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Colegio Santo Tomás - Santa Rosa, La Pampa

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Colegio Santo Tomás - Santa Rosa, La Pampa

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The first and only two - shifts school in Santa Rosa that offers an intensive English programme from Kindergarten to Secundary school.

I'm grateful for having the opportunity to do the practicum at this institution.

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Before the first class observation, I met with the kindergarten teacher of English, Miss Sofia. She teaches in two 5 -year-old children groups but she chose the children in the blue room for this experience as she considered they'll feel more ease at being with a new teacher, so they'll be more eager to participate in class.

I arrived fifteeen minutes before the one-hour class began and I was told to wait because Miss Sofi was still teaching. I felt quite anxious to begin with this experience and fortunately, the substitute coordinator who greeted me was really nice and comforting.

When the class began, Miss Sofi introduced me to the 26 children. At this first observation, I focused on the lesson structure and the classroom strategies, time management. Miss Sofi opened the lesson by singing the "hello song", the weather routine, with Mr Weatherbird puppet and its song, and the designated child as"helper" counting how many girls and boy were present that day. The opening of the lesson took 20 minutes. Then, the lesson developed with the presentation of vocabulary related to animals using flashcards. They children repeated the animals' names and answered questions about their colours, if they have eyes, legs, tail, and if they are big or small. Then, they did a listening activity in their course book, Super Minds Starter in which they had to listen and point at the correct animal. The developing of the lesson took 39 minutes. Finally, the lesson ended when the teacher and the children sang and mimed "the good bye song" for a minute.

I've been teaching English for the last 15 years at Primary and Secondary school. This was the first time I experienced an English lesson for 5-year-old children, I thought on the quotation from Julius Veal, "step outside of your comfort zone and go beyond the boundaries that you and others have set for yourself."

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In this class, I focused on what links and transitions between activities Ms Sofi uses to structure the lesson, as well as on which teaching strategies organized the practice.

Ms Sofi says this transition comment: "Are you ready to say hello?" to link the hello song with the previuos activity in which the children shared events from their daily lives.

Then, in order to link the "hello song" with the weather routine, Ms Sofi introduces the mistery box with a song that says: "Mistery box, mistery box, what's inside the mistery box? for Mr Weatherbird to appear. Once the helper is designated and they wear the weather puppet on their wrist, Ms Sofi links these moments with another song: Mr Weatherbird, Mr Weatherbird, what's the weather like?, what's the weather like?, what's the weather like today? what it is? and the child look out the window and see outiside. Then, she shows flashcards with different weather conditions while she's asking them: Is it hot/rainy/cold/windy? for the children to repeat, mime choose and answer: no, it isn't / yes, it is. She also aks about the colour of the flashcards for the children to say it and repeat each colour three times. Then, she asks: Can you count the boys? Then, can you count the girls? As all the boys were present, she used the transition comment: "All the boys are here. Clap for the boys"

As a link comment between activities for practice, she uses direct speech and said: "Now we sit like in a cinema, cinema, cinema" while she's clapping her hands. The children knew the drill and did it immediately. Then, they revised the new vocabulary about animals learnt the class before.

Then, she linked the activities by asking the children to sit in a big circle and gives out flashcards of animals. Then, they play a game where Ms Sofi claps while the children pass around the flascards until she stops clapping.The child who's got a flaschcard must say the name of the animal in the picture.

Another activity to practise involves setting all the flashcards on the floor but one, which is hidden in a classmate's hoodie or under their legs, for another child who waits outside the classroom to come in and guess which animal flashcard is missing and who's got it.

When she wants the children to pay attention, she says the transition comment: "Attention, concentration" or "1,2,3"

Ms Sofi proposes different oral acitivities that involve repetition for the revision of the new vocabulary. First, a whole class activities where all the children listen and repeat, then a pair activity where some children are involved and finally an individual activity, where one child at the time participates. These revision games last throughout the whole class.

I've previously thought that I should include a written activity in each class. However, it was very helpful to observe that for Ms Sofi is not always necessary.

