the midday. Thus, in the afternoon I was allowed to see other courses and work with the other 4

English teachers in the school: Meritxell, Sílvia and Dolors. That, allowed me to observe in detail and acquire a more specific idea of how the English subject was taught throughout the different grades. Moreover, it was also very enriching for me as a teacher as I saw four very different ways of teaching English. During my internship my timetable was the one attached below. So that, in the mornings I taught with Begonya in the red building and in the afternoons I moved to the green one to teach Key Stage 2 and also Key Stage 3 with the other English teachers.

B. What did I observe?

As I have had the opportunity to work with different teachers which had quite different perspectives about how to teach English. Furthermore, I’ve seen all the stages of learning in the school and various strategies and methodologies used by the different teachers. Starting with P5, which are the youngest kids that Begonya taught, I’ve observed that the Syllabus is based on the one hand, on storytelling, so that during all the course she works from the vocabulary and structures that appear in different stories such as “the Goldiloks”, “Little Red Ridinghood” or “the three little pigs” which are stories that pupils already know. Thus, it is easier for them to comprehend the story even though they don’t understand all the words. From each story they did some worksheets which consisted on: matching some pictures with words (for example the characters with their names), drawing something related to the story (as with the “Little Red Ridinghood” where we worked on their favorite food), etc. And on the other hand, Begonya also uses songs to engage them to use English which are usually accompanied by gestures. What is defined by James. J, Asher as TPR (Total Phisical Response), commonly known as a very powerful and useful tool to be considered by language teachers. Due to the fact that in P5 pupils only have one hour lesson per week, the teacher starts the class with a 5

“good morning” song that pupils sing to a puppet “Chikey Monkey”. I’ve realized that in that way they all start more focused the English lesson. Over the course, I’ve also observed that they have had a positive development in the acquisition of English as a second language even though they rarely produce any sort of sentence by themselves but they were almost all able to understand the instructions which were always given in English. Regarding the lessons observed and taught in 1st and 2nd grade (key Stage 1) I must say that the Syllabus is mostly based on the course book they have, “Explorers 1” and “Explorers 2”. Regarding the timetable, Begonya seemed a bit reluctant to the idea of having two hour lessons per week with the whole group, she had to manage it due to her reduction in work hours. She told me that she had had to cut out in many activities which were not such based on the course book as it was very difficult for her to manage a class of 20-23 students doing some activities such as role-plays, games, etc. Nevertheless, she always looked for some space for interaction and creative activities in which the pupils had to use the language and apply their knowledge. For example, at the end of each unit she asks pupils to do a written production related to the topic in which they are working, such as writing a description of themselves when working on the body parts. I really appreciate how begonia tutored me as she always tried to find time to share with me different materials that she uses, provide me with a great amount of resources and, of course, helped me with my teaching. Moreover, what I liked the most was that she always allowed me to teach when it was possible. That, made me feel more confident as I saw that she trusted in me. I have also learned from the other teachers whom I have been teaching with, especially from Silvia, which was the English teacher from the upper cycle (Key Stega 3) and with whom I have been many hours in class too. Moreover, as Silvia was Carla’s tutor she led us teach together and try new activities in class, what was a very interesting experience but also a bit stressing as she sometimes led us only 10 minutes to prepare the class. Nevertheless, due to the fact that we had a little time to get prepared, we had to do our best and overcome different situations that helped us grow as teachers. Finally, we always managed it as she was always there for giving us a hand.

