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Practicum Period

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Viviana Scheuermann

The document summarizes the author's reflections from different practicum periods working with students of various ages and levels. For the kindergarten period, the author realized the need to include a greeting and closing song to help students understand class structure. Various engaging activities were used to teach about toys. For the primary level, appealing contexts like health, sports, and illnesses were used to teach modal verbs and keep students focused. At the secondary level, varied activities and meaningful contexts related to students' interests were used to present grammar points and avoid distractions. Competitions with clear rules engaged the competitive students. Overall, the author learned about using different strategies to suit different ages and maintain student attention and motivation.

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TALLER DE PRÁCTICA DOCENTE KINDERGARTEN’S REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD When I met this great an unknown group of five-year old children I was acquainted with the fact that the class did not have a starting and an ending. So the students did not realize when the class started and when it was over. After asking the teacher, she told me that they did not like to sing a ‘Hello song’ much. The situation that I could see was that some students kept on playing with their things when the class had already started. I considered that including a ‘Hello and Goodbye song’ to help students know when the class started and ended, would be a relevant aim to achieve during my practicum. The topic to develop was TOYS. During the three classes, I had to present different toys ( about three per class). I did so with different situations. Every class started by making a circle to create a comfortable atmosphere and easily make eye contact with all of them. The first class a friend of mine called Tino ( a puppet) was presented to the children. It was nice to see how enthusiastic the children seemed to be as they wanted to touch it! Tino said ‘hello’ to all of them. A colourful envelope with photos of the target toys were presented and later, on their books, they had to stick them following a listening activity with the characters from the book. The second class, real toys were presented, and the children got highly motivated when during the warm up, somebody knocked at the door and I asked some of them to see who was there. They found two boxes with toys. Everyone wanted to touch and hold them. I persuaded them to leave the toys in the boxes and that later they could hold them. In this class a story from their book was presented. In the last class envelopes with a puzzle to be solved were hidden all over the classroom. The students had to look for them and then they had to solve it. The puzzles were about the key words related to toys. Later, the children cut and paste some images related to the story read the previous class.
I consider that the objectives, the activities and the use of resources were coherent with the pedagogical perspective. After the practicum period the student could start and end the class by singing and making a circle ( this aim was kept throughout all the classes), Then the target vocabulary related to toys could be presented and practiced. The topic itself was significant to the students, they love toys so, as a consequence they showed interest in the activities presented, even for the naughtiest ones. Students at this age are characterized by having a short attention span, so I believe that this is the first thing I should have in mind at the moment of planning. Creativity in the selection of activities ( making them move from being sat on the floor to sit on their chairs) , patience and having them doing something all the time are the key to a successful class. From this experience I learnt to be less anxious. When the students are not making eye contact with you, it does not necessarily mean that they are not paying attention. I could verify it when asking students for vocabulary recognition. In the future I would be more aware about timing. Some activities took longer time than expected. However, each class is a mystery as regards unpredictable situations of any type from starting the class later due to external factors to interruptions because children need to go to the toilet. Working with pre school students has been one of the most memorable experiences to me. Children at this age are full of energy and they are so plain and transparent that they directly can tell you that they don’t like the activities you present to them or just the opposite! I love their honesty. I feel a deep respect to them because I have always been a bit afraid of them. I am used to working with older students so making them feel at ease and motivated were my highest concerns. The teacher recognized and concluded that it was necessary to include and opening and closing activity to guide the students in which stage of the class they were. All in all, I could say that this practicum period was a moment of permanent learning to me, from the use of technology ( a completely new world to discover!), from my little students mainly and the warm bond that I could establish with the teacher.
