Journal - Primary

Trainee’s name: Ludmila Ruiz Díaz

Practicum level: Primary

Group: 5th Grade - 10/11 year olds

Date: 1st September 2015

Lesson number: Observation N°1

During this first instance, the main objective of the observation was to make contact with the

students, to observe the classroom and analyse the different resources I could count on.

There are approximately 22 students in this class; they are sitting in the traditional shape of desks

facing the board, one in front of the other; three rows of desks in all.

The classroom is rather small, there is one window that allows natural light in but there are no

resources at hand. The walls are practically bare; there is hardly any visual stimulus either from

posters or works produced by the students.

During the lesson, I could notice students understand classroom language very well and most of

them can follow instructions without major inconveniences. However, they only count with two 40-

minute lessons per week; something that is not common among private schools here in Río Grande,

which normally add one or two more encounters for the same amount of time.

I was told by their English teacher that the learners are mainly beginners or false beginners. As the

courses in primary are rather small since 1st grade (10-15 students each), over the years more

students are admitted until they reach a maximum of 25 learners, so it is complex to maintain a

heterogeneous level due to new comers who mostly had very little input of L2 in state schools.

Regarding the syllabus, unfortunately there is not one. According to the unofficial information I

could gather, they resort to the same course books that are distributed by the governmental English

Coordination Department. This school in particular has a ‘follow the book’ policy towards foreign

language instruction; homework is rarely assigned if not unwelcome, and teachers are generally

asked not to fail students. In case there are students who could not fulfil the objectives or failed

most exams, they are asked to attend extra time during December but not much else is done to

guarantee learning.




Date: 3rd September 2015


For this second encounter I wanted to focus on teaching strategies and timing. Students are dealing

with Unit 3 from New Treetops 4, OUP. The main topic is School Subjects and Likes & Dislikes

related to the former.

The teacher resorts to flashcards to introduce school subjects and asks students to classify them in

a chart according to their own taste. She also had the students do a listening activity but without a

pre-listening stage so I could see some students who were rather lost and did not know what to do

during the exercise.

Comentario [1]: Not a very motivating learning environment, then...

Comentario [2]: Oops! A challenging context. Great that you learnt about this. :)

Comentario [3]: Excellent observation!

In conclusion, for this lesson the teacher integrated listening, reading and writing. However, little

attention was paid to develop speaking skills.




Date: 8th September 2015


For the last observation, I thought I needed to pay attention to how the teacher integrated skills.

This was a unit of revision apparently because no new language was included; students kept

working with school subjects and their preferences. The main activity was directed to develop

writing skills; students were given pictures of different schools subjects and they were to write

sentences with ‘I like…’ and ‘I don’t like…’

At the end of the lesson, I was a little concerned with my role as this group’s teacher during my

practicum period because I was told to keep working with the book and its contents.

During the three observations I could notice that the activities that were proposed by the teacher

were the ones included in the warm-up section; the rest of them were carried out with the book.





Lesson number: Lesson N°1

The principles I resorted to were those related with communicative teaching. I endeavour to make

the lesson amiable and that learners can participate actively sharing their own points of view.

The topic for this lesson was ‘Days of the Week’, the course book only included the school days so I

decided to include the weekend as well because these were the only new words in the lesson. The

objective was to make the introduction communicative and significant so I decided to relate topic

vocabulary with the previous lesson lexis that included School Subjects. I would draw a timetable

on the board, introduce Days of the Week, and complete the timetable with the different subjects

students have at school by adding a short exchange:

A: When’s (English)?

B: It’s on (Tuesday and Thursday)

Regarding learners’ reaction, I believe the rapport was great. It helped that this group does not have

any major discipline inconveniences and that they are used to working in class. I believe learners’

reactions were positive; they were already familiar with the topic vocabulary - I was told they were

not - so the introduction was much simpler for me and students were willing to participate.

Regarding the exercises where they needed to tell me how to complete the timetable with different

subjects, I could spot some confusion since they are still in primary school; for instance I associated

‘Science’ with ‘Ciencias Naturales’ so they could tell me which days they have that subject.

