Kindergarten Journal

Trainee’s name: Ludmila Ruiz Díaz

Practicum level: Kindergarten

Group: Sala Celeste, 5-year-olds

Date: 4th May 2015

Lesson number: Observation N°1

During this observation I made first contact with the L1 teacher of this preschool class, and the

students per se. I did not know what to expect because I have had no experience with learners

this young before.

I wanted to focus principally on timing and transitions because even though I’ve studied how

children learn and what to expect from them, I thought I needed to see the lesson actually taking

place to help me have a glimpse of what will benefit these students and how to carry that out.

As far as timing in is concerned, students seemed rather distracted and some were not paying

attention to the teacher. I will definitely need to look for strategies for this trait, maintaining

everybody’s attention is not an easy task so I reckon the activities I design will have to be

engaging enough to keep students devoted to the task.

Comentario [1]: Was the class conducted in L1?

Comentario [2]: Yes, it was. The students did not receive any kind of input in L2. The only instances where the teacher asked for students to use L2 was when she asked them 'Que color es este?' while she was distributing pencils for students to colour a picture in their class' books.

Comentario [3]: What would be the relationship between time and the lack of attention ?

Comentario [4]: I relate lack of attention to timing because the activity that the teacher planned for the lesson was too long; it basically required that students colour a page of the text book they use for 20 minutes. This is a group of learners who consist mainly of boys, and I believe that they could benefit more from hands-on activities or tasks that they find more significant in order to feel more engaged in it.




Date: 11th May 2015

Lesson number: 1

After two previous observations, I realised these students were not used to interacting with the

teacher or each other in L2. I was then determined to bring this to the classroom but also adding

a communicative element so that learners could use L2 meaningfully. In order to achieve this, I

decided together with their English teacher to attempt to set a routine where students could

predispose themselves for the English lesson; starting and finishing each class singing a song to

greet the teacher, using resources which are significant and appealing to the children and

challenging them to build up thinking skills according to Bloom’s taxonomy. During this first

lesson I think the use of pictures of Peppa Pig was a success in terms that these were appealing

to them thus making them feel engaged during the presentation and the activities that followed.

Regarding learners’ reaction to my teaching, activities and material; I think it was very positive.

Their reactions definitely exceeded my expectations because they could follow the lesson with

much more L2 input than they are used to, and they did this with pleasure. Students took part in

the activities proposed, especially the one where they needed to come to the board and point to

the pictures; at the moment of closing this activity there were still children eager to participate.

I reckon the most successful part of the lesson was when the students were actively involved;

they agreed to sing a song to greet the teacher and each other - something they had not done

before, according to the teacher in charge of the English lessons - they were engaged during the

presentation of the the topic ‘family’ because the resources (pictures of Peppa’s family) was

appealing to them, and they enjoyed the activity where they needed to come to the front of the

class. I would also add that the rapport I could establish with the learners was also favourable.

I believe the aspect I need to work in the most is classroom management; the class is large and

at times children were not engaged or interested in the activity and wandered around the

classroom or did not participate. This situation in particular, not being able to control their

behaviour, makes me feel nervous and this causes that I get stuck and find it difficult to use the

right strategy to ‘bring students back’ to the lesson.

Another aspect I think I need to revise is transitions; thinking back I remember passing from

one activity to the other rather abruptly. The closing of the lesson was also awkward, I wanted

the learners to say goodbye with a song but this time the participation was less enthusiastic;

there were students who, I think, did not realise the lesson had come to an end.

Thinking about the future lessons, I think I would keep working with the context established

since the learners are familiar with it so I will use this as an advantage. Needless to say, their

curiosity is a valuable asset so I think I will also find the ways to trigger it, as I did during this

class, in order to make the lessons interesting and significant to them.

Comentario [5]: Excellent ideas Ludmila! These are essential components of any lesson.

Comentario [6]: Motivation is also a determining factor.

Comentario [7]: Great!

Comentario [8]: What strategies did you try to implement? Had you done any research about this issue? Did you use any song or rhyme to settle them?

Comentario [9]: How had you planned your transitions? Connections between activities and stages also need careful planning.

Comentario [10]: When I was planning this first lesson, I thought praising and drawing students' attention to the next activity would do; e.g. using visual aid, telling them to look at the pictures again. However, for the following lessons I needed to change this.

Comentario [11]: Good thinking!

All in all, I really enjoyed myself during this class and it was very reassuring to see that the

students also enjoyed it. I was very nervous because I had never taught very young learners, but

I am more than glad to have experienced it.