DEVELOPEMENT OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE

Planning this project was really special for me as I took the idea from a project I did when I was in the 3rd grade of primary, in my town’s school. My English teacher at that moment was who made me interested in English as we used to do very nice things. One of them was a theatre play called “At the restaurant” in which we dressed up like waiters, costumers and cookers. We sent the video to a competition in Barcelona and we won. Thus, as I have a very nice memory from that ages and especially from this project, I thought that it would be a good idea to take the same idea and see how can I made pupils feel as good as I felt then. From the first moment, I knew that I wanted the students to act but that I didn’t want to give them a text that they only had to learn by heart. From my experience, I’ve realised that it is better if I can make them feel that they are important part of it. Nevertheless, I was a bit worried and lost at the beginning about how I could direct the project, but my peers really helped me during the tutorial sessions. When I presented them the idea, they really seemed to like it so they gave me some ideas on how could I organise the teaching unit. I really liked the point of turning it into a role-play activity in which they had to write the lines for the play. Because as Ur (2005) points out role-play “is close to genuine discourse and provides useful practice in the kinds of language the learners may eventually need to use in similar situations outside the classroom”. From this first draft, in which I only knew that I wanted them to write the dialogue for the final play (output of the project), I tried to work backwards and see what should I teach pupils before they would be able to write for themselves. As it is known, “backward planning” can help the teacher to fix the activities and sessions more coherently with the final output that he/she wants to achieve as it requires thinking stepby-step what pupils should know before reaching each objective. Thus, I decided to present this first idea to my school tutor to see which her first impressions were. Firstly, she seemed a bit confused as she told me that 2nd grade children wouldn’t be able to write an entire theatre play. Nevertheless, she offered me her help and she showed me some resources that I could use to introduce the project. From these resources I took a book called “Today is Monday” by Eric Carle, which is related to what we were going to

work on, meals, and which also has a song that I thought would be nice if we could use for the play. In that moment, I had very clear how to introduce the project, which was the main goal that I wanted the students to achieve and where did I want them to go. Thus, I started to plan the different sessions for the didactic unit and the materials needed. After having the first scheme of the project, I presented it to my peers in the practicum session which turned to be really useful. First of all because as had to explain it to my peers I had to have it very clear to make others understand it. Therefore, I was able to see which the main weaknesses of the project were and also which were the strengths. Moreover, sharing ones work with peers who may also have the same difficulties as you have is not that “exposing” and lets us share more freely our impressions and ideas. The main change I did from the feedback received in this session was to decide that I was not going to give many directories to them when writing the dialogue, thanks to the fact that they made me see that I needed to give pupils some more freedom if I wanted them to develop their language skills. Therefore, I decided that each group would write the dialogue for the costumers and the waiter and that pupils would be allowed to choose and go as far as they wanted. From that moment, I had the ideas much clear and I felt really proud of what I was creating as I saw that my peers really liked the idea and supported me with good feedback. Then, while working with the template that I was given by my university teacher, I started to go deeper onto the project’s objectives, aims and also on the different activities planned. Some of the main problems I encountered during this last step of planning, were the timing and the assessment. On the one hand, I found it very difficult to fix the timing for some activities as I knew that not all the pupils were going to work at the same rhythm and that I may need to change it during the lessons. Hence, I tried to come up with a reasonable timing for each of the activities. Moreover, as I was given only 5 sessions for the implementation and the project seemed to be quite complex for second grade children and I wanted them to do many things to get prepared I had to cut on the time for some activities. On the other hand, regarding the assessment, I might say that I was struggled in many occasions as I wanted to do many observations and assess all the process but I didn’t came up with the right tools to do. Thus, I decided to use some observation charts for the teacher and also assess some of the mini-outputs from different activities. 8

As it is said planning is always a cycle of changes. In other words, you cannot think about your planning as it is going to be always the way that you thought. You must be prepared and ready to adapt it to the different situations and possible unexpected situations that may require some modifications. The image on the left illustrates which could be a good definition of the “cycle of planning” which includes the planning itself, the plan B to be carried out in case that is needed, the implementation, the collection of evidences which are later analysed and evaluated and the final reflection which would lead the teacher to improve the previous planning. As a teacher, I have experienced this cycle among the months that I have been designing and implementing “at the restaurant” project. Here are the main changes that I have gone through:

DRAFT 1

DRAFT 2

DRAFT 3

• 5 sessions • each group write the entire dialogue for the play

• 6 sessions • each group write half of the dialogue for the play

• 8 sessions • each group write one part of the dialogue for the play

In the first draft I had planned to do 5 sessions and to ask each group to write the entire theatre play, after the feedback received in class I realised that it would be too much work for second grade children so I changed it into each group writing half of the play that was going to be divided into four scenes: welcoming, ordering the starters, ordering the main course and ordering drinks and deserts. Moreover, the school tutor gave me another session so I was able to give pupils some more time for activities which weren’t

as fast as expected (such as the creation of the menu that finally took us two sessions instead of one). Once pupils started writing the dialogues, I saw that it would be not possible for them to write half of the play in time so I talked with my school mentor and we decided that it would be better to give each group just one scene and record only one theatre play. It took them a lot of time as it was a kind of activity they were they were not used to. In the end I was allowed to have two more sessions, so that the project lasted 8 sessions, as the English teacher saw that pupils really enjoyed it and she thought that it would be a better idea to give them more time to prepare and study for the play. From this process of planning and implementing a project I have learned to adapt myself to different situations such as realizing that an activity is not working and having to stop the class to direct it in another way. I have also learned to ask for help, which I now see as a good and necessary strategy to improve, thus I do not have to see it as a sign of failure but as an opportunity to learn from others. And last but not least I have developed more critical thinking. Not only with otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work but also with myself, which is a very necessary skill to take into consideration as a teacher. Finally, as to conclude with this point, I present a word cloud which summarizes all what planning means for me after this period.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TEACHING SEQUENCE

Once finished the implementation of the project and as it was expected I may say that there have been many moments from reflection. Some of them which lead me to congratulate myself and also to get surprised but also some others from which I had to reflect and that also helped me growing as a future teacher. Thus, in this section I am going to present and analyse some of these moments. A. Analysis of the main problem encountered during the implementation

First of all, I would like to reflect about one of the main problems that I encountered when teaching the “At the restaurant unit”. This problem refers to giving instructions. For this reflection I have selected a quite small sample of one session recording. It belongs to the first session of the project which was aimed to introduce the teaching unit and to start working with the main vocabulary that pupils would need. This excerpt of the video specifically belongs to the warm-up activity where I was explaining to the class what to do. With the following link you would be able to access the video. The concrete timing of the excerpt being analyzed is from minute 1:11 (when I start the explanation of the warm up activity) to minute 4:38 (when I finish the instructions). http://youtu.be/xwYnAIlmmVs From this video, I would like to focus on how the instructions were given and which strategies were used for doing it. For that purpose, I am going to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses that I observe from the teacher giving the instructions. Even though it is me who is teaching I would try to be critical and analyze it the more objectively the possible. Regarding the strengths of the explanation I may say that the teacher used a great variety of strategies, especially during the first part where she introduced the activity. Some of the strategies that we can observe on the recording are: -

The teacher uses examples to make pupils understand the instructions. For example when she tells them that they have to use different colours, she makes an example by pointing to the pupils in the table next to her and saying “blue, yellow and pink”, pointing to a different child for each colour. Moreover, she

shows the pupils a model of what they are supposed to do what gives support to her explanation. -

The teacher monitors pupilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understanding. For example when she wants to make sure that every child has picked up a different colour; she walks around the tables and checks it.

She models what pupils are asked to do. When she explains them that they have to write their name on the paper using the colour that they have chosen, she models it by making the example for some pupils in one table.

The teacher asks for pupilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s translation in some points of the explanation to see that they are following and to make sure that everyone understands it. For example, we can see that when she is explaining them that the words they write must be about food and drinks she takes profit of one pupil who translates those words into Catalan.

Nevertheless, there are also some points in which the way that the teacher gives instructions could be improved: -

The teacher translates some sentences which could have been easily understood by the pupils. When she explains the pupils that they are going to do a competition she automatically translates the word competition into Catalan without giving them time to decode that information.

When summarizing the instructions, she gives too much information in one beat and it appears to be not very understandable for pupils as it is quite disorganised.

