As Gail Godwin said: “Good teaching is ¼ preparation and ¾ theatre”. I believe this is a very appropriate statement. In my short experience, I have learnt that no matter how you plan something, it is never going to go exactly the way you expected. There are sooo many factors and variables that cannot be foreseen. Nevertheless, the more you prepare, the better outcome you will get. It is essential to contemplate all kind of situations. As teachers, we are working with people, not computers, not objects, so it is important to bear in mind that we are all different and that we do not react in the same way. We must be prepared to deal with all kinds of situations and be ready to adapt ourselves to the context, change and modify things, etc. That is the “theatre” part. Pretending to be always in control even when you are not. All in all, we must learn to be flexible.

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Before starting doing my reflection, I must say that the original plan was not followed as it was expected. I carried out my Teaching Unit with some modifications such as ceding time of my classes to rehearse and practice the English songs for the Spring concert of the school.

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On the one hand, I had to adapt all classes due to considerable part of my sessions were dedicated to rehearsing the song. So, I had to change activities, forget about some others and rearrange these into a new schedule. However, I understand that this is real life and that there are some issues that cannot be foreseen and there is not anything that you can do about it, but to carry along.

On the other hand, I actually take advantage of the situation. The 6th grade’s song happened to be written in past tense with lots of different irregular verbs. As a consequence, I decided to use and include the song in my planning and work it as well. Actually, it was fantastic. It was like one activity more of my T.U.

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Project

In this Practicum V, I had to create a Teaching Unit for the English subject and of course, adapt it to the school, its context, etc. Since my school follows the text book I was given the target content that my students were supposed to learn during April. However, my mentor let me adapt it a little bit. Therefore, I decided along with my mentor to work the target content but in a different way, that is not to use the text book but to approach it differently. That is, to frame it into a project so that is contextualized and therefore, more meaningful for the students.

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This last T.U project was about life timelines, more precisely about 6th graders. Since this is their last year in the school and their last stage of Primary Education I thought that it would be nice and appropriate to carry out this project. It consisted in creating a timeline about their lives with the aim of sharing some of their most important memories. These could be personal, familiar or even in the school context. This project in particular was perfect to work on the target content, which was the past tense. Since they had to explain their lives and memories, they needed to use the past tense, so I think that it was a suitable and engaging way to accomplish my T.U objectives. Furthermore, they were very excited with the project, they love talking about themselves, about the day they got a pet or they fell off from a tree, etc. It is a really nice project for your students to know each other better or just to remember memories.

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Planning

Regarding the T.U design, I thought about doing it the most interactive and fun way possible. In my opinion, all language learning should be interactive, otherwise it is not going to be successful. Students need to practice the language, use it, think in English; and for this to happen, students must develop a positive attitude and relationship towards English. That is why, I decided to approach it this way and planned different games and group activities; with the purpose of creating moments of interaction and especially fostering oral communication among the other skills.

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When planning, what generally concerns me the most is to manage timing and to take into consideration the factor of attention to diversity. I wanted to prepare games and activities in which all students could participate and develop their skills regardless of their English level. For this matter, all activities had different inputs such as the support and use of the blackboard, some scaffolding, visual aids, groupwork, examples, heterogenous groups, sharing criteria, etc.

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Activities

In reference to the different activities and games, the ones that involved technology were their favourite ones. They are really keen on using internet and the computers even though is just to perform a drilling activity, but they just like it more because of technology. As a consequence, I decided to firstly, introduce them two new tools to work with in order to do the timeline and secondly, use technology to play some games.

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One of the relevant aspects of this Practicum V was to make use of a digital resource in the teaching unit, so I decided to introduce them two new tools: Canva and Venngage. On the one hand, these two online programs are amazing to do infographics, presentations, posters, etc. So, I thought that they would be very nice for the timeline but also for their future lives. In 6th grade they are very keen on doing school presentation with programs such as PowerPoint, Powtoon or Prezi. This why, I decided to provide them with different ones. The result was fantastic! They loved them and they found they were easy to use. Most of them use them except for some students who decided to do it in a regular poster. But the effort was excellent as well.

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On the other hand, using technology brings some problems to the class. One thing I would change would be how to manage the accounts. They use the one the school provides, but it was not right sometimes or it did not allow several users at the same time, etc. Finally, all problems were solved but we lost a considerable amount of time dealing with this. I feel, like this is an issue that I could have foreseen by testing it first with the school computers. The lesson is: Never trust technology!

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Regarding the online games, I decided to create a Kahoot for them to play. This is a tool that I have used before and the results are always just incredible. They are very motivated and engage with the activity. I use it to practice the verbs (regular and irregular), so the past tense in general, and they were very enthusiastic and loved the idea of performing an assessment activity like that. Also, the teacher did not know this program and was very excited to use it more times as well.

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With reference to the verbs (regular and irregular) content, I first though that they might find it boring, but teaching them the past tense through games was an ideal decision. Indeed, students stopped me in the corridors so that I could ask them about more irregular verbs. I just must say that they were very engaged. I decided to approach it like this because it is a content that at the end, it is about memorization, so I thought that it would be funnier to learn it through games, songs and a little bit of competition. I made entrance tickets as well for the verbs, so that they had to say the correct past form of diverse verbs in order to enter in class. I was very surprised to see this kind of participation and motivation towards learning irregular verbs. I wish I had done it like that when I had to learn them.