Date: 12th May 2015

Lesson number: 2

For this second encounter I also centred my lesson around CLT. This time, I wanted to offer

different activities from the previous lessons not only for the sake of variety, but also to get to

know what works best for these particular learners. This proposal was based on my

observations; during both lessons the activities were the same so I reckoned these students are

not presented with a wide range of activities.

I resolved to incorporate the greeting chant again to start the lesson, and also to fulfill the aim of

building up a routine for the English class. I added a TPR activity where students were to repeat

commands and perform them under my guidance and then on their own. We kept working with

‘Family’ as the main topic, and I resorted to the same context (Peppa’s Family) to develop

another activity in which I changed the seating arrangement to sitting on the floor making a

circle and they played a game in order to develop their speaking skills. Last, I added a problem

solving activity where students played a memory game with cards.

My perceptions during this lessons were varied; first of all, I had trouble organising the opening

of the lesson. The children were distracted, and I could not use a suitable strategy to make them

realise that the lesson had begun. This problem repeated every time between activities, so the

transition from one activity to the other was not as smooth as I had planned. I needed to resort

to L1 many times to call the learners’ attention.

I believe the main cause of these inconveniences was that I paid too much attention to those

students who were not engaged in the activity trying to get them interested, and I left the ones

who did follow unattended. So the class was disorganised during the transition stages.

During the time the activities took place, once I could manage the class, the learners showed

interest and participated. These instances are the ones that I value as successful; even though

they were challenged with diversity of activities in the L2 lesson, they were able to keep up with

them.

I surely need to improve my classroom management techniques in order to make the transitions

in between activities more fluent; to let the learners know that we finished one and now it is

time to start another.

Comentario [12]: =)

Comentario [13]: Very good research strategy!

Comentario [14]: Ludmila, consider that it takes time for learners to learn how to behave. This depends on many internal and external factors.

Comentario [15]: Great!

Comentario [16]: What course of action will you take in order to do so?

Comentario [17]: I was advised by the K headmaster to just tell them what I expected from them when I said the transition marker in L1. For instance, telling them 'when I say... I expect you to sit and listen'. She told me this group in particular had serious issues when it came to listening to teachers: that I should not feel disappointed because it was a particular trait of this group of Ss.

I will not say I feel frustrated or that I failed in this lesson because there were effective and rich

moments during it, but I would have liked to resort to ways of arranging the situations in which

I felt I was losing control of the class.




Date: 18th May 2015

Lesson number: 3

For lesson 3 I wanted to closure the topic ‘Family’ and move on to ‘Toys’ as smoothly as possible.

My intention was to offer activities which were a little bit more cognitively challenging in order

to help students build up thinking skills also during the L2 class, but respecting their level of

maturity.

For this class, I had handed the Spanish teacher notes to send to the students’ parents asking for

a family picture. I organised then an activity where students could talk meaningfully about their

families, showing the picture to their peers, using the structure we have seen ‘This is my...’

In order to start with the topic Toys, I planned to take advantage of Peppa Pig’s theme since it

proved to be engaging and appealing to the learners. As a visual aid, I took a picture of Peppa

and George playing in their bedroom with their toys to bridge the topics, I also planned to show

students real toys that belonged to these two characters, to make the experience more concrete.

Finally, students were to do a matching exercise where they connected Peppa’s and George’s

toys according to what we had done previously.

However, I could not carry the lesson out as I had expected. The activity in which students

worked with the pictures and glued it on a template took too much time, adding a fact that I had

not taken into account: after working with glue, or anything that make their hands dirty,

students are used to washing their hands. This behaviour is deeply rooted because it is part of

the teacher’s aims over the years, and I could not foresee this beforehand nor was I able to

control the time they took for this task. So while some students were washing their hands, I

asked other learners who had not participated to show me their pictures and tell me about their

family. Formal presentation of the topic Toys did not take place as a result of this situation.

Students’ reaction to working with material that were theirs was very welcomed; everybody

wanted to share information about their families. I found this very rewarding because many of

them were actually willing to use L2 for this purpose; those who were more reluctant to speak

were able to point to their family member when I asked ‘Who’s your/mother?’. Some students

who had not brought the picture were to draw it and they also talked to me about their families.

I think this was the most successful part of the lesson because students were able to

communicate in a significant way.