Comentario [4]: Excellent!

Comentario [5]: Great!

At the moment, I felt they were reluctant to repeat after me or to use the chunk ‘It’s on…’ I am not

sure if they did not understand when I asked them to repeat or they are simply not used to

repeating as practice, or perhaps they feel self-conscious when speaking.

The rest of the exercises I think were well received and students could follow the instructions and

do them without major problems. There were two or three who needed assistance, but because

they were not paying attention or were not involved in the lesson. I needed to go to their desks and

ask them to work and/or explain the task again.

However, I believe I made a huge mistake with the exercise where students were to complete the

timetable by reading a short paragraph. First, I thought they were familiar with the book’s

character since they had been working with it the previous classes, but no; they could not

remember or tell me anything about the girl.

Second, I did not demonstrate the exercise. Even though they knew what they had to do because it

was clear enough, I believe I should have showed them first one example and then let them

complete the rest of the timetable. Fortunately, this did not result in a complete misunderstanding

but I had to explain to two students what they needed to do.

I think the lesson was successful enough, looking back I do not think it was extraordinary because I

was not completely happy with what I had planned, to be honest. I felt I was left a little bit alone

regarding content, and I was not sure how learners would react because they had been much more

passive the previous lessons.

I believe I need to improve the activities I propose; from this very first lesson I think I could have

included more challenging activities or at least more involving.

Another aspect I need to sharpen is timing, I asked students to copy from the board but I did not

realise they would take so much time in doing so. I am aware that writing in a different language

can take more time for young learners, but the time I had allotted for this purpose was not enough.

For the next lesson, I think I will reconsider the kind of activities and I will try to include some that

help them develop their speaking skills because I would like them to see that they can actually use

the little language they have to communicate.






As in the previous lesson, I resorted to CLT to build up this one. Taking into account my tutor’s

comments on the first class; I agreed with her I needed to set a more appealing context. It took me a

great deal of time to think of a suitable one that could meet the students’ needs and mine as well.

Finally, I felt Harry Potter was a good character to introduce regarding Schools - the topic we are

dealing with - and it would also be useful to bridge the gap between this topic and the following one

that is related to physical description of people.

Comentario [6]: Did they produce in L2? What strategies will you implement to encourage them to speak? Anyway, as this was the first lesson, perhaps they were shy.

Comentario [7]: What does this imply from the point of view of significant learning?

Comentario [8]: Good idea!

Comentario [9]: There is a section on giving instructions in the Google site that you may find helpful. Try to apply checking comprehension strategies.

Comentario [10]: Don't worry, Lumila! First lessons are meant to get to know the group, so the kind of situation / feeling you describe is a natural one.

Comentario [11]: Great Ludmila! I will check your plan asap. What I appreciate and consider valuable is that you reflect deeply on your performance and students' needs. Best wishes for the second encounter!

As a consequence, I had to investigate about Harry Potter because - I have to say this - I am not very

keen on him. I looked for pictures which activated students’ schemata and decided to work with the

first Harry Potter’s film trailer ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’.

For the first part of the lesson I organised a word search of the Days of the Week; my tutor wisely

suggested I should have this activity done in pairs. She could not be more right; it would have taken

much more time had they done it on their own. Again, I had a timing malfunction here; they took

more time than planned and I had to cut the activity rather abruptly. At the end of the lesson I

checked they had completed the exercise, but the matter still felt like unfinished business.

I used this activity as a transition to introduce Harry Potter as a context making a connection with

the kind of school students go to and the kind of school Hogwarts is. They could not be more

delighted; their reactions exceeded my expectations, it is so much worthier when learners like what

one has prepared! I could summarise a short paragraph about Harry Potter entirely in L2, with

students participating actively, even though they just filled the blanks of what I was saying with the

words stuck on the board.

For the listening activity, my focus was mostly on making the context more visual; that they could

see the new vocabulary in the video. They watched it only once, I had planned to play it twice but it

was not necessary in the end. They did the multiple choice activity without major effort. Contrary to

what I had organised, this had to be the end of the lesson.