PRIMARY LEVEL REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD The first time I saw this seventh form group I thought it would be easy to work with them because they were just eight students. But I was wrong. From my observation classes I could see that it was a bit hard for them to sit and work straightaway. They talk among themselves and it generally took them time to open their folders or books and just do what the teacher asked them to do. Then I realized that it would be quite a job to attract their attention and make them focus on the task to do. From that moment, I devoted time to work on appealing warm up activities and meaningful contexts for each of the classes, taking into account their interests according to their ages and behaviours in class. I knew that the key would be to use variety of learning strategies and make them move from one task to another one to make them do different things. The aims for the three classes were the modal verbs ‘should/ shouldn’t- must / mustn’t and their differences. During the first class the modal verb ‘should/shouldn’t was presented. The trigger was to ask them to classify things presented into healthy and unhealthy things. Later, the students had to complete a quiz related to the topic, which was accompanied by a listening task. Here, an expert on the subject talked on a radio programme about healthy habits. All these activities pave the way to the presentation of the teaching point. After being divided into groups to give advice to a situation presented, the song ‘ Should I stay or should I go’ by The Clash was presented. They loved it! They still sang it the following day. For the second class the context provided to present the teaching point was sports. A competition in groups let them form as many words related to sports and equipment as they could. Some images were presented later to show different sports ranging from the most popular sports to extreme ones. After presenting the modal verb ‘must’ to explain rules, the students wrote a text about different extreme sports: Base jumping- Parkour- Zorbing – Ice climbing. The context for the last class was illnesses and symptoms. Here, the students had to identify the differences between both modal verbs presented in the previous classes. A listening activity to choose the correct answer and the completion of sentences according to what the students listened helped them infer and spot the differences between the modal verbs. The class ended with a role play in which a
patient visited the doctor. They had to use all the expressions seen during the class. What attract their attention the most was the doctor’s stethoscope they use. They had fun! I consider that the contexts that I’ve chosen for the different classes were appealing to the students. That was great because I could achieve my first goal that was to attract their attention. On the other hand, I had to deal better with timing. I could see that there were external factors such as coming late from the break that influenced on the classes. I also should have planned less activities for the lesson considering that they took longer time than I expected. Children at this age are characterized by egocentrism and there are two aspects to take into account: the imaginary audience ( they feel that everybody notices about them) and the personal fable ( children believe that their experiences are unique and felt just by them). Considering this, I tried to plan tasks in which nobody could feel exposed unless they want to. In this way, the shiest students had the chance to participate more and not felt threatened. As students at this age are into collaborative work, many of the activities presented were performed in pairs or in groups. As the strongest students were asked to work with the weakest ones, the tasks were fruitful for everybody. I have always felt more confident working with early teens rather than younger children. So this second period was less stressing but as challenging as the previous practicum period. Every student is a completely new world to discover and I believe that as a teacher we should help them develop their strengths and overcome the obstacles that may come up. All in all, after finishing this second practicum period, I could say that I feel pleased with the job done. Of course that the classes are perfectible, there are always possibilities of improvement and that is what I love about this job. It is an act of optimism. Children need support, motivation and a true purpose to learn and that is the challenge to face.
REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD -SECONDARY LEVEL The first time I met these first year students I found that they were a small group, just nine, five girls and four boys. Along my observation classes I could see that they were quite talkative and many times it was hard for the teacher to make them focus back on what they were doing. One of the boys was always interrupting the class unnecessarily. This repetitive situation made the other students get distracted. I knew that the way to go was to highlight the use of varied activities and strategies with a meaningful context according to their age and interest so as to catch their attention and avoid distractions. The teaching points to achieve in the practicum period were Present Perfect and ‘Used to’. The contexts presented ranged from sports and comedies to childhood memories. As adolescents possess a strong sense of fairness, the games and competitions in the classes were introduced with clear rules. This group was quite competitive and loved games so they seemed motivated with them. The first four classes were devoted to the presentation of Present perfect with its contrast with Past Simple. The first class’ context was sports. Throughout the class the students talked about the sports they played and liked, completed a quiz and a word search to find verbs in past participle. During the second class, adverbs to indicate frequency and time were introduced with a poem to complete. This class ended with a song by the Irish band U 2. The third class dealt with the contrast between Present Perfect and Past Simple. Here, the context was love with the presentation of romantic comedies film covers. The students seemed interested in the topic. This class gave them the opportunity to predict the topic of a text to be read and role play situations to put into practice the teaching point. The other content to be presented was ‘USED TO’. The context was appealing to them because it was about childhood memories. I showed them pictures about my own memories so they felt at ease to talk about themselves later. The class ended with a song by Daughthry, called ‘Used to’. They enjoyed it. The last class was devoted to written production. The students watched a Coke advertisement about how things used to be and how they are at present. It
triggered different topics to discuss such as transport, food, clothes, among others. Most of the class was devoted to make a padlet in pairs or individually in which they showed their productions. From the very beginning, I found out that this would be a challenging group to work with. It would be hard work to motivate them and keep it throughout the classes so I should be creative. Adolescence is a period in life characterized by physical, emotional and psychological changes. As Scales (2010) states, early adolescence is intense and unpredictable. They evaluate the limits of acceptable behaviours and defy adults’ authority. In early adolescence, children have the need to belong to a group. They may experience feelings of romance. Within this scenario, I thought about planning activities in which they could interact in pairs or small groups, providing them the opportunity to express themselves and enjoy the class by playing games. I tried to present many activities as competitions and I found out that they enjoyed them quite a lot. What did I do with the student that interrupted the class? Well… I chose him as a helper in many activities. In this way, he felt important and was busy. It worked!!. On the other hand, I should improve timing. I consider that the problem is that I become anxious at the moment of planning and then external factors do not let devote the necessary time to each activity. To sum up, I have to say that teens have always been my cup of tea. They are moody, one day they behave as children and out of the sudden they consider they are grown up. These fluctuations due to the fact that they are building their personality to become adults are really hard work. I have empathy with them and I try to negotiate with them all the time. They need to be listened and I love to be near them to help. This is my last practicum period and I have to admit that it was absolutely demanding and exhausting but I wouldn’t change it by anything else in the world! Dealing with students is dealing with the future and being part, at least for a short period of time in their life is invaluable.