As to conclude with the analysis of the video and positioning myself now in the paper of the teacher, I might say that, even though the first time I watched the video I felt that I did it really bad, I can now say that it was not that disaster. I have realised that most of the weaknesses present when giving instructions could be solved with more carefully planning before. Moreover it seems that I was not confident enough so that I did not give my best. The activity presented in the extract was a quite simple activity but it was very difficult to understand for pupils who had never done it before. Thus, I would have had to think about how could I explained it and maybe not doing it so fast, as it was also too much information for them to understand in three minutes. Moreover, during a feedback session in the university, where I presented my reflections and I showed my peers a short piece of this video, I was given the idea of using an example to 12

demonstrate what to do just after giving the instructions. So that I could have chosen some volunteers to come to the front and do an example of the activity. In that way I think that I may have avoided some groups in which they were all dictating to one member who was writing or groups in which all the members wrote the same words. Nevertheless, I am very proud of the way I run the class as it was my first session in that group and the first time they saw me in the school. B. My â&#x20AC;&#x153;eurekaâ&#x20AC;? moments

Along the implementation of the project I have had very nice heart-warming moments where I have felt very proud of the pupils and even of myself. I am really proud of the results achieved with the outcome of the project, the theatre play. From the first moment, I was warned by my school mentor and other teachers that pupils wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t study their lines and that it was going to be very difficult, and what is even worse, I really thought the same. Nevertheless, during the previous week of the recording session many teachers in the school told me that the 2nd grade children were studying and rehearsing the dialogues during the playground. That fact, made me realise that pupils were really engaged and motivated with the project. Moreover, there was one girl in the class who had no support at home with her homework, what normally leads to not bring her homework to class. Thus, we expected her not to study and know her lines for the play so we gave her very simple sentences so that she could learn them by practicing in class. The day of the play, when she saw me arriving to school, she came and told me that she had been studying and that she knew what to say. I was extremely surprised when I saw that she was able to remember everything and I saw in her eyes that she was really proud of herself. That day I really understood the importance to work through projects as they allow the teacher to contextualize the activity and to work through engaging and motivating activities that can fit into different learning styles and even engage those students who have more difficulties and give them the chance to felt really proud of their results. Videos of the final plays are available with the following links (you may not be able to found them without the links): nd

http://youtu.be/UOii1zj6nEk

http://youtu.be/2zUCE3TAdbY

2 A: 2 B:

C. Questions for reflection

1. Was the planning appropriate? As it was expected, I have had to go through many changes and modifications on the planning. So, as teachers, we must though about planning as a “guideline” which should be flexible. Even most of the activities planned were appropriate and worked properly and as it has been stated in the section 3 of this report, it would have been a good idea to plan more detailed instructions for the activities as it seemed that they were sometimes too complicated for the students to follow. “63 tactics for teaching diverse learners, k–6” is a book for teachers that presents a wide range of teacher-tested instructional methodologies that can be used across different subjects and grade levels from the elementary school. The model presented focuses on planning, managing, delivering and evaluating instruction. In the first part of this book the authors provide the reader with a visual scheme of which steps should be followed in order to plan instructions (figure 1). They divide the planning into three principles: decide what to teach, decide how to teach and communicate realistic expectations. Each of these principles is developed in more detail in different chapters each. Figure 1

As the authors state, “Effective teachers carefully plan their instruction. They decide what to teach and how to teach.” (Alogozzine, B. Campbell, P. & Wang, A. (2009), pp.1). Thus, I really found this a very good resource to keep in mind when planning projects, not only for language lessons but also for other curricular areas. 14

Chapter 1 of this book is available in the following link: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/26484_Chapter_1_Decide_What_to_Teach.pdf

2. What instructional strategies did I use to achieve the goals of the teaching sequence? According to the “Glossary of Teaching Strategies” provided by the National Center on Educational Outcomes” (see references) the main strategies that I have used during the implementation of the teaching sequence have been: -

The use of body language to complement my explanations. Moreover, I used too when trying to catch pupils attention.

Paraphrasing and emphasising some parts of the explanations given in order to make pupils focus on the most important parts to be understood.

Adapt the language to their level so that I tried to avoid difficult structures and long sentences.

Use of different supporting materials. In some occasions I tried to take profit of the different objects in the class, such as the menus they did with the Spanish teacher for my explanations or I also prepared different materials such as pictures, comics, etc.

The use of their mother tongue language is also a good strategy to use but it has to be carefully planned as the teacher is supposed to be using the target language and take profit of pupils’ translations or paraphrasing into their mother tongue.

Examples were very frequently used when giving instructions as they are a very good strategy to model what students are expected to do.

Designing Hands-on activities in which pupils had to actively participate in the project.