As the previous lessons I had encountered difficulties in marking transitions, I have decided to

employ the same transition marker in order to make students settle. Again, it was hard work to

draw everybody’s attention; but I could notice this time that noise was more part of the work

they were doing than part of distraction or disengagement. However, I still need to work on my

classroom management strategies.

Comentario [18]: This experience, and your reflections, are part of the learning process. :)

Comentario [19]: Fantastic ideas! A meaningful context and realia.

Comentario [20]: Wonderful! If they were not ready to produce, they were still able to understand the L2 and to communicate.

Comentario [21]: What did it consist in?




Date: 19th May 2015

Lesson number: 4

As I had not fulfilled my objectives for the previous lesson, I resolved to have a word with the L2

teacher to define what to do next. We agreed to go on with what I had planned for the fourth

lesson and she would take care of the presentation of ‘Toys’ using the procedure and activity that

were in my lesson plan.

So for the 4th lesson I intended to involve learners in storytelling because it is a meaningful

activity and it requires deep involvement on the part of the learners. I planned to show them two

minutes of a Peppa Pig’s episode where Peppa’s brother’s toy (a dinosaur) is broken and his

parents go to the shop to buy a new one; this would also contribute to develop their listening

skills. I prepared pictures to pre teach vocabulary learners would need to recognise from the

video, I arranged a schedule to stop the projection at key moments so that I could check

comprehension and last; I organised a set of pictures for students to put in order after watching

the episode and then retell the story.

Once again, drawing the attention of the learners was a difficult task. I had decided to establish

some ground rules, so I told them beforehand what I expected them to do when I employed the

chant I use as a transition marker.

Pre Teaching the vocabulary from the video was not as simple as I thought due to the

inconvenience that I could not draw everybody’s attention; it took me a little more time than

planned but I showed the pictures desk by desk asking Ss to look at the pictures, tell me what

they see and repeat.

I think the biggest surprise I had during this lesson was while I played the episode; there were

some students who were not interested in the video at all so instead they kept talking or fighting.

Honestly, I had thought this activity would keep their attention focused on the story and

moreover; that they would feel motivated to follow it. It had nothing to do with the fact that

some learners knew what the episode was about; those ones showed more involvement in the

story than the ones who claimed had not watched it before.

I reckon the most successful parts of the lesson were first of all, that I did not need to encourage

students to sing the ‘Hello’ song to greet me, they did this willingfully and sang with me instead

of repeating the stanzas after me. Personally, this was gratifying and it gave me a sense of

achievement! Secondly, despite facing difficulties in calling learners’ attention to the video, they

could work perfectly putting the pictures in order so I could check that they had understood the

events in the story. All five groups but one could accomplish this activity; the group which could

not do it was because they were playing or fighting for the pictures. I took care of this last group

for a longer period of time but I was not able to have them organise the events in order; even

though they knew what the activity was about they were reluctant to carry it out. Retelling was

also a success, some students resorted to L1 as I had expected but others were willing to use at

least one word in L2 (e.g. Mr Dinosaur or garden).

Comentario [22]: Did you resort to the L1 to do so? How did students react?

Comentario [23]: Yes, but for this time only. I asked Ss to repeat the chant with me so that everyone would become familiar with it.

Comentario [24]: Was this difficulty related to the seating arrangement? What do you think?

Comentario [25]: I wanted the Ss to sit in a semicircle, but I had experienced this arrangement before in Lesson 2 and setting the mood had been challenging. Besides, I was also not possible to sit them that way because of the location of the projector: there was not enough space.

Comentario [26]: Why do you think they were not engaged?

Comentario [27]: Honestly, I cannot think of a reason. The ones who were not involved were mainly those who had not shown any kind of involvement during the previous lesson.

Comentario [28]: Indeed!

Comentario [29]: Were they given the pictures while watching the video?

Comentario [30]: No, the pictures were distributed after watching it.

Comentario [31]: Retelling is indeed a challenging task for a group that are not used to being exposed to the L2.

I had my reservations regarding the performance of these learners because their L2 classes were

reduced to colouring pictures from the book with no L2 input whatsoever, but I think the most

valuable assets of this experience is that they were able to incorporate a small routine in a very

short period of time, that they were involved in activities that required more concentration than

they are used to in the L2 class and they were successful in performing them. For my part, it was

a wonderful experience that also helped me lose certain preconceived idea I had I was not able

to deal with so young learners.

Comentario [32]: Why wouldn't you, Ludmila? How has this experience contributed to your present and future development? Congratulations on your work! Way to go! Cecilia

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Kindergarten Journal