Taller de Práctica DocenteTrainee’s Self-Assessment

Period: Kindergarten 2015Ludmila Ruiz Díaz

Introduction

Throughout this document I will intend to reflect on my experience during my Kindergarten practice. The whole insight into this particular level has been new and enriching in terms of what I could do for these learners and what they helped me realise as a teacher as well.Working with five-year-olds was a challenging task because I felt I needed more experience and knowledge on how to work with them and what to expect from them. This is why I did the course suggested by the tutor at the beginning of the course (https://www.open2study.com/courses/early-childhood-education), revisited Didactics II/III material we had seen previously and also surfed the Internet when I needed to clarify some doubts. All things considered, I hope I have made a positive contribution to the group of learners I dealt with; I tried to bring new resources other than the class’ book to the classroom, I planned to be as innovative as possible in each lesson and I also wanted to arrange a set of activities which allow students to build up their thinking skills. Personally, they have certainly had a great impact on my teaching experience since it was the first time I designed lessons for so young learners; I can say I really enjoyed the hard work and I was delighted to see some results in very little time.

Thinking Back

When I first came into contact with Sala Celeste and during the first and second observations of the English lessons, I instantly realised that these learners would need a lot of work on my behalf since L2 was barely present. Their teacher did not have a routine to greet students and start the lesson; that is, learners had no way of knowing that the English lesson had begun, she had not introduced any kind of classroom language so commands and praising were in L1 and, the context which she was working with did not seem meaningful enough to catch the learners’ attention. Incidentally, all students did during my two observations was colouring pages from the class’ book Cookie & Friends Plus B.

I met with the L2 teacher after the observations and I was told there was no syllabus for the subject; she let me know that students were taught only topic vocabulary but this was not introduced with any structure so she focused mainly on students’ repetition of isolated words. The course was managed according to the class’ book the students used during class; that is way I was assigned ‘Family’ and ‘Toys’, these were the following lessons in the course’s book.

I determined the first decision to take was to expose learners to L2 as much as possible; taking into account their previous knowledge that was reduced to some scattered vocabulary of colours and numbers. Consequently, my first objective was to set a routine where students greet the teacher and predispose themselves for the L2 lesson, and also to start using English for a meaningful purpose. Moreover, I would start introducing simple commands as sit down, stand up, listen among other and also, to start praising students in L2 in order to increase language input. Secondly, I planned to introduce the topics ‘Family’ and ‘Toys’ as the L2 teacher had appointed me, resorting to a different context from the class’ book Cookie & Friends Plus B; for this purpose then I resolved to work with Peppa Pig’s family since it is known by the learners and the cartoon is also currently broadcasted.

The inclusion of structures ‘This is my…’ and has got were my decisions since I did not receive any instruction of the teacher in charge. I believed the first one was simple enough for the learners to communicate personal information related to their families in a significant way, and the second structure I decided to introduce was the one I thought worked best for the topic ‘Toys’; I concluded showing possession was a concrete way to contextualise the topic and the teacher could possible carry on working with have got as the next step.

The resources I wanted to included had to be concrete and at students’ reach, according to Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development1. In order to make the experience more enriching I decided to include pictures and flashcards as visual aid, a toy ball to play a game sitting in a circle, real toys to work on the topic ‘Toys’, the students’ family pictures, cards to play a memory game, a Peppa Pig’s video episode for students to have a more authentic listening experience and pictures of that episode for students to work with.

In order to build a routine, I decided to work with the Hello and Goodbye songs of the course’s book; these were catchy and easy to remember. Instead of playing the CD and have students to listen to it I considered it more appropriate to learn it and sing it myself to them and then ask them to repeat after me. I believe the introduction of this little routine was a success; at the beginning of the last lesson students started singing the song with no help on my part, they already knew it and could make use of it to greet me.

The inclusion of Peppa Pig was also very profitable; students were immediately involved with these characters during the four lessons. I believe they were able to see the link between the characters and the target language, and also the linkage between topics once we passed from ‘Family’ to ‘Toys’.

As far as the activities proposed are concerned, I decided to make them cognitively challenging and gradually more complex during the period of time allotted to me. Among these I included playing a

1 http://www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html

memory game, a matching exercise and putting events in order. I would have liked to include a classification exercise where students could categorise the vocabulary we have been working with but I could not do this due to lack of time. Additionally, students worked with actual family pictures and could communicate in L2 telling about their family member, or pointing and naming them if they were more reluctant to participate.

Regarding my learning experience during this period, I think that the first thing I learnt was that it is always imperative to study beforehand what is best for the group of learners you work with. In this case, I had little knowledge on young learners but it was also necessary to meet them to see what they were like, what they knew and what they did not know in order to take a course of action and find the best and most suitable way to contribute to their learning process.

Sala Celeste was also a very noisy group of students; I could appreciate this during my observations and then confirmed my suspicions with their Spanish teacher and even the head master. I believe the weakest moments during my lessons were establishing transition markers and organising the learners to work; it was really difficult to draw everybody’s attention at once with a simple chant or clapping hands. Even when I projected the video there were students who were not engaged in the story and preferred to talk or fight. So for this reason I resolved to keep analysing and searching for classroom management strategies that allowed me to reach my objectives during the lessons.