In this document we can find a huge list of strategies that any teacher can use in his/her lessons for different purposes. Some of them could be used to make him/herself understood, to see pupil’s impressions or doubts, to engage students in different activities, etc. Having seen such a big list I sincerely think that I could have used some others during the implementation such as: 15

“Collecting anonymous student generated questions” which consist on asking pupils to write one question anonymously and then picking some of them at random to answer. In that way the teacher also facilitates to those shy students who are afraid of asking in front of the whole class to participate by giving their question. Moreover, this strategy could also have been used by changing it so that instead of questions pupils could have write opinions about the project, still anonymously, so that I could have had a general overview of their thoughts and impressions for the project and in that way I could have modified aspects which pupils didn’t like or found useful, for example.

“Response cards” which can be pieces of paper in which pupils have to write answers for some questions that the teacher asks them. In the teaching sequence this could have been a good strategy to use during the activity in which we were ordering the “mixed-up menu” as we worked all together and my impression was that only few students were actively participating and answering whereas the others were just looking and listening. With this strategy I could have had them all participating and it could also have helped me to assess their understanding and knowledge.

3. Did I use good classroom management strategies? In the class where I was teaching there were some pupils with behavioural problems so I was a bit worried about how to manage some activities, as some of them were based on collaborative work. Thus, I asked for help to my school mentor when making the groups, so that the pupils in each group get on well with each other. Nevertheless, I took for guaranteed that by doing this I would get all the groups working well. Now, I realise that was not a good choice. During the activity, there were some pupils who did not do anything or groups which found very difficult to reach a consensus. Thanks to the feedback received in one of the practicum sessions I get one idea which I am sure would have helped in this situations. One of my peers in class told me that it would have been a good idea to give different roles to each of the pupils on the groups, so that they all knew what they were in charge for. Moreover it would have created positive interdependence between them as everyone’s participation on the group would have been vital for the accomplishment of the activity.

In that way, taking into account that â&#x20AC;&#x153;The purpose of cooperative groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her own rightâ&#x20AC;? (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1998, p. 4:17) and that pupils were not used to work cooperatively, giving them different roles could have helped me when scaffolding the development of the social skills that they need for cooperative tasks.

MODIFICATION OF YOUR TEACHING SEQUENCE

Once finished the implementation of the teaching sequence, I might say that I am now more capable to look at it with different eyes and think about many changes that could be done in a future in order to improve its success. As is has been stated before, planning includes a process of reflection which can help the teacher to see which aspects went on the right way and which should be modified. Nevertheless, this process of reflection may not be carried out just by taking into account first impressions, such as the ones I wrote in the blog after each session, the teacher should carry out a deep analysis on the different activities, objectives, assessment tools used, etc. to carefully plan the modifications needed. For example if as a first impression you see that there is one activity which seemed not to have been very useful or meaningful you should not only modify the activity but also look for other factors that may have also influenced and collect data that help you corroborate your feelings. Once finished this process of reflection and also self-evaluation I can now state which would be the changes that I would like to make for further implementations. These changes are presented below divided into three categories: instructions, timing and assessment.

A. PLANNING INSTRUCTIONS

First of all, I would need to work more on the instructions given to pupils for the activities as they were not really planned and detailed in the teaching sequence. Thus, my mistake was to think that if I knew what the activities were about and what I wanted the pupils to do I would be easily able to explain them. Nevertheless, it was not that simple, as they were very clear in my mind but not for the pupils. So, even I had a good level of English I struggled in some explanations and it was sometimes hard for pupils to understand what I wanted to say. 17

As teachers, it is really important to make children understand what we expect from them. A very simple and understandable way of doing it is by modelling what they are supposed to do. Hence, the main modifications that I would do regarding the instructions given would be: -

I would try to prepare beforehand the set of instructions to be given in class. I have realised that it is very important to prepare instructions which are simple and clear for the students. Having a good level of English does not necessary mean being able to simplify the language such as for low proficiency English learners.

I would include more examples while explaining some activities. As an example, in the activity where pupils had to brainstorm foods and drinks it was really difficult for me to make them understand that each one in the group had to write their own even though they shared the paper. Thus, for this activity it could have been better to support the explanation with an example, so that pupils could have seen how the activity was going to be carried out.

