Waw! This has been a busy month!

After this experience as a teacher, I can confess that I was a little bit esceptic about students’ implication in my sessions. Once the first class was finished I had the feeling that everything that I had prepared would not work with this class, since they did not speak, nor did they show any interest on the topic. I even found myself pretty silly when acting to make the concepts clearer, because while doing so, I could see their faces just standing there, looking at me without giving any sign of complicity or appreciating my effort. I had prepared very powerful and visually attractive slides to impress them and win their attention, but they would not mind at all. Even though I was observing all their reactions, I tried to mantain my energy until the end of the class. Little by little and always with the help of my tutor, we had them more engaged, and we finally got some results from them.

The fact of being in a diversity group has provided me of some strategies that maybe in another group would not be as useful. Miriam has helped me to give a lot of importance to the human relationship between a teacher and his/her students, as would be the basis of their behaviour in class. In a class like this, it is very important that they do not feel disrespected or menaced, since a strong authority on them would enliven their bad behaviour, as they would react against it. One should try to listen and understand their problems, and give them some advices in the shape of an older friend trying to help them, instead of a teacher who is going to punish their behaviour. It is very important that the teacher allows his/her students’ search for an identity, and precisely for this reason, (s)he has to be there whenever they face an obstacle, sometimes as a mere observer, others as a guide, but without violating their intimacy, nor judging them. This is the only way these students can rely on you, and respect you in class.


In general terms, I can say that my Practicum experience has been very satisfying, even though I have been a little stressed. My tutor has treated me as one more member of the class, and I have enjoyed a lot with her performances in class and the nice environment she creates in class. We have to bear in mind that IES Salvador Espriu is above the medium mark in English at the Selectivitat exam in Catalunya. This means that English has a great presence in this school, and that all the teachers work to keep these results every year. One should be proud of working in a school where there is a plan which supports the use of English in other subjects, and that students attach to them in a natural way. The CAP Practicum allows you to feel as a teacher, and share this English environment to see how the teenagers grow surrounded by this second language and accept this as part of their education.

INT SCHOOL - DAY
Hours 25-23

I can say by now that I'm happy to be working in this class with Miriam. She knows the kids very well and gives them the chance to express themselves spontaneously. She knows how to ellicit info from them and finds the best way to make them deduce the grammar rules behind the exercises she proposes. I'd like to mention the tutoria class, where Miriam would ask them questions on their private life and habits and they would naturally collaborate answering them freshly and sincerily. They are really good kids, honest and funny. I'm eager to teach them and share info about me and my hobbies with them, to be one of them and enjoy the experience from both sides of this teaching experience. The tutoria class allowed me to know them better and see how they think and act outside the class.

On Friday, Miriam had prepared a game to work with the likes and dislikes of the kids in relation to sports. They formed two circles: the ones in the inner did not move, while the ones in the outer one were rotating to ask a different person every time. They asked Do you like (+sport)? and the others had to answer Yes, I do/No, I don't. After the game, Miriam would ask them at random if "x" liked tennis, and students had to remember. There was pair work with the same mechanism and students had to memorize what their peer liked/disliked. They got engaged with all the activities and really enjoyed trying to remember their mates' answers. It all went so good. Even one of the students, who seems to be completely out in class told Miriam he had enjoyed the activities.Well done! It is for things like that that teaching becomes worth the effort, don't you think?!

There won't be class until Friday, so the post next week will be shorter. It's time to start polishing my didactic unit.

I've caught a very bad cold, so my neurones are not working properly. I'm rolled up on a blanket and have my hands out of it so I can write these few lines. Hope I'll be fine by the next class. Take care!

Video: Panda sneezing. I'm like that right now. Isn't it cute?

INT SCHOOL - DAY

Hours 29-26

I started this week attending to one of Oriol's classes. I was with 3 more teacher trainees, who had different activities planned for that day. Curiously, some of the students were taking an oral exam, where they had to talk about the London fire in 1666 while one of the teachers projected images in a power point presentation. The other student was grading their performances and meanwhile the third one was giving students the corrected compositions they had as a homework. I think this worked very well, everything was well organised and students responded very well to these activities. After that, Oriol commented on the projects they had to hang on the moodle, in which students had to tell things about when they were little, by means of videos, power point presentations and other audiovisual means. He showed one of these as an example for the others to follow, and offered students the chance to change their proposals in a week time. It was really nice to be there and see how he manages to encourage students to use the TIC in favour of their learning of a language. I found this visit really useful.

