Practicum I: Schedule and Reflections

Date Class Observations

First day at the school. Today I met the person in charge of UTP, with whom I had a brief talk about the
duties and schedule I was assigned to. Moreover, I also met my host teacher. As I told him my
April 6th None
responsibilities in the school, he was quite kind and supportive; we decided what classes I am going to
work with, and he let me know the way he works.
Today I had my first observation within a class. Although it was not possible to be in one of the classes that
I was assigned to, this first experience helped me to grasp two important things: how the teacher works
and how students are accustomed to work. The teacher tends to rely on grammatical explanations and
April 7th 9th grade E practice in each class; he has quite good classroom management skills and also has created a good rapport
with students. Students, in the other hand, tend to work for decimals; the teacher even concedes points
for answering questions meanwhile he is explaining grammar rules. Some of them are highly competitive,
and they are always looking forward to completing tasks if there are decimals involved.
9th grade D Presentations in both classes
April 10th
10th grade F
April 11th 10th grade F Co-teaching in class
April 14th None Holy Friday (Holiday)
9th grade D
April 17th Tests in both classes
10th grade F
April 18th None Tests
April 21st th
9 grade D Co-teaching
April 24th 9th grade D Lesson: Question Tags
April 25th 10th grade F Co-teaching
April 28th None Pedagogical outing (Museo de Historia Natural)
May 1st None Labor Day (Holiday)
May 2nd None Test 10th grade F
Test 9th grade D
May 5th None
May 8th None Feedback tests from 9th grade and 10th grade
Lesson: Ed Pronunciation
May 9th 9th grade D
May 12th 10th grade F Lesson: Although and Besides
May 15th 10th grade F Lesson: Rules of Capitalization
May 16th 10th grade F Level tests practice worksheets were handed in and started to develop by students
May 19th 9th grade D Level tests practice worksheet (continuation)
9th grade D Last review for English level test
May 22nd
10th grade F
May 23rd None Level test
May 26th None Students day (no classes)
th
9 grade D Feedback level test from 9th grade and 10th grade
May 29th
10th grade F
Today, due to a very delicate issue in which a student was involved, all classes from 10 a.m. onwards were
May 30th None
called off.
June Students strike. No classes all day.
None
2nd
June Students strike. No classes all day.
None
5th
June Students strike. No classes all day.
None
6th
June Today, students took the school under occupation.
None
8th
Teaching diary

Lesson: Question Tags

Grade: 9th grade D Date: April 24th

Learning objective: Students will be able to correctly formulate questions to ask for information and agreement.

Linguistic content: Question tags

Today I had my first lesson without the host teachers assistance. Trying to acknowledge how the teacher delivers the class as well as how students
are accustomed to work, I started the lesson by informing the students what we are going to do during the lesson; it was going to be delivered
entirely in English, with the use of a video and a PPT presentation.

During the first part of the lesson, I noticed that most of students got interested in the first activity; they seemed to enjoy the video that I used to
introduce the topic. After watching it, I let them think about what was the purpose of the video; they were able to understand what the video was
about although there were some students that seemed to have problems with it. I asked some students to tell me if they understood the
conversation showed in the video, and there were at least 8 students that quickly answered me. This activity lasted a couple of minutes more that it
was planned, but I observed that most of students were paying attention.

In the second part of the lesson, I started by explaining the content that students grasped in the video, trying to be as demonstrative and clear as
possible. In this part, I noticed that a significant amount of students were chatting, and other students asked me to explain in Spanish, as the host
teacher tends to do. I tried two times to explain in English, but most of students were still lost. When I started using Spanish in the third attempt,
they were more focused in the explanation.
As I was told by the host teacher, students need to have every content from the lessons on their notebooks. Therefore, I allowed some time for
students to write on their notebooks the explanation and the examples. This stage of the lesson was particularly difficult to handle, since students
needed more time that I foresaw. After I made sure the content was correctly delivered without having loose ends, I proceed to give the instructions
to the following activity; students needed to complete some given sentences with an appropriate question tag. Most of students completed the
sentences on time and I even choose some of them to write their answers on the whiteboard, although I observed that some students in the back of
the classroom were not paying attention to the instructions and didnt complete the task. The activity was finally checked on the whiteboard.

