During this observation week, I did not have the opportunity to see my group teacher deliver any lessons. This was because the school was in its evaluation period, which meant no regular classes took place. However, I was able to observe and support the evaluation process, which allowed me to understand how the teacher usually works with her students.

From my observations, I noticed that the teacher's methodology does not follow a specific grammatical structure or learning sequence. Instead, students receive random worksheets, which they must complete as classwork. The class is structured around activities rather than thematic content.

At the end of each month, the teacher evaluates the students based on the number of activities they have completed. Typically, students need to finish between eight and twelve activities to receive full credit for the month. If students fail to meet this requirement, they are given the opportunity to submit their notebooks from scratch, completing all the missing activities.

To make up for incomplete work, students are required to translate various texts. These translations may include:

• Poems

• Songs

• Excerpts from their free textbook

In these cases, students translate the provided texts from English to Spanish. Other activities, such as tongue twisters or short passages, are also translated as part of their recovery tasks.

During this class, my mentor teacher asked me to stay with half of the group while she worked with the other half. This allowed me to interact with some of the students and get to know them better.

I decided to conduct a brief oral diagnostic activity to understand their interest in learning English and their thoughts on its importance.

Key Findings from the Diagnostic Activity:

• Most of the students I spoke with expressed an interest in learning English.

• They considered English important for various reasons, such as:

  • Improving their future job opportunities

  • Facilitating travel

  • Gaining access to more knowledge

Additionally, several students shared their thoughts on how they would like their English classes to be improved:

• They mentioned that they would prefer their teacher to speak more English during class.

• They suggested that the teacher should include more interactive and dynamic activities to make learning more engaging.

• They also requested that the teacher spend more time explaining topics before giving them activities, as they felt this would help them understand the content better.

Lastly, most students admitted that they feel nervous when participating in English. They mentioned that their main concern is the fear of making mistakes when speaking.

2nd A - First Session

In this class, we followed the same dynamic that my group teacher requested: I worked with the group while she reviewed the students' notebooks.

For this session, I had prepared material to work with the students. First, I conducted two diagnostic activities:

1. A written English diagnostic focused on grammar, vocabulary, and a short reading comprehension exercise.

2. A personal diagnostic that asked students about their interests in English, as well as the issues they observed in their community, school, and home. They were also asked to express how they felt about those problems and suggest possible solutions.

Before this session, my mentor teacher had informed me about three negative leaders in the group. However, I discovered that there were actually seven students who were particularly disruptive. These students constantly shouted, moved around the classroom, and showed disrespect. Although the school counselor had previously changed their seats to keep them apart, one student near the door kept leaving the classroom frequently, which made it very difficult for me to manage the rest of the group.

To manage these students, I improvised and gave them a reading text, instructing them to transcribe it, a common task their teacher often assigns. Unfortunately, this strategy only worked for one student, and I am still reflecting on alternative strategies to handle these situations effectively.

With the rest of the group, I was able to complete both diagnostic activities without any issues. We then reviewed the answers from the English diagnostic and started a new topic: clothes. I introduced 10 vocabulary words related to clothing items and taught them how to describe what someone is wearing using the verb "wear". This concluded the first session with this group.

1st D

With this group, I had already conducted an oral diagnostic previously. On this day, I had the opportunity to apply the same written diagnostic that I had prepared for 2nd A, which included both an English section and a section about social issues, personal interests, and their thoughts on English.

After completing the written diagnostic, we shared some answers aloud and reviewed the English diagnostic together.

2nd A - Second Session

In the second session with 2nd A, we continued with the vocabulary on clothing. We started by reviewing the 10 clothing words learned earlier. Then, we played a matching game where students had to connect clothing item images with their corresponding English words and meanings.

Following this, I introduced the verb "wear" and taught them how to say, "I am wearing [a clothing item]". Using the vocabulary from earlier, students practiced describing what someone around them was wearing.

To end the day, I guided the students in forming two lines, one for boys and one for girls, as they exited the classroom.

This concluded my second day of observation.

However, I was unable to carry out my planned lesson because the library department was in charge of an activity related to poetry. During this session, the librarian introduced the students to different types of poems and presented different examples. Afterward, the students were asked to write their own poem.

Since this poem was part of their English class evaluation, the activity took place during our scheduled English period.

For the rest of the day, I supported my classmate Rosa and my group teacher by helping them grade assignments from other subjects.

This experience reinforced my earlier observations about my mentor teacher’s methodology. Her teaching approach relies heavily on random activities that are counted and averaged using a three-rule system to calculate the students' monthly grade, which is then added to their final score.

Instead, I continued supporting my group teacher and my classmate Rosa by helping them count the number of completed assignments for each student. I also assisted in applying the three-rule system that my group teacher uses to calculate the students' grades. This process aimed to simplify her workload, allowing her to focus on recording the final average for the three months — January, February, and March — along with the corresponding activities completed during that period.

2nd A

The first class after the break was with 2nd A.

We started by reviewing the previous topic: the structure "I am wearing...". Each student wrote an example sentence in their notebooks, and some of them volunteered to share their examples aloud.

After that, we moved on to a new topic. I began with a brief verb review to assess how much they remembered about the present simple tense and the rules for third person verbs. Unfortunately, only a few students remembered the rule about adding -s to verbs when using the third person singular (he, she, it).

Since this was a common challenge, I explained the rule again and provided a set of verbs for practice. The students had to transform the verbs according to the correct present simple rules.

1st D

The last class of the day was with 1st D, where I carried out the same activity I had done with 2nd A.

However, I confirmed that final-period classes are more challenging to manage. While I had been able to work effectively with this group in previous sessions