While I was planning this class, I had the feeling there were too many activities but I needed to try

it. Definitely it was too much for 40 minutes; modifying their seating arrangement to a horseshoe

took at least 5 minutes, then the warm up lasted more time than planned and I got carried away

with the learners’ excitement with Harry Potter. I believe, now that I know them a bit better, that

these students can cope with two main activities maximum per class. Although they are not a large

class, they are not used to participating so much in class or to timed activities.

Another aspect I need to consider and it is new to me is their expectations regarding corrections. I

only have experience teaching teenagers; I used to check many activities with the whole class and

verify their corrections later or control that they had done the activity and paid attention when we

checked (I mean, with class activities). These are younger learners, they need praising and the

teacher writing ‘Excellent!’ on their notebooks; I realised this after we had checked the multiple

choice with the whole class because there were some students who asked me to look at their

worksheet expecting me to check what we had just checked a moment before. I considered I was

not fulfilling this expectation and felt rather bad, for next class I am taking some stickers with

smiling faces and phrases to correct and reassure them






This lesson turned out to be irregular; I was supposed to go on the 22nd September since on 17th

the students were going on a trip to a ski resort in Ushuaia. Due to weather inconveniences, this

activity was put off and I was asked to deliver the lesson on this day.

Comentario [12]: Ooops! Is this really so?

Comentario [13]: Excellent!!!

Comentario [14]: Great that you perceive what they actually need! :)

Comentario [15]: Remember that what matters is quality rather than number of activities.

Comentario [16]: Great idea!!!

I had planned to continue with the context I had been working with - Harry Potter - and since I had

had some trouble with timing, I could not fulfil all the objectives of the previous lesson so I would

include those activities that were left out in this one. Additionally, I organised a short and

controlled speaking activity for students to start using language this way.

In terms of students’ reaction, it was well enough taking into account their disappointment for not

going to the ski trip. They were definitely not in the mood for an English class and many of them

were absent.

The first part was great, they remembered the vocabulary from Hogwarts from the previous lesson;

most of them could recall lexis and understand utterances like ‘They play (quidditch) sitting on

(brooms)' using visual aid.

During the reading activity I asked four volunteers to read. Here, I was a bit confused because I

wanted to help them and did not how exactly, I will have to resort to previous bibliography to see

what I can do regarding their pronunciation issues. They even mispronounced ‘I’, they read it as a

regular Spanish vowel and from my point of view, this is a ringing alarm. How was I going to expect

them to ask each other questions? I helped the girl who volunteered by asking to repeat after me

and praising her performance because I could see she felt self-conscious, in spite of having

volunteered to read. Of course I did not want to dwell too much on this because the objective was to

read about Harry Potter’s favourite subject however I devoted a good five minutes to practice

words such as ‘favourite’, ‘because’, ‘subject’, ‘I’.

I do not think they could grasp the use of conjunctions AND, BUT and BECAUSE very successfully. I

will find a way to illustrate the difference between them better in the next lesson. The filling the

blanks activity was very challenging; I had considered it to be controlled and easy enough for them

to do it but I was wrong.

The writing part was much easier, talking about their own opinions is always much pleasant and

since they were fewer than usual, I could correct everybody’s performance. For the speaking part, I

asked them to ask each other questions about their favourite subjects and left the questions and

answers written on the board for reference.

The most successful parts were definitely the warm up and writing about their own tastes.

Correction was well received and I could see they were glad that I took care of each of them

regarding this matter.

For the next lesson, I need to find a way to scaffold better the use of conjunctions and find another

activity which proves to be more meaningful to them. Honestly, I would grade this lesson as

regular; not because I did not feel comfortable or because students misbehaved or did not work, but

because they were expecting to be skiing and outdoors.




Date: 22nd September 2015


I planned this lesson with the objective of presenting the learners with more challenging activities. I

considered they had had enough input for them to perform some other tasks that, even though they

Comentario [17]: Cheer up! These things happen.