Moving to the last part of the lesson, I told students that they were going to work in pairs, with their closest classmate. Most of students agreed on
working this way, although they are not accustomed to do so. After I gave the instructions with concept check questions, a worksheet to each pair
was handed in, in which students had to complete a dialogue with missing question tags. Once students started to work by their own, I started
monitoring. I observed that most of students were working, but some students at the back of the classroom were doing homework for another
lesson. Although I talked to them, some students were still not working on the assigned activity. Moreover, other students asked me that they didnt
understand what to do, and I tried to explained to them in English. Since I had to devote more time that I expected in the while stage, this last part
didnt last as it was supposed to be so. Therefore, after some time, I checked the answers on the whiteboard, and some students volunteered to
read the answers. Finally, I quickly showed the video from the first activity one more time, and students were asked if they were able to understand
better the video now.

As an overall conclusion, I have to express that most of students were working in the activities. It is noticeable that they have some limitations in
language production; although there are few students that are able to express themselves in L2, most of students struggle at this. I didnt have
significant misbehavior issues to deal with, but I need to put special attention to a couple of groups at the back of the classroom. I think the
lesson objective was partially met, in that students showed understanding of the grammar involved in the lesson, but I believe more work needs
to be done in order to give them the opportunity to better understand the communicative value of question tags. In terms of language usage, I
should have use English all the time, but I need more work in scaffolding the language Im using in the classroom.
Teaching diary

Lesson: Ed Pronunciation

Grade: 9th grade D Date: May 9th

Learning objective: Students will be able to identify and correctly express the final sounds of regular verbs in past

Linguistic content: list of past regular verbs, grammatical rules of ed final sounds

Today it was the first lesson with this class. Taking into account that students were working with regular and irregular verbs during the previous
lessons with the host teacher, he and I agreed on teaching Ed final sounds. However, the challenge was that students are not accustomed to work
with listening and speaking. During the first part of the class, I presented a video in order to introduce the pronunciation in a real situation. I
observed that students struggled at discriminating some sounds, but the interest was aroused anyways; the idea was that they understood that the
final sounds of regular verbs change. I have to express that, when videos are displayed, students tend to focus. However when it ends, they start to
talk. I think it is important to give simple and precise instructions, in order to direct their attention into something specific. After the video, I asked
some questions about some words and its pronunciation, and some students were capable to imitate the sound they heard. Being the content
presented, I recall their previous knowledge by asking them to say some past regular verbs; many students were able to easily remember the verbs. I
managed to end this first part within the expected time.

In the second part of the lesson, I started with the explanation of the content. As soon as I started explaining, some students began to misbehave. I
noticed that there was a group of them that is particularly noisy and disruptive; the leader of this group is, in fact, the president of the class. I tried
to talk to them several times as I was explaining, and they stopped misbehaving for a while. Then I devote some time for students to write on their
notebooks the explanation and some examples, by giving them a couple of minutes. However, students started to talk loudly and misbehave again,
resulting on a 15 minutes explanation that was supposed to last 10 minutes.
After that, I showed a video in which a list of words was divided into the three different ways to pronounce Ed sounds. This was intended to be a
listen and repeat exercise, since my intention was to give the opportunity for students to practice how to produce the different sounds. I ask
students to listen and repeat the words, row by row, and I observed that they seemed to enjoy the activity. Right after, I presented an activity on the
whiteboard in which students had to identify, from the past regular verbs, what type of sound has to be uttered. They had to write the appropriate
sound beside the word. As I was monitoring meanwhile the activity was on progress, I observed that a significant number of students were actually
developing the activity. Many of them showed interest, considering that I receive many requests from students so as to answer how to pronounce
some words. After a while, as I noticed that almost all students were working, I ask some students to go to the whiteboard to complete the sounds;
some students volunteered to complete the sounds in the whiteboard, yet another group of students refused. According to the planning, up to this
point I was using more time than expected.

In the last part of the lesson, I asked students to pair up. I showed a 200 words paragraph from which students had to find all the past regular verbs
used and identify how the word should be pronounced. During this part of the lesson, some students started to misbehave again, and I had to talk to
them in Spanish. The class ended with no time for completing this activity, and the teacher allowed me to finish it the next class.