triggered different topics to discuss such as transport, food, clothes, among others. Most of the class was devoted to make a padlet in pairs or individually in which they showed their productions. From the very beginning, I found out that this would be a challenging group to work with. It would be hard work to motivate them and keep it throughout the classes so I should be creative. Adolescence is a period in life characterized by physical, emotional and psychological changes. As Scales (2010) states, early adolescence is intense and unpredictable. They evaluate the limits of acceptable behaviours and defy adults’ authority. In early adolescence, children have the need to belong to a group. They may experience feelings of romance. Within this scenario, I thought about planning activities in which they could interact in pairs or small groups, providing them the opportunity to express themselves and enjoy the class by playing games. I tried to present many activities as competitions and I found out that they enjoyed them quite a lot. What did I do with the student that interrupted the class? Well… I chose him as a helper in many activities. In this way, he felt important and was busy. It worked!!. On the other hand, I should improve timing. I consider that the problem is that I become anxious at the moment of planning and then external factors do not let devote the necessary time to each activity. To sum up, I have to say that teens have always been my cup of tea. They are moody, one day they behave as children and out of the sudden they consider they are grown up. These fluctuations due to the fact that they are building their personality to become adults are really hard work. I have empathy with them and I try to negotiate with them all the time. They need to be listened and I love to be near them to help. This is my last practicum period and I have to admit that it was absolutely demanding and exhausting but I wouldn’t change it by anything else in the world! Dealing with students is dealing with the future and being part, at least for a short period of time in their life is invaluable.

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Practicum Period

  • 1. TALLER DE PRÁCTICA DOCENTE KINDERGARTEN’S REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD When I met this great an unknown group of five-year old children I was acquainted with the fact that the class did not have a starting and an ending. So the students did not realize when the class started and when it was over. After asking the teacher, she told me that they did not like to sing a ‘Hello song’ much. The situation that I could see was that some students kept on playing with their things when the class had already started. I considered that including a ‘Hello and Goodbye song’ to help students know when the class started and ended, would be a relevant aim to achieve during my practicum. The topic to develop was TOYS. During the three classes, I had to present different toys ( about three per class). I did so with different situations. Every class started by making a circle to create a comfortable atmosphere and easily make eye contact with all of them. The first class a friend of mine called Tino ( a puppet) was presented to the children. It was nice to see how enthusiastic the children seemed to be as they wanted to touch it! Tino said ‘hello’ to all of them. A colourful envelope with photos of the target toys were presented and later, on their books, they had to stick them following a listening activity with the characters from the book. The second class, real toys were presented, and the children got highly motivated when during the warm up, somebody knocked at the door and I asked some of them to see who was there. They found two boxes with toys. Everyone wanted to touch and hold them. I persuaded them to leave the toys in the boxes and that later they could hold them. In this class a story from their book was presented. In the last class envelopes with a puzzle to be solved were hidden all over the classroom. The students had to look for them and then they had to solve it. The puzzles were about the key words related to toys. Later, the children cut and paste some images related to the story read the previous class.