Back to Miriam's 3F class, we started remembering the vocabulary I introduced on the last class. They spontaneously said the names of the sports aloud and Miriam made mimics to make them remember the most difficult ones. All of them participated in saying the words, and Miriam presented the next activity naturally. They completed some exercises from the book dealing with sports and when correcting, Miriam tried to elicit information about their favourite sports and pre-taught the formula Why...? Because it's... to express their opinions on sports. They said adjectives in Spanish/Catalan and Miriam translated them into English and wrote the words on the blackboard for them to build full sentences. She guided them by pointing at the structures on the blackboard and finally got them speaking and discussing on the characteristics of the sports their peers were choosing.

On Tuesday I met a student who had been out for 3 weeks. He seemed not to follow the class and I tried to help him with the new words. They were given a photocopy which included a short reading and some questions on famous sportspeople. They checked the answers together and Miriam wrote them on the blackboard. The class worked well, with neither incidents nor misbehaviours.

On Friday Miriam had prepared an activity in pairs. They were given a paper with information on a famous sportsman/woman. Student A had to ask questions to Student B to fill a chart with the missing information, and viceversa. This made them remember the basic question structures that first appeared on the reading on Tuesday in order to elicit info from someone. Miriam took advantage of their lack of memory and raised questions in Catalan/Spanish to make them say in English. She did this repeatedly, at random and in a very funny way, for them to build the questions and keep them in mind to complete the exercise successfully. Students answered spontaneously and spent a good time trying to build the questions correctly. Some of the questions were: Is it a man or a woman? Where is (s)he from? When is his/her birthday? What sports can (s)he play? How many medals has (s)he got? As homework, students will have to look for info about their favourite sportsman/woman and complete a chart like the one in the photocopy to write a short text about this person. On Friday some students were misbehaving, and Miriam finally had to punish one of them by filling an "incidence sheet" which he'll have to have it signed by their parents and bring it back to her by the next class.

I'm having a toothache. My wisdom comes to the surface through my tooth. I'm delirious!

www.entusolapa.com/images/solapins/muela.jpg

A video on a boy who used to be good at sports. ELLOS - Campeon

INT SCHOOL - DAY
Hours 31-30

Nice week this one. On Monday we got a visit from the person in charge of this year's TV3 Marató campaign to let us know a little bit more on the topic they have chosen to work on. It has to do with mental illnesses, and she made an introduction to the most frequent ones and then projected a video with real people talking about their illnesses and how they felt about them. I have to say that I got impressed. Mental illnesses are really really complex and may seem difficult to assimilate unless you have someone suffering from them near you. I constantly looked at the kids' faces to guess their reactions, and I have to say that on the whole they didn't seem to get too involved or affected. The speech turned my stomach and brought in a mixture of bitter feelings including guilt, sadness, empathy but above all, I felt ignorant and impotent.

I didn't come to class on Tuesday, because they had the exam and there was no need of me in there jiji.