B. TIMING

Secondly, I have also realised the importance of the timing as it is a key point for carrying out a successful lesson. During the implementation I had to adapt myself and the teaching sequence to many changes on timing:

On the one hand, it seemed really difficult for me to imagine how long some of the activities would take before having implemented them before and without knowing the class properly. Thus, some of them need to be revised during the implementation. Nevertheless, it always depends on the class being taught, so the timing must be flexible according to the needs of the pupils. Apart from that, there were other situations which were not predicable and also influenced the timing too, such as the changes on the number of sessions. At the beginning I had planned 5 sessions, as it was the only possibility I was given, but in the end I was allowed to do 7 sessions. It was a really positive change as I could give pupils more time for some high-cognitive demanding activities such as writing the dialogues (what I am sure influenced in the results) or for rehearsing the final play, what gives us the opportunity to work more on the language repetition and focus on pronunciation. Thus, for further implementations I would keep the number of sessions that I finally did as it may not have been successful in less than 7. On the other hand, there were also some other problems which weren’t my fault but which I should have taken into account in advance. Those problems refer to the use of the technology. In the first session, for example, we were supposed to watch a video from You Tube, but the Internet in the school was not working so we couldn’t do it. Nevertheless, I think I spent too much time trying to get the video working that I lost valuable time that could have been profit in other ways. The solution of this problem could have been planning some “plan B” activities or even download the video before the session.

C. ASSESSMENT

Assessment really worried me when planning, as I wanted to assess all the process in order to assess the development of each pupil. So, as I wanted to do a formative assessment, I created some charts for the teacher to assess pupils through observation in each of the sessions carried out. Nevertheless, when implementing the teaching sequence I realised that it would have been impossible for only one teacher to use them in class as the items for the observation were quite general (e.g: active participation) and difficult to observe while running the class. For that reason I think that I should have prepared more carefully the materials for the assessment. After having had a session on Formative assessment in the university I have really understand what it means. So that not only is an assessment that takes into account the process and the development of the students but also is an assessment that has to inform both teacher and students (NCTE, 2003). For that reason some of the modifications that I would do in the assessment planning are: -

Revise the purpose of some activities which are going to be assessed and share it with the students. For example, at the beginning of the teaching sequence I carried out an initial assessment through a brainstorm activity where pupils had to write as many names of food and drink as they could remember in only 5 minutes. From this activity I came up with numeric data according to the number of words that each student wrote and how many of them were spelled correctly. At the end, when I analyzed this data I realised that it was not very useful, neither for me nor for students, as it did not inform of the knowledge acquired. After talking about this with some peers I realised that it could have been useful if I had planned a similar activity at the end of the teaching unit as it would have informed about the knowledge acquired and it would have allowed me and also pupils to compare the final production with the first one. A similar problem occurred when assessing an activity which consisted on each pupil creating a menu. The purpose of this activity was to see if pupils had understood the main parts that a menu had and which dishes should be in each part. Moreover I told them that the best menu would be the one used in the final play as to give a purpose for them to do the menu. At the end, with my school mentor we decided that choosing only one menu was not fair so we used a different one that we created for the play. Thus, I realised that the activity may not have a 20

purpose then so I asked my practicum peers about what should I do: eliminate the activity or if they had any ideas. One idea that I liked a lot was to re-organise the way how the session was planned. There were two main activities for the session which were to organize a mixed-up menu all and to create a menu. The first one was to do with the whole class together whereas the second one was individual. The change on the planning for this session would consist on the one hand, on asking pupils to work on the mixed-up menu in groups, so that in this way they can create the meanings on their own and take profit of the discussion with their peers and then bring their conclusions to the class so that we reach an agreement all together. In that way not only they would learn the parts of the menu and some dishes but also they would have a real purpose for using the language. On the other hand, the creation of the menu would be done with the whole class after the discussion so that they apply the knowledge acquired and the purpose of doing the menu is still for having one for the final play. -