Comentario [18]: If SS are not used to this type of task, or if they make many pronunciation errors, it means they need a lot more of input. In those cases, it is advisable to read the text yourself and expose them to the oral and the written form of the L2 simultaneously.

Comentario [19]: Why do you think they found it difficult?

Comentario [20]: why?

Comentario [21]: This proves how important is feedback for the learners.

Comentario [22]: Every lesson is unique and we can learn something from it. :) Way to go, Lu!!

we still controlled, they could carry out and give them a sense of achieving. Focusing on CLT, I

proposed Find Someone Who so that they could interact with each other with simple questions and

share information about themselves. I also organised a task where we could build up a bar chart

and analyse which were the class’s favourite subjects and finally, a simple exercise in which they

practised the use of conjunctions.

In the case of Find Someone Who, I modelled the activity with their English teacher and another

student; it was effective for students to get the gist of the task but they were quite unsure at the

time of speaking because they are not very used to doing this. I thought the fact that they were

doing this among themselves would help lower their affective filter but they needed my guidance

much more than I had expected. I needed to assist them with pronunciation quite a lot.

The activity in which the bar chart was built was the best part of the lesson; they felt engaged and

willing to come to the board to stick the post-its with their names. Again, they felt reluctant to speak

and say ‘My favourite subject is…’ but I insisted kindly and all of them repeated that chunk of

language. Praising was important here because I think they felt exposed so I tried to reassure them

telling how well they did.

Analysing the chart was also fruitful, but instead of having them answer the questions, we did this

orally and I wrote the answer on the board for them to copy. This change of plan was due to an

inconvenience I had not foreseen; their folk teacher extended her lesson around 7 minutes so I had

to start mine later and the students have a break after English class so there was not much chance I

could get those minutes back.

Working with conjunctions was good as well, as suggested by my tutor, this was the first activity of

the lesson instead of the last. Conjunctions are still a challenge, so I resorted to structure

comparison between L1 and L2 to convey meaning because even though they knew the equivalent

of the words in their mother tongue; when put in context they found it difficult to tell the difference

between AND and BUT.

I think for the two remaining lessons I will propose activities in which they can be more involved;

they liked the fact that this lesson was about what they preferred and do something with that

information. As People is the next topic, I will have to resort to the context of famous people and let

them work with their favourite singer, actor or sports person so that they can get the feeling they

are contributing with the context and their preferences to learn.






As we had been working with Schools and Favourite Subjects for the four previous lessons, it was

time to move on. The next topic to cover was People, the structure has got and vocabulary related to

physical description.

In order to make the lesson as communicative as possible I chose to brainstorm what other

‘favourites’ students can have. So at the beginning of the lesson we talked about their favourite

subjects, video games, among other things and I linked this to favourite people introducing the

terms singer, actor/actress, and sports star.

Comentario [23]: Great! I am sure if they continue doing this type of task, they will become more autonomous.

Comentario [24]: Anyway, you were able to adapt your plan on the spur of the moment. =)

Comentario [25]: This will also contribute to their own motivation.

Comentario [26]: Excellent idea!

Then I showed a picture of Daniel Radcliffe to elicit some information about the actor; the main

objective was of course to relate it to Harry Potter since we had been working with this character.

They did so, and I began to tell them that he was Harry Potter in fiction but that his real name was

different. I used the web we built up brainstorming as a prompt to have students tell me his

occupation and nationality and wrote ‘He plays Harry Potter’ under all that information so that they

know what he is famous for. I repeated this procedure with Martina Stoessel (Violetta) and Lionel

Messi. In spite of being a presentation, this activity worked out wonderfully because they are

people students know and actually have information about them.

I used a tablet to slide some pictures of normal people to introduce topic vocabulary. I showed the

pictures around the inner semicircle of the horseshoe sitting arrangement making sure they could

all have a look at them. I signal certain features about their faces such as freckles, eyes and glasses

and also referred to their hair, using the structure He/She has got… At the same time I wrote a list

of the new vocabulary on a side of the board for reference. Then I came back to the pictures of the

previous exercise and encouraged students to orally help me describe Daniel Radcliffe, Lionel Messi

and Martina Stoessel.