  • 2. I consider that the objectives, the activities and the use of resources were coherent with the pedagogical perspective. After the practicum period the student could start and end the class by singing and making a circle ( this aim was kept throughout all the classes), Then the target vocabulary related to toys could be presented and practiced. The topic itself was significant to the students, they love toys so, as a consequence they showed interest in the activities presented, even for the naughtiest ones. Students at this age are characterized by having a short attention span, so I believe that this is the first thing I should have in mind at the moment of planning. Creativity in the selection of activities ( making them move from being sat on the floor to sit on their chairs) , patience and having them doing something all the time are the key to a successful class. From this experience I learnt to be less anxious. When the students are not making eye contact with you, it does not necessarily mean that they are not paying attention. I could verify it when asking students for vocabulary recognition. In the future I would be more aware about timing. Some activities took longer time than expected. However, each class is a mystery as regards unpredictable situations of any type from starting the class later due to external factors to interruptions because children need to go to the toilet. Working with pre school students has been one of the most memorable experiences to me. Children at this age are full of energy and they are so plain and transparent that they directly can tell you that they don’t like the activities you present to them or just the opposite! I love their honesty. I feel a deep respect to them because I have always been a bit afraid of them. I am used to working with older students so making them feel at ease and motivated were my highest concerns. The teacher recognized and concluded that it was necessary to include and opening and closing activity to guide the students in which stage of the class they were. All in all, I could say that this practicum period was a moment of permanent learning to me, from the use of technology ( a completely new world to discover!), from my little students mainly and the warm bond that I could establish with the teacher.
  • 3. PRIMARY LEVEL REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD The first time I saw this seventh form group I thought it would be easy to work with them because they were just eight students. But I was wrong. From my observation classes I could see that it was a bit hard for them to sit and work straightaway. They talk among themselves and it generally took them time to open their folders or books and just do what the teacher asked them to do. Then I realized that it would be quite a job to attract their attention and make them focus on the task to do. From that moment, I devoted time to work on appealing warm up activities and meaningful contexts for each of the classes, taking into account their interests according to their ages and behaviours in class. I knew that the key would be to use variety of learning strategies and make them move from one task to another one to make them do different things. The aims for the three classes were the modal verbs ‘should/ shouldn’t- must / mustn’t and their differences. During the first class the modal verb ‘should/shouldn’t was presented. The trigger was to ask them to classify things presented into healthy and unhealthy things. Later, the students had to complete a quiz related to the topic, which was accompanied by a listening task. Here, an expert on the subject talked on a radio programme about healthy habits. All these activities pave the way to the presentation of the teaching point. After being divided into groups to give advice to a situation presented, the song ‘ Should I stay or should I go’ by The Clash was presented. They loved it! They still sang it the following day. For the second class the context provided to present the teaching point was sports. A competition in groups let them form as many words related to sports and equipment as they could. Some images were presented later to show different sports ranging from the most popular sports to extreme ones. After presenting the modal verb ‘must’ to explain rules, the students wrote a text about different extreme sports: Base jumping- Parkour- Zorbing – Ice climbing. The context for the last class was illnesses and symptoms. Here, the students had to identify the differences between both modal verbs presented in the previous classes. A listening activity to choose the correct answer and the completion of sentences according to what the students listened helped them infer and spot the differences between the modal verbs. The class ended with a role play in which a
  • 4. patient visited the doctor. They had to use all the expressions seen during the class. What attract their attention the most was the doctor’s stethoscope they use. They had fun! I consider that the contexts that I’ve chosen for the different classes were appealing to the students. That was great because I could achieve my first goal that was to attract their attention. On the other hand, I had to deal better with timing. I could see that there were external factors such as coming late from the break that influenced on the classes. I also should have planned less activities for the lesson considering that they took longer time than I expected. Children at this age are characterized by egocentrism and there are two aspects to take into account: the imaginary audience ( they feel that everybody notices about them) and the personal fable ( children believe that their experiences are unique and felt just by them). Considering this, I tried to plan tasks in which nobody could feel exposed unless they want to. In this way, the shiest students had the chance to participate more and not felt threatened. As students at this age are into collaborative work, many of the activities presented were performed in pairs or in groups. As the strongest students were asked to work with the weakest ones, the tasks were fruitful for everybody. I have always felt more confident working with early teens rather than younger children. So this second period was less stressing but as challenging as the previous practicum period. Every student is a completely new world to discover and I believe that as a teacher we should help them develop their strengths and overcome the obstacles that may come up. All in all, after finishing this second practicum period, I could say that I feel pleased with the job done. Of course that the classes are perfectible, there are always possibilities of improvement and that is what I love about this job. It is an act of optimism. Children need support, motivation and a true purpose to learn and that is the challenge to face.