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I had the opportunity to observe the children troughout the whole afternoon, from 1:15 to 4:40 p.m. However, the school day began with a contingency The janitor was absent and there wasn't any extra keys to open the classrooms. Therefore, we had to stay in the playground until Miss Sofi went home and get the keys needed. This incident aroused a sense of a discomfort and unease in the teachers who told me that they had been left alone since the cordinator was in health leave since April.

The English class began at 2:15 p.m. with the weather routine as usual. I focused on the types of activities proposed. The first minutes were a whole-class activity and the children sitting down in a circle, talking about events from their daily life. The did this in L1 but Ms Sofi encouranges them to use L2 when they knew the vocabulary, for instance:

Emi: Hoy me voy a la casa de mi grandma

Another example:

Luchito: Hoy fui a la casa de mi abuela

Miss Sofi: epa, epa...

Juani: mi grandma a comer guiso

I noticed Ms Sofi says the phrase "epa" for the children to correct themselves and to say the appropriate word in English.

Then, the group activity focused in the revision of all the animals learnt. She revised the rules for the children to follow: "When you see the lion, you say snap" She shows different flashcards of animals until they children see the correct one and say snap. Another group activity was that the children must stand up for "yes, it is" or sit down for "no, it isn't" when they see the flashcard of the animals Ms Sofi's mentioned before.

After that, an individual activity was proposed. Ms Sofi set eight flaschards of animals on the floor to play memory game. She designated a child to come and find the correct pair while she was asking: What animal is that? Are the two animals the same? yes, they are / no, they're different. If the flashcards match, the child keeps them.

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Ms. Sofi told me she had recorded a video about Eric Carle book, "From head to toe" with the last year's group. I offered to help her record a similar video with the children this year. She was thrilled about it. So, I prepared headbands with picture of the different animals for the children to wear while they were performing the animal's body movements. Before recording, Ms Sofi read the story again, leaving some phrases out, such as: "Can you do it? for the children to answer: "I can do (it)" Then, we gave the children the headbands (they weren't big enough for them to wear, so they held it) and then we recorded the children performing the actions. Ms Sofia didn't know ow to edit the video so I offered to do it. In our next meeting to plan the practicum classes, I explained her how to edit videos on Canva. She was fascinated by the app, so we agreed that I would began editing and she would finish the videos for her to practise how to do it. This is te video.

P.S. we've got parent's consent to show the children's faces.

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Ms. Sofi asked me to prepare a game for my first assistanship class. They were working with the unit fom the book about different animals vocabulary, so we played with a big die where I place different flashcards of animals for them to roll and say the name of the animal. They loved it! We also reviewed colours and different parts of the animal's body as they have already learnt those topics in previous lessons.

The teaching strategy I used was a game that engages the children to be active participants to develop their language skills in the target language as well as their motor and visual skills as they had to roll the die in the air, let it fall and to see what flashcard is to say the correct name of the animal.

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Ms. Sofi told me she had recorded a video about Eric Carle book, "From head to toe" with the last year's group. I offered to help her record a similar video with the children this year. She was thrilled about it. So, I prepared headbands with picture of the different animals for the children to wear while they were performing the animal's body movements. Before recording, Ms Sofi read the story again, leaving some phrases out, such as: "Can you do it? for the children to answer: "I can do (it)" Then, we gave the children the headbands (they weren't big enough for them to wear, so they held it) and then we recorded the children performing the actions. Ms Sofia didn't know ow to edit the video so I offered to do it. In our next meeting to plan the practicum classes, I explained her how to edit videos on Canva. She was fascinated by the app, so we agreed that I would began editing and she would finish the videos for her to practise how to do it. This is te video.

P.S. we've got parent's consent to show the children's faces.

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For this class, Ms Sofi asked me to prepare another game as it has been such a successful learning experience, so we played the " swatter game". I recycled the head bands used to record the video and I placed them on the floor. Then, two children at the same time had to swat the correct flashcard of the animal I mentioned in the phrase: "I like ...(the parrot) They have been using this grammatical structure and I will use it for the lesson that I'm going to teach. I consider that this moment was important for the children as we were able to bond when playing together. They were eager to participate and to show how much they know. At the end of the class, they thanked me and hugged me saying goodbye. It was also a sahred learnign experience where I was able to praise their work and give them feedback about their learning outcome. At the the same time, by playing this game I could assess how much they have learnt.