I have to say that, during this lesson, I have realized that students are accustomed to the traditional vertical lesson, in which the content is
presented as a lecture and the individual effort is more acknowledged than the communicative value of the English. Thus, I feel that it is easy to cope
with this way of approaching to the class, but as a result, all the meaningful communication that has to be foster, ended up been ruled out. Another
idea is that students get easily bored when the class is neither a traditional nor not interesting enough. Therefore, I need to present the content in a
more communicative manner, without relying on punitive incentives or a grammar-based lesson.
Teaching diary

Lesson: Although and Besides

Grade: 10th grade F Date: May 12th

Learning objective: Students will be able to express contrast and add new information in a written manner

Linguistic content: although, besides.

I started the lesson with some images; I showed some memes, which I believe are good resources to arise interest. I observed that students were, in
fact, paying attention to the images. As I wanted students to speak some English, I choose some students to read the text from the memes. A group
of students were willing to participate and others were too shy. Nevertheless, I noticed that most of students understood the texts. The intention
with this activity was that they were capable of deducing the use of although and besides in a text, and the use of images plus text, helped greatly to
reach that aim. This part of the lesson last what was expected.

Acknowledging the way students worked the previous lesson, I believed that giving them short and straightforward activities in which everyone has
the chance of completing them may be effective. Therefore, the second part of this lesson was about a short activity; students had to complete
some sentences with although or besides. This time, I decided not to deal with grammar explanations at this part of the lesson. I believe that it
worked well, as most of students completed the sentences and even some students wrote new sentences by their own. In the final part, the
intention was that students had to create sentences from images presented, but the class was interrupted since there was a call for voting in all
classes. With the host teacher, it was decided that a worksheet with some grammar explanations and plenty of exercises will be provided in order to
continue with the class.
Finally, it is important to mention that today I believe that, although the class didnt end, I observed that most of students are capable of working in
class. Nevertheless, I still struggle at trying to include as many as possible in the activities; there are always a group of students that disturbs the
normal development of the lesson.

.
Teaching diary

Lesson: Rules of Capitalization

Grade: 10th grade F Date: May 12th

Learning objective: Students will be able to correctly capitalize written texts.

Linguistic content: capitalization rules

As one of the contents included in the upcoming level test is capitalization, the class is an attempt to provide students with opportunities to practice
this content as much as possible. I decided to start with a brief introduction; some sentences were showed on the whiteboard and students had to
decide if the sentences were correctly capitalized. During this activity, students were interested and participative. I give the opportunity for the
students that frequently disturb the class to answer the questions, and just two of them agreed. Nevertheless, the class had an appropriate
atmosphere and I took advantage of it. Then, the teacher and I handed in some worksheets for each student in which there were written thirteen
capitalization rules, with examples. We decided to assess just those.

After that, the students and I went through all the rules; one by one, the rules were explained with an appropriate example. At this part of the
lesson, some students started to chat loudly. As I told them that this content will be included in the level test, some students exchanged heated
arguments with the group that was misbehaving, expressing that this class was important for them. This situation ended with most of students
focused on the task, and just a small group of students keep talking. Moreover, during this part of the lesson students asked many questions and
were quite participative.
Then, I presented a variety of exercises to practice the rules of capitalization; first of all, students had to write two examples for each rule. In this
exercise, as students are not accustomed to produce this way, they devoted more time than I thought to complete the task. As I was monitoring, I
noticed that there is a diverse spectrum of students; some students are quite proficient meanwhile I observed that there are some highly dependent
language users. After I checked the time, I put some pressure on students to finish on time; this helped to end within the time expected.

Then, a text was presented to students and I told them that there were 34 capitalization mistakes to correct. This exercise was quite easy for them,
as they did it in less time than expected. They seemed quite concentrated in the task, and I praised them for their very good work as a whole class.

In order to conclude, the class developed quite as planned; the activities were completed and I observed that students were committed to the
lesson. Nevertheless, I am not sure if they changed after I informed that the lesson was important as it encompassed some contents for the level
test. These students have shown that their motivation can be aroused with the appropriate input. However, I still believe that external factors, such
as giving decimals or relying too much on the importance of grades, are detrimental for them. The school culture works under this logic, therefore it
is difficult to handle.