ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICE

OBSERVATION STAGE

Task 1: The School and Learning Environment

Name of student: Karina Andrea Campino Muñoz

Name of School: Escuela Naciones Unidas

Number of students: 30 (5th) – 32 (8th)

Date: September 8th, 2010 Class: 8º C / 5º A

Briefly describe the following aspects:

1. The school:

The school is located in Pasaje nº 7, s/n. 4to sector, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso. The
number of students in this school is 524 approximately.

Visión:
La Escuela Naciones Unidas, Establecimiento de Educación General Básica del
sector de Playa Ancha, pretende consolidarse como una escuela destacada por
sus logros académicos y su sólida formación valórica, desarrollando en sus
integrantes lazos con la Institución y su entorno inmediato, contando con una
comunidad educativa comprometida y participativa, que entrega a sus alumnos y
alumnas las herramientas que les permiten optar a la mejor propuesta educativa
de Enseñanza Media.
Misión:
La Escuela Naciones Unidas tiene como Misión mejorar año tras año el nivel de
logros académicos, brindando una permanente formación valórica, desarrollando
en los alumnos y alumnas el arraigo por su unidad educativa y la comunidad de
Playa Ancha.
Organization Chart
2. The classroom

There are about 35 students per class in this school, so the classrooms are spacious and
comfortable. All the classrooms have 3 or 4 windows and most of the time there is no
need to turn on the light.
In the classrooms, seating are organized in groups of four or, in the case of 6th, 7th and 8th
grade classrooms, they are in pairs.
There is one whiteboard and four bulletin boards per classroom. Every classroom counts
with a special piece of furniture located at the end of the classroom in which students
keep their books.
In general, the classrooms are nice, because the students are obliged to keep them clean
and tidy, the seating in good conditions and keep the bulletin boards organized.

3. The activities & resources

a) The activities used in 5th grade are the ones that appear in the book and
complementary activities like games and worksheets.
Most of the students are hard-working, organized and inquisitive and the teacher is
always answering their questions, teaching new vocabulary, explaining the contents and
most of the time she gives some examples in order to facilitate student’s comprehension.

In 8th grade, every session the teacher gives the students a short text that they have to
read, extract new vocabulary, answer some questions and translate.
Students seem to be bored and they usually do anything else. There are 3 or 4 students
that are interested in, the rest of the class is always talking and they do not pay attention
to the teacher, who sometimes prefers not to worry about them.

b) There are many materials and resources that can be used within the school, a computer
laboratory, radio, data, etc., but in both cases, 5th and 8th, the teachers use just the basic
things like worksheets and text books.

Task 2: Student´s learning

In this second observation task, you should focus on the things that help to create
conditions for effective learning and on the aspects that play a part in preventing
learning.

1. The learners
In the case of 5th grade students, they seem to be motivated, just because the
teacher changes the way she teaches, she tries to do different activities and catch
the attention of her students. This is not the case of the students of 8th grade, they
are not very interested in the English class because they get bored doing the same
 thing all the time, it is something monotonous for them, and when the teacher ask
them to do any activity, they always do almost nothing and because they know
that the teacher is going to give the answer at the end of the class.

2. Behaviour during classroom activities

The teacher of 5th grade is always trying to motivate her students, they ask them to
participate in some activities and they do it. It can be possible to say that her
strategy is let the students work in groups and create different kind of activities.
In the other hand, 8th grade students are not motivated at all because they have
other interests; they do not want to read all the time maybe the teacher needs to
adapt to her students’ interests.
In this class, there are two students that are less motivated than the rest of the
class, their names are Maykoll Villaseca and Sebastian Fleming, they not only do
not pay attention to the teacher but also they do not respect her, because they
leave the classroom when they want and are always trying to distracts their
classmates.

3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in the classroom.

In both cases, 8th and 5th year, students have different learning styles, some
students are more inquisitive than others or there are some students that prefer
learning by their own or asking their classmates without the help of the teacher,
there are students that really likes reading tasks, others that prefer not to read and
so on.
The levels of English in the classroom of 8th grade are different, because there are
4 or 5 students that like English, they enjoy learning, they pay attention and
understand what the teacher teaches, and obviously they have a better level of
English than their classmates.
Students of 5th grade are a most homogeneous group; the English knowledge of
one student is similar to what his or her classmate knows about English.

Note: If you want to clarify what it is requested in this task, read “Steps to Writing an Observation
Paper” by Nick Pell.

IVV/RGS
2010

TEAM TEACHING STAGE

Name of student: Karina Andrea Campino Muñoz
Name of School: Escuela Naciones Unidas
Date: September 8th, 2010.

Task Nº1: Collaboration activities

For the following questions describe as accurately as you can how you have collaborated in school
assigned:

1. What kind of activity did you perform the first time you were asked for help? How long
did it take?
I was asked to create a worksheet about the family members; it had to be focused on
vocabulary. I include a word searching puzzle and some exercises. I explain students how to do
it and they took about 20 minutes to complete the worksheet.

2. What were the students doing before you started helping out?
Most of the students were talking; there were other students that were paying attention to
the class.

3. How did the students react? Describe the atmosphere of the room and the levels of
engagement in the room.
When I started to talk in front of the students, they immediately stopped their conversations
and paid attention, because the first time I went to the school, teacher told them that I was
going to teach them and for that reason from the beginning students were expectant. Then
when they started to work most of the students seemed to be nervous, maybe they felt under
pressure because there were two teachers watching them and the way they were working.
I tried to walk through the room and ask if anybody had questions to make them feel in
confidence.

4. What other assignments were asked you to do? How often?

I was ask to create some others worksheets and activities (games or something to end the
class), read two texts in front of the class, correct tests and answer student’s questions when
they needed.
Every class both teachers gave me about 20 minutes to do a particular activity.

5. Were you asked to prepare any kind of special audio visual material learning material
for the students? Were they used? How effective were they?
I was asked to record six questions that teacher wrote, it was about a lecture that students
had made but we could not use it because it didn’t work, the computer that we were going to
use did not recognize the file.

Task 2: Lesson Planning

Answer the following questions and explain how you planned the learning activities for your
students. Be as precise as you can.

1. How did you get the information for planning the lessons for your students?
I get the information from the internet, some English books that I have in my home, the
students’ book and I also borrowed a good student notebook to see what they had already
learned, what had to be the next step and the way that could be the best to improve students’
learning.

2. Did your guide teacher give you any suggestions for planning?
One of the teachers told me that she does not plan the sessions and gave me freedom to do it.
The other teacher helped me to select some material and the organization of the time.
I showed them my planning and they correct some details.

3. How long did it take to you to prepare learning material for your first lesson?
It takes me about 3 hours to create my planning but I spend more time asking my guide
teacher for more information and some feedback.

IVV/RGS
2010