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In this lesson, I felt quite nervous not only for teaching K5 children for the first time in my life but also for being observed for a collegue who I work with at Primary school. She's an expertise teacher as she's been teaching in K5 for the last 10 years. I really admire how well she manages a class of 26 5-year-old children teaching them English for an hour. Even though I prepared and brought al the material required for the lesson, studied the songs, revised the script for each transition and the narrative that will link each activity, at the moment of doing them I found it quite challenging to respect the script without adding some phrase or changing it. To make things worse, I mistook the day of the week when doing the routine. It was a confusing moment for them and for me as well. Even though I managed to make a funny remark and the lesson moved smoothly, I felt responsible for this awkward moment

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In this second practicum class, the children were very enthusiastic about me teaching them again. They really enjoyed the activities and working with the new material. Even though I felt that the lesson didn't go as smooth and quiet than when Ms Sofi teaches them, most of them were quite engaged and eager to participate when being called. The learning aims were a bit more complex than what they were used to because this time they had to name the flashcard of food as well as the phrase: "I like...(cookies) or I don't like ..(tomatoes)

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Unfortunately, I couldn't deliver this class as I had to pospone it because members of the Educational board from La Pampa were observing the different classes in kindergarten at Santo Tomas school . As it was required, I had sent the lesson plan for this class beforehand to my tutor and to Ms Sofi but I wasn't able to deliver the class so Ms Sofi took over and did the lesson according to the planning.

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Nemesio, Moira Practicum class 3  August 16th-P with comments

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Due to the events on 14th, I had to plan a new class. It was quite stressful as I worked against the clock to have the lesson plan and the materials ready and accepted by my tutor in two days time.

I think the sit down/ stand up game didn't work as well as I had planned. The children could follow the instruction to stand up for the "I like..(cookies)" but they couldn't sit down for the "I don't like ...(tomatoes), so the activity became messy and confused as the children remained standying. When I realizad about this, I kept doing "I like... (carrots)" phrases for them to repeat in chorus while I was showing them the correct flashcard of carrots and the happy face for "I like". I believe that I was not able to scaffold the activity well enough for them to perform it appropriately. I would improve the activity by changing the actions: standing up for "I like", clapping for "Idon't like"

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At the end of the previous lesson, I introduced the story Pete's big lunch" by James Dean. So, I retell the story one more time using the same picture book used before, asking questions for the children to answer about the pictures and leaving some words out for them to complete if rememeberd. I considered this was an important moment as it was pretty amazing to hear how many words they knew, how well they remembered the story and how actively engaged they were at this moment.

Ms Sofi had read Eric Carle's From head to toe story. It was a great opprtunity to see her doing it as I could model her teaching strategy, so I believed it would be a perfect teaching strategy to include a story related to the topic of food in my next lesson plan.

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Farewell presents for the children and the teachers

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Farewell presents for the children and the teachers

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I prepared a treat to give to the children in my last class . As they have "merienda" before going home, I left the cupcakes with the Spanish teachers for them to give Pete's the cat souvenir.

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Ms. Sofi told me she had recorded a video about Eric Carle book, "From head to toe" with the last year's group. I offered to help her record a similar video with the children this year. She was thrilled about it. So, I prepared headbands with picture of the different animals for the children to wear while they were performing the animal's body movements. Before recording, Ms Sofi read the story again, leaving some phrases out, such as: "Can you do it? for the children to answer: "I can do (it)" Then, we gave the children the headbands (they weren't big enough for them to wear, so they held it) and then we recorded the children performing the actions. Ms Sofia didn't know ow to edit the video so I offered to do it. In our next meeting to plan the practicum classes, I explained her how to edit videos on Canva. She was fascinated by the app, so we agreed that I would began editing and she would finish the videos for her to practise how to do it. This is te video.

P.S. we've got parent's consent to show the children's faces.