Last, I would like to add that I was very insecure with this particular level. I doubted whether I would be able to deal with them or not, to offer something valuable and to simply get along with them as their teacher. Fortunately, I could get rid of those feeling by working for them, thinking about the most appropriate context, finding resources which were appealing and by actually standing in front of them and teaching English.

Thinking Forward

I am quite content with the work I have done with Sala Celeste. However, there are always things one feels can be improved once the lesson was delivered and deep thought takes place. For instance, I would have set some ground rules from the very beginning; I would have worked with classroom management strategies in a more straightforward way, that is, I would have let students know what the expected behaviour was when I clapped hands or used certain chant. Even though I resorted to this in the last lesson, I could see very little improvement at the time.

As I said before, I would have liked to make students produce more by designing activities which were cognitively challenging. I think students would have benefited a lot from a classification exercise, for example, because they would be categorising topic vocabulary and also I would have been able to assess the extent of their comprehension.

I do not know if I will consider teaching kindergarten learners in the future, but if I will I believe I would pursue similar objectives; providing students with opportunities to develop their thinking skills and be independent and active learners in the future.

I think that for future experiences I will continue investigating, reading about other teachers’ experience and searching for appealing resources in order to take the right decisions. Planning demands time a lot of factors to take into account, it is hard work but it is worth doing it.

Thinking Inward

As a personal experience, the most meaningful part of the project was doing away with the prejudice I was not suitable for Kindergarten. What I mean is that we tend to feel more comfortable with students of certain age range and I had never taught pre-schoolers, as a result I was seriously concerned

about my performance because I did not want to sound aggressive or intimidate my students in any way.

The students’ reaction during the observations were reassuring because they were curious about my presence, they even came to me and asked personal questions. The second time I entered the classroom to observe the class they greeted me and remembered my name; this made me feel motivated and I started to think about my participation here and how I was going carry it out significantly.

Honestly, I spent a great deal of time considering the options I had. Once I decided to work with Peppa Pig as the main context to teach new language, I spent hours looking for activities and adapting others. I even taught the lessons to my five-year-old daughter as first trial and see if she was engaged and motivated with what I had planned to include in each one.

As a result, I am quite satisfied with my practice. I am aware I still have several things to learn about the profession as a whole and many lessons to deliver yet, but with group in particular the experience has left a sweet aftertaste because I truly feel I made a difference and that students responded to me.

Thinking Outward

Regarding aspects that affected my teaching during this period, I believe that the most important ones were my tutor’s comments on my lesson plans and my practice. I felt supported in both aspects so I wanted to make adjustments and future decisions taking into account her insight as well.

Opportunely, I was able to see that I needed to work on my classroom management strategies. This was evident from the first lesson and I looked for ways to improve them, even though I could not see significant improvement immediately. There were some instances in which I was not able to organise the class; once the lesson was interrupted by a student who needed the CD player, many students stood up and followed this girl to show her where the device was. The only thing I thought I could do was grabbing the students by the hand and taking them to their seats, this caused the students who were actually working to disperse as well. The second time I thought I was losing control of the class was when I asked them to sit on the floor and make a circle; the disorganisation was such that I almost called the activity off but I could sort it out by asking students to hold each other’s hands, make the circle and sit down. The activity after this inconvenience worked wonderfully.

Another aspect that needed development was the transitions between activities. I had planned to use praising as a transition, clapping hands and simply asking students to pay attention. Of course, this was not enough and taking into account that the group was noisy, I needed to resort to different transition markers for students to realise one activity had ended and another one was about to begin. The alternatives I found to solve this problem were endless; I resorted to adding a short chant that students could easily grasp and hopefully adapt their behaviour. Again, some of them were able to incorporate it and predispose themselves for what was next but others were more reluctant or did not notice the strategy at all.

I am grateful that my tutor suggested I should include a story; that a literary item other than the song was vital and necessary for these students who were near to become literate. I have to admit that I was not so confident at the beginning, however the inclusion of the video episode was very enriching and students were able to work with a short story with no problems and could then retell the story; using mostly L1 but responding to L2 prompts successfully.

Personal Conclusions

I do not believe I can add much more to what I have already analysed about my experience in Kindergarten, except that I faced the practice convinced that I could not offer less than the better I could do. I believe I catered for students’ needs during the short time I spent with the learners; using L2 in class, having students participate in meaningful activities, contextualising content in a meaningful way, allowing them to participate and share personal information. I think the results were rewarding for both parts, it was encouraging when they could use L2 to introduce their families, for instance and the sense of achievement on their little faces was palpable when this happened.

To conclude I think I still have a long path ahead of me, I am aware I could have offered much more and there are certain areas in which I need to improve. However, I am certain I will keep on adding more positive learning experience as this one throughout the course and I sincerely hope I will be able to make a valuable contribute to students’ learning experience.