I came back on Friday full of energy because Miriam asked me to introduce the new lesson to them and I had all my positivity ready to explode over them. I got some pictures of me when I was a child where I am playing tennis. I digitalized the picts and included them at the beginning of my power point presentation. I told them that they only know my name and nothing else, and that I was going to talk a little bit about me. I projected the first picture in which I appear with my sister and two more friends, a girl and a boy. The three girls are playing tennis and the boy is doing taekwondo. I introduced my companions to them and asked them how old they thought I was in the picture. Someone said 6, and I told them I started playing tennis when I was 6 and asked them if they played any sport. Then, I showed them the picture where I was getting a cup, my first trophy at the age of 6, took it off my case and showed it to them. This led me to ask if they had ever won a cup. I have to say that they answered my questions and seemed interested on my speech, which I think was dynamic and funny (I was sooo cute in my youth! jiji). Miriam helped a lot trying to encourage students to speak by being one of them and being the first to answer when they would not speak, promoting their participation and iniciating the interactions. She was really helpful and gave me confidence. After all this show turning around me, I started projecting the first ficture of Fernando Torres. I asked them who he was and which sport did he played. Being conscious that on the previous lesson they had worked on descriptions, I asked them how they called the little spots he had on his cheeks (doing mimics). I encouraged them to look at their notes, which they did! GREAT! One of them finally said it, and I made the one at the other side of the class repeat it until he said it right. I went on projecting the pictures for all the sports, asking for the person in the picture and the sport (s)he played. They guessed most of them, and I pre-taught some sports which they didn't know how were called in English (after their trials on "escalating" "bucing" or "bicing" among others). Then, for them to keep these new words, I proposed a game in which I would announce a category and they would write as many sports as they remembered in a minute. I proposed Miriam as the referee by providing her of 2 cards, a red and a yellow one and a whistle for her to warn students from cheating. She enjoyed that! It was funny to see they reacted very well and the game was a full success. I told them "WATER SPORTS" and made a countdown from 3 to 1 to get the game started. Miriam wrote their answers on the blackboard and we finally got 3 winners. I showed 3 medals I had made myself with golden, silver and bronze cards and asked for the help of a hostess to hand them to their owners. We applauded after each prize-giving and it was all over at 12:25. Miriam had 5 minutes to announce their homework for next day and the class was over by the ringing of the bell. I was happy and amazed it all went that well. I am really proud of the kids, and I can say I encouraged them to participate, even the ones who are not used to it asked me if they could write the words in their notebook. It was a very nice experience which I had forgotten (it's two years since I last taught a class) and I felt really happy inside.

The worst: I had brought my camera to class, but was too involved in the teaching that I forgot to take pictures of it and now I regret, because I had the idea of posting them here and have them as a souvenir of this experience. What a pity :_( Let's hope they don't get rid of the medals and I can get some portraits of the winners.

The best: one of the girls told me after class she had really enjoyed it, which I really appreciate and feel proud of.

Thanks Miriam and all the kids for being there and help me cope with this first performace at their class.

A thanks-giving video today: 1, 2, 3 Sol by Standstill. Gracias por venir.

INT SCHOOL - DAY
Hours 35-32

No class on Monday. Kids came happy and receptive on Tuesday and days flew by until Friday. We´re still working on descriptions but kids can´t remember the vocabulary and seem not to understand the difference between to be and to have (got). They produce sentences like: He is green eyes. Miriam puts the best of her to write a model description for them to follow, and reminds the functioning of both verb patterns for them to fully understand their usage in descriptions, but no way, darling. They´ve got a sheet of paper with the whole vocabulary with drawings, but they don´t use it and keep on asking her (and me) for the words. In spite of this, they finally write a few sentences to describe themselves and one of their relatives. As Miriam knows the kids need movement and excitement from time to time in order to relax, she made a game where they had to run to the blackboard to write words in turns. This made them collaborate within their teams, sharing the vocabulary they knew in order to sum the major number of words and win the game. They even encouraged each other to run faster to the blackboard. The activity only lasted 3 minutes, but were enough for them to sit down and be more relaxed and happier. They laughed at their spelling mistakes and the bad calligraphy due to the effort and tiredness. I found this activity totally positive because it was a very good way for them to consolidate the vocabulary in a funny way, which usually makes them associate learning with a pleasant experience.

As for the tutoria class, Miriam asked them about the film Real Women have Curves in order to take it up again and see the end of it, but while asking for the nationality of the characters, someone said "sudacas" and this led to a conversation about immigration and respect. Some shared their ideas on it, and it was worrying to hear some of them because they seemed too racist and careless, bearing in mind that there are also immigrants in their own class. In the end, they seemed to understand that we have to respect eachother and sympathize with each other´s needs. We did´t have time to watch the whole film, so we´ll have to wait to hear their opinions on it. I´m trembling! I think the video today will have to do with respect (just a little bit).

Take care!

Aretha Franklin - Respect