  • 5. REFLECTION ABOUT PRACTICUM PERIOD -SECONDARY LEVEL The first time I met these first year students I found that they were a small group, just nine, five girls and four boys. Along my observation classes I could see that they were quite talkative and many times it was hard for the teacher to make them focus back on what they were doing. One of the boys was always interrupting the class unnecessarily. This repetitive situation made the other students get distracted. I knew that the way to go was to highlight the use of varied activities and strategies with a meaningful context according to their age and interest so as to catch their attention and avoid distractions. The teaching points to achieve in the practicum period were Present Perfect and ‘Used to’. The contexts presented ranged from sports and comedies to childhood memories. As adolescents possess a strong sense of fairness, the games and competitions in the classes were introduced with clear rules. This group was quite competitive and loved games so they seemed motivated with them. The first four classes were devoted to the presentation of Present perfect with its contrast with Past Simple. The first class’ context was sports. Throughout the class the students talked about the sports they played and liked, completed a quiz and a word search to find verbs in past participle. During the second class, adverbs to indicate frequency and time were introduced with a poem to complete. This class ended with a song by the Irish band U 2. The third class dealt with the contrast between Present Perfect and Past Simple. Here, the context was love with the presentation of romantic comedies film covers. The students seemed interested in the topic. This class gave them the opportunity to predict the topic of a text to be read and role play situations to put into practice the teaching point. The other content to be presented was ‘USED TO’. The context was appealing to them because it was about childhood memories. I showed them pictures about my own memories so they felt at ease to talk about themselves later. The class ended with a song by Daughthry, called ‘Used to’. They enjoyed it. The last class was devoted to written production. The students watched a Coke advertisement about how things used to be and how they are at present. It
  • 6. triggered different topics to discuss such as transport, food, clothes, among others. Most of the class was devoted to make a padlet in pairs or individually in which they showed their productions. From the very beginning, I found out that this would be a challenging group to work with. It would be hard work to motivate them and keep it throughout the classes so I should be creative. Adolescence is a period in life characterized by physical, emotional and psychological changes. As Scales (2010) states, early adolescence is intense and unpredictable. They evaluate the limits of acceptable behaviours and defy adults’ authority. In early adolescence, children have the need to belong to a group. They may experience feelings of romance. Within this scenario, I thought about planning activities in which they could interact in pairs or small groups, providing them the opportunity to express themselves and enjoy the class by playing games. I tried to present many activities as competitions and I found out that they enjoyed them quite a lot. What did I do with the student that interrupted the class? Well… I chose him as a helper in many activities. In this way, he felt important and was busy. It worked!!. On the other hand, I should improve timing. I consider that the problem is that I become anxious at the moment of planning and then external factors do not let devote the necessary time to each activity. To sum up, I have to say that teens have always been my cup of tea. They are moody, one day they behave as children and out of the sudden they consider they are grown up. These fluctuations due to the fact that they are building their personality to become adults are really hard work. I have empathy with them and I try to negotiate with them all the time. They need to be listened and I love to be near them to help. This is my last practicum period and I have to admit that it was absolutely demanding and exhausting but I wouldn’t change it by anything else in the world! Dealing with students is dealing with the future and being part, at least for a short period of time in their life is invaluable.
  • 7. triggered different topics to discuss such as transport, food, clothes, among others. Most of the class was devoted to make a padlet in pairs or individually in which they showed their productions. From the very beginning, I found out that this would be a challenging group to work with. It would be hard work to motivate them and keep it throughout the classes so I should be creative. Adolescence is a period in life characterized by physical, emotional and psychological changes. As Scales (2010) states, early adolescence is intense and unpredictable. They evaluate the limits of acceptable behaviours and defy adults’ authority. In early adolescence, children have the need to belong to a group. They may experience feelings of romance. Within this scenario, I thought about planning activities in which they could interact in pairs or small groups, providing them the opportunity to express themselves and enjoy the class by playing games. I tried to present many activities as competitions and I found out that they enjoyed them quite a lot. What did I do with the student that interrupted the class? Well… I chose him as a helper in many activities. In this way, he felt important and was busy. It worked!!. On the other hand, I should improve timing. I consider that the problem is that I become anxious at the moment of planning and then external factors do not let devote the necessary time to each activity. To sum up, I have to say that teens have always been my cup of tea. They are moody, one day they behave as children and out of the sudden they consider they are grown up. These fluctuations due to the fact that they are building their personality to become adults are really hard work. I have empathy with them and I try to negotiate with them all the time. They need to be listened and I love to be near them to help. This is my last practicum period and I have to admit that it was absolutely demanding and exhausting but I wouldn’t change it by anything else in the world! Dealing with students is dealing with the future and being part, at least for a short period of time in their life is invaluable.