MY FIRST LITTLE SUCCESS

Uauuu!!! That was a different feeling. Today the class was great! Good time management, students involved in activities!! I feel much better. The fact is that the context was quite different. I just had half of the class (10 students), it was Monday instead of Friday... This weekend I adapted activites to their way of doing... First a bit of vocabulary warm up around art: painter, sculptor, actor... Then a Who is who activity with famous people. I think they enjoyed it a lot. And then to finish an easy song in which they had to underline the words heard. It really worked!!

IMPLEMENTING THE UNIT

So... That was the day. At the moment I feel exhausted. It remembers me when I did exams at university. After a whole morning exam I felt really tired and my mind needed a break. I had shown my planning to the teacher and all the material I had prepared: pictures, a poster, activities... She found it very interesting and well organised and that gave me confidence.

When I arrived, I first told them that I would be teaching them English for two weeks. I started with a warming up activity to introduce them the core unit. I took with me the naughtiest boy in the class to help me with some pictures about jobs, so that he was not disrupting my first activity. All students had to recognise the job and they surprised me quite a lot. That first activity was better than I expected so I went on with the core activity. They had to gather in groups of 4 people and read about a character's life: Messi, Ferran Adrià, Shakira and a flight surgeon from NASA. They had to fulfill a poster with basic information: Name, Picture (were given to them), nationality, What is she/he doing now? What can he/She do?... That activity was very tough to be explained. It was very difficult to keep their attention for 5 minutes and classroom configuration was doing things even more difficult (we were in a class with computers). I had prepared roles for them: Dictionary user, Chart filler, Reader, Secretary... But I decided not to use them because it was very difficult for them to understand how to behave. The activity was not yet completed but I decided to stop it because some of the students were not participating and the class was getting out of my control. I asked one person per group to read its part of the chart. I had prepared a chart with the things they told me that they like doing. We commented on that: "Who likes playing football?" And I tried to make them interact with me explaining when, with who...


But that was somehow difficult because of their low level. I still had 10 minutes to finish the class and I started to feel I couldn't anymore. I had to ask for silence every 2 seconds and my voice was starting to feel those 40 minutes of class (1200 silence please!!). I decided to try to summarise the important points of the lesson with them and practise a little bit. We worked doing oral sentences with CAN, CAN't around their favourite leisure activities. And that was it. The bell rang. I need to analyse the class and take into consideration their way of working to readapt the activities I prepared for next week. But I'll do it tomorrow. Today I need to relax... The teacher gave me support but I feel I need to do it much better.

BRAINSTORMING FOR THE DIDATIC UNIT

Next week I am starting my Didactic Unit with the 2nd ESO course. I first I was a little bit scared about having to organise 6 lessons for that class. Students have a low English level, they can hardly understand basic instructions in English and are not fully motivated. I felt that the chances of unsuccess were great. But after a week thinking about the Unit Core and my personal approach I am starting to feel more confident and face this situation as a real challenge. Today I prepared pieces of paper and at the end of the lesson I asked students to write (anonymously) their favourite song and personal interests. They were quite receptive to that, willing to tell me what they like doing. I think that I can orient my Didactic Unit taking into consideration their preferences and giving a sense to all of it. Hope I'll work a lot this weekend because next Friday will be my first day!

FIVE SENSES READY

The first period in the Practicum has consisted in active observation and helping students. Maria Rosa has a teaching style really different from any I had received before, so any activity and exercise proposed is approached in an active way for the student. They have to create, invent, speak and participate, leaving grammar content as a second priority. That is really a chance for them to learn useful things and that systems seems to be working for both brilliant and problematic students.

Very few exercises are done from the book. A very useful tool that our tutor uses with 2nd ESO is a workguide. It is a paper in which students have the activities that will be performed in the lesson (book page, dossier...), which must be ticked once finished (they love it!) as well as an autoevaluation space for each activity (Needs improving, OK, Good, Very Good). They discuss this autoevaluation questionnaire with the teacher and usually agree. She enforces their good performances and you can feel that this work guide is helping class rithm. Almost all lessons are carried out in computer room. That helps the teacher implementing ICT and students feel more comfortable in class. However, in some cases this classroom configuration might not be the best one. For the Practicum it makes things easier as you don't feel like steping in front of a whole class but walking around and individualising your attention to each student.

Active observation requires keeping your attention for 55 minutes of the lesson. You must be ready to understand teacher approaches, students reception, interaction and why and how they behave. The observation form has helped me to organise my ideas and analyse many facts before, during and after each lesson.