Include more variety of assessment tools. In the university some of my peers presented a very interesting article about formative assessment. 25 quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom (see reference in bibliography) provide a great number of tools which could be adapted and used in different moments of the teaching sequence. Apart from using observation charts as the one I planned for the unit other assessment tools that I would like to use are: o “My top ten list” (pp. 38): in this worksheet students have to write 10 ideas that summarize their learning. It could be used before asking them to write the dialogues for the play in order to make them think about what they should take into account for their writing such as some expressions that they have seen in the sample text, important words, etc. o “Nothing what I’ve learned” (pp. 44): this activity could be used to make the pupils aware of their learning process so that after each of the sessions they would have to draw and write what they have learned. Thus, if for example there are many kids which did not learn nothing the teacher could revise the objectives and the activities in the session as they didn’t worked properly.

Nevertheless I would keep some of the assessment moments planned such as the peer assessment for the play in which the group performing was assessed by the audience as it was useful for them to see what were they expected to do and it was also a way in which they had to be attentive to the performance. Moreover I think it would be a good idea to include some other moments for peer assessment as, as Melinda told us in class, we have to learn to do them so that not always the first can be taken into account.

LEARNING AND GROWING AS A TEACHER

The whole process of planning, implementing and then reflecting on the Teaching unit that I have created has really helped me on learning and growing not only as a future language teacher but also as a self-critical person. Thus, to illustrate this process I have created a slideshow which would guide you through it. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1280DZWZt2iot_MKV1R5JNPA6tzZw6xzPhm NXGZogWQw/edit?usp=sharing

CONCLUSIONS

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

The previous sentence, stated by Albert Einstein, fits perfectly when trying to summarize the experience that I have had while working on this report. During this process of analysis and reflection, I have learned to be a better teacher with more resources and also more competent in her job. Moreover, I have had the chance to analyse both strengths and weakness of my teaching as an opportunity to grow. At the beginning, when I started to plan the teaching unit I was a bit worried as it was the first time for me teaching English in a school. Even though I have been working in a language school for 6 years this time I was nervous as I was used to have only 6-7 pupils per class. Nevertheless, the fact of having some experience on teaching English had also been very useful in some “critical” moments. For example, when I had to plan 22

activities without having so much time, such as when we taught with Carla in the Key Stage 2 and Silvia asked us to prepare the class just 10 minutes in advance. On the same way, I have realised that it is in those “critical” moments I did my best as a teacher and that they were where I was braver ton trying new things. Although those situations pushed me out of my comfort zone, I can say that I managed quite well in all of them. Furthermore, I honestly think that they have played an important role on the developing of my teaching skills. As to conclude with this report, I must say that having to work on such a deep and wide reflection has really helped me on becoming more professional. I have learned how to critically analyse not only others’ practice but also mine, how to see the weakness as an opportunity to improve and the importance of learning from others. Thus, I now feel that I am most prepared to face my first year after the degree with lots of energy and illusion to start working and continue learning and growing as a teacher. I’ve become a more confident teacher, more capable of learning from others and also from my own mistakes. I am really excited with the new phase that we will be starting in just now and I really expect having the chance of applying all what I have learned this year in the university.

REFERENCES A. Books and Articles

Alogozzine, B. Campbell, P. & Wang, A. (2009) 63 Tactics for Teaching Diverse Learners, K-6. Corwin.

Clive Beck and Clare Kosnik. Growing as a teacher: Goals and Pathways of Ongoing Teacher Learning. Sense publisher. Rotterdam, 2014

Cummins, J. (2000). Lenguaje, poder y pedagogía. Madrid: Morata, 2002

Dodge, Judith. 2009. 25 quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom. Scholastic Teaching Resources.

Johnson, D., Johnson, R.& Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Lightbown, Patsy & Spada, Nina. 1999. How languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Masats, D., i Unamuno, V. (2001). Constructing social identities and discourse through repair activities. A S. Foster-Cohen i A. Nizegorodcew (Eds.), Eurosla Yearbook, Volume I (p. 239-254). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

NCTE, 2003. Formative Assessment that Truly Informs Instruction.

Ur, Penny. 2005. Discussions that work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

B. Websites and links

http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/presentations/nceo-lep-iep-ascdglossary.pdf “Glossary of teaching strategies”. National Center on Educational Outcomes