Last, they did a matching activity based on new vocabulary. Some students could do it without any

assistance; others needed clarification of concepts that I provided personally and then checked

everybody's copy and made sure they glued it on their notebooks.

Students’ reaction was great, from the moment I showed the pictures of famous people they were

eager to talk about them and tell me about others they admire. They helped me describe the people

in the pictures in the tablet and the ones on the board. All in all, it was very fruitful because they

were using the language naturally so this was definitely the best part of the lesson.

For homework, I asked them to bring a picture of a famous actor, singer or sports star they like and

they got really excited about it; when I left the classroom, they were discussing who they were

going to bring for the following lesson. I hope they don’t forget!

I believe I am on the right track regarding context, so for the following lesson I will keep working

with these celebrities and encourage students to use the language as we did during this lesson to

describe their own choice.

As they need a lot of input in L2 because they are very insecure about pronunciation, I will attempt

to incorporate a listening activity so that they do not just listen to the teacher as an exclusive source

of input.






As this was the last lesson I would share with these students, I wanted to propose something more

meaningful to them; that is why I had asked them to bring a picture of someone they liked or

admired.

Comentario [27]: ordinary?

Comentario [28]: Was this presentation contextualised?

Comentario [29]: =) If they were so motivated, they probably won't.

Comentario [30]: Wise idea, Ludmila!!! Keep it up!

The objective was to work with the first three steps of Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid: remember,

understand, apply. As I have not much experience in designing according to this, I had to browse last

year’s Didactics notes; I sincerely hope I am doing well working with this.

For the remember stage, we would work with a listening exercise I found in their class’ books. Its

aim was only to repeat new vocabulary but I used it as a means to have students recall the

vocabulary we had seen the previous lesson. The exercised consisted in filling the blanks from a

picture with key vocabulary; so first we talked about the picture and the different people in it. Then

we completed the blanks and last, we listened and repeat to practise pronunciation. This last part

was useful because I could help them with words like ‘hair’ and ‘eyes’ which most of them

mispronounced.

For the understanding stage I thought of an activity where students match descriptions with people.

This way I would be able to check how much they understood new vocabulary in context and I also

considered it would be fun for them as well. In pairs, students read different sentences describing

the same characters as last class and then came to the board, repeated the sentence and stuck it

under the correspondent person. Not only was it fun, but it gave room for peer correction because

whenever one was sticking the sentence on the wrong place, the rest of the class corrected him/her.

This activity was also fruitful because we got to practise pronunciation in connected speech (I

mean, a whole sentence instead of isolated words); I had to help them a lot, but they was all waiting

for me to say the sentence so they could repeat it. I take this as an advance in terms of the

reluctance to speak I noticed during the first lessons and now they were willing to try.

Last, for the applying stage I asked them to bring a picture of someone they liked. I asked them to

write a short description of the person they brought. I was not aiming at having them write a whole

paragraph; just one sentence under the other using the structure has got and the vocabulary we had

seen. To scaffold this activity, I wrote a list of the features to include (name, eyes, hair,

freckles/glasses) and asked to describe their picture with sentences using has got. They were

delighted working with the descriptions, even the ones who had forgotten to bring a picture and

used one from the course’s book.

I enjoyed this lesson particularly because it went as planned, without major inconveniences and I

could foresee what problems might arise. I guess this happens when you start knowing your

students better.

It was great being with this group, at the end of the class they gave me a sheet of paper signed by all

of them and they hugged me! I only have experience with teenagers, and very little, so this kind of

affection was a pleasant surprise.

Comentario [31]: Yes!!!

Comentario [32]: Well done!

Congratulations, Ludmila!!!

You have managed to create conditions for meaningful learning to

take place! This implies you have managed to put theory into

practice.

Keep up the very good work!!

Cecilia

Education

Journal - Primary