4th ESO

Maria Rosa had told us that the 4th ESO class was also a formed by student with learning special needs. In that case, in contrast to the 2nd ESO class, their problems are just regarding their English level but not related to their personal problems and bad behaviour. The group is in general friendly. Thus, we could have the chance to see another different situation. Maria Rosa explained us that some of those students had defined themselves as lazy. One of them had told her: " If the inspector comes I will tell him/her that you have done as much as possible for me to learn and it is my fault the fact that I don't have the level expected". I was somehow impressed about that course. I remember coursing 4th ESO. I was quite independent at that time (at least that's what I feel like). Our tutor is really keen on using ICT in class. For this group she had already prepared a wiki. However students didn't pay much attention to it so Maria Rosa thought that a good way to make them enter the wiki was hanging some pictures of them. I was surprised about the close relationship between teacher and students. They respect her and I think they enjoy English classes much more than others. Afterwards they easily went back to a project that Maria Rosa had prepared about Rainforests. We helped them from the beginning and that was the best way to know them and let them know us. Instead of a passive observation we walked around answering questions and asking others. That was a nice experience and I felt that 4th ESO would be a nice group to prepare the Didactic Unit for.

FIRST CONTACT WITH 2nd ESO

Tuesday afternoon. After the first impression, which was better than I expected, I was back to meet students from 2nd course. Our tutor had already explained us that this group was really a difficult one. Students in this IES are somehow grouped not only according to their learning abilities but also concentration capability. This group is what they call a "diversity group", with students coping with family problems and other difficult situation. Maria Rosa has decided to fully adapt content to their needs and way of learning and book is not followed word by word. She prepares different activities to fit their needs and interests. That day they were working on a small book about animals and they had to fulfill an easy questionnaire. They were in a computer room, where they usually have their English lessons. That classroom configuration might be an advantage many times, however that day was really disturbing because although they didn't need computers at all, some of them used PC for personal use, affecting concentration and task achievement. That day I realised how important an appropiate classroom configuration is. The class was very different from the first one but anyway students didn't feel uncomfortable with our presence and we started to know each one of them.

FIRST DAY IN IES ICÀRIA

Monday morning, 10 a.m. I am starting my Practicum. I met Maria Rosa Batlle, my tutor and Anna (another CAP student) last week, when we had our first meeting. Although I felt really comfortable with both of them, I can't stop feeling somehow nervous, really nervous. How are students going to be? Are they going to accept us in class? Am I going to be fine? I used to be a summercamp monitor and there I was also with lots of children. But that was a different situation: I was there to make them have fun and now I am here to help them learn. Is it really going to make a difference? Thousands of questions...

First class: CLIL subject in 1st ESO: Geography. That was really an easy way to start. Children were still children and not teenagers, they had a good level of English, motivation, enthusiasm and everything necessary to carry out a fluent lesson. We worked on computers preparing an oral presentation around stories explaining the beginning of the Universe through different civilisations. The experience became amusing and at all frustrating. However, I was conscious about the fact that this CLIL subject was a particular case and that usually classes are more diverse and heterogeneous. This first day gave me confidence and I was just looking forward to the following class!

PRACTICUM

I am doing my Practicum in IES Icària, in Vil·la Olímpica. Since 2002, this new centre is holding a project to teach subjects in English (CLIL) and has a teacher community really involved in it. I have the chance to participate in "An Ethical World" and "Geography of the World" (both 1st ESO). Students that have chosen these optional credits usually have a high English level as well as other learning skills. At the same time, I am also attending 2nd and 4th ESO English Courses. Both groups have difficulties in this subject and one of them is also facing problems regarding behaviour. Thus lessons must be adapted and carefully prepared to fit both type of students, stimulating their aptitudes and motivation.The diversity of students and learning formats makes this context really useful so as to get an idea of common and special English learning possibilities.

CONFIDENTIAL

Teaching has always been very special to me. When I was just a child I liked playing as a teacher and when I reached Batxillerat I was looking forward to practising my teaching skills with secondary students. I liked going to school and I really learnt a lot from lessons. The school opened my universe to science and there is where I decided that I wanted to be a student forever. Always something else to learn, to practise and discover. That's why after studying Chemistry I decided to go on with a PhD. At the moment I am studying Molecular Biology surrounding pancreatic cancer and I save all my time to attend seminars related to all kind of information and read papers. This is something so special for me that I just can't keep it to myself. I need to transmit this love for knowledge to people and teaching in secondary school might be the best way to achieve that.