 

As for the other games about past tense, I can see that they were very suitable to work on that content to practice it. Games such as the story sparker, chain game, talking dices, etc. help students to consolidate a little bit the content. In this case, it was about reviewing the past tense structure and applying the correct past form of verbs. What I liked the most is the fact that these activities were oral. Students’ objective was to practice orally what they have been learning about grammar structures and I could feel what there was less pressure for them when they do it orally. Besides, they were working in pairs or groups, so they could help, listen, correct each other when needed. I think that they had a good time inventing stories, listening to their classmates’ crazy stories, etc. Framing those kinds of activities that could be very boring for them into games it is a wonderful plan to establish and develop a positive attitude towards English learning.

 

Another activity that I have thought about it a lot was the worksheet. On the one hand, I thought that it would be useful in order to consolidate the content a little bit. My idea was to make it the most interactive and oral possible, but I feared that, of course, I would not be able to be present in all of the interaction moments. In other words, if students are speaking and you are going around you cannot be present everywhere at the same time, hence this situation was not enough to assess them. I thought that with this activity I would have one evidence more regarding their learning.

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On the other hand, although I believe that this kind of activities are boring and less contextualized, I think that they are somehow necessary. You might adapt the content or the format to make it more engaging, but it is one activity more that will provide teachers with evidence of their learning progress.

Finally, I did not carry this activity out because of the re-scheduling issue, but I certainly gave it to my mentor for her to do it after my teaching unit.

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It is true that I had some doubts about it and whether I should do it or not, but I honestly think that when a teaching unit is varied and it considers different kinds of activities, this one is a very useful one with a clear purpose.

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Assessment

As for assessment, I truly believe that students have to take part in that as well. Consequently, it is relevant to share with them the objectives of the project since the very beginning. This way, they know what they are supposed to do, what are the teacher’s expectations, etc. Moreover, it is also significant to share with them the criteria that you are going to follow to assess them. What is more, it is even better to make them participate in the process of thinking about that criteria. For this reason, in the first session I decided that students (with my help and guidance) should be the ones deciding the assessment criteria. That is, they would decide on the elements of the timeline that would be assessed.

 

As a result, students were much more involved in the project and there was less space for misunderstandings between what I expected and their final productions. In addition, I also decided to share with them in the first session an example of a personal timeline, so that they could see what a timeline is and what they should create more or less. Furthermore, I did not just provide them with an example but I made my life timeline. I thought this way would be more engaging for them. The result was fantastic. They loved the project even more and they were actually keen on starting it. I also encouraged them to add some pictures of them when they were little kids or images regarding the memories they were explaining. In conclusion, exemplifying the task that they are supposed to do is very effective and useful for them to get a clearer idea of what they are expected to do and it helps to solve many doubts.

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As a matter of fact, assessment is really important to plan as well. It is a considerable and very often undervalued factor. It is key that students know that they are doing it for some reason and that everything counts. Although we as teachers, we might not always seek for a quantitative mark in each activity, the process must be valued. Therefore, I decided to take into account both the process and the final product. I believe that formative assessment is very complete, thoughtful and fair; and it really represents children’ effort and dedication in the task as well as the attitude.

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After implementing it, I can see the rightness of that decision. Establishing a criterion since the beginning help them to focus better on the task and it cleared many doubts for those who might not get everything perfectly from the beginning. They wrote it down on their agendas as well. In addition, something else I found very suitable was to carry out peer assessment. When children exhibit their productions, students filled in a rubric with the criterion presented the first day. Peer assessing is more meaningful and it gives them more feedback than just putting a mark. When children are assessed by their classmates, they listen better and the way they express themselves among them is richer for them. I believe that learning from peers is more significant.

 

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General conclusions

This practicum V has definitely been very enriching for me as a future English teacher. I have learnt a lot from my mentor and students. It is certainly difficult to teach another language and specially to motivate your students to learn it. I have seen the passion about this job and that it is possible to transmit it to your pupils. I feel a little bit more prepared for this job, which is an ongoing learning process.

This T.U implementation has had some difficulties and setbacks but I am glad to say that I have overcome any problems I had to face. I have lived the real experience of a school. Things are not going to happen as you planned, so you just have to be flexible and pretend that it is going to be okay. Kids are certainly little sponges and if they see you excited, they will be too.

 

I feel like 6th graders have really enjoyed this project about their lives, talking about important moments for them, sharing funny stories and some others that marked their lives. It has been very moving sometimes.  But I am very proud to say that I feel like I have taught them something. First of all, I have to congratulate them for their incredible effort. I generally feel like they are always trying to do their best, like if they were trying to impress me, and this is very special to me. I could not be happier.

Second of all, I would like to say that of course, there has been some moment in which they were not paying attention or they were tired, etc. Nevertheless, it is true that with the project I have seen most of them very implicated. Some of them had even finished their timelines at home the next day! They said that they were very excited about it and added some photos to it. And, they loved the tools. So, it was a success.

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Third of all, teaching the past tense was “supposed” to be boring. How to teach something that is purely memorisation and turn it into something engaging? Well, I feel like I have achieved that. Doing it through games and competitions was a fantastic idea. They were learning everyday a new verb and their past form and use it in a context and they felt it like a challenge. They were very motivated with Kahoot, the entrance tickets, the song, the story markers, etc. At the end, I could see the progress of some of them. They know a lot!

 

Finally, I also must say that I would change the first session. If I compare it with the others, it is the only one more focused on theory. Although I think that it was necessary to explain, but maybe I could have thought something to make it more active for students and less teacher-centered. In fact, I prepare a game for that session, but we did not have time to do it. This was the session in which I presented the project and then, since they had to explain past events and they would need the past tense, I started explaining the past tense. I think it was too theoretical.

 

All in all, I loved doing this practicum and putting into practice the teaching unit prepared despite of the modifications. I think it turned out wonderfully and I could see that they enjoyed a lot. They feel very proud of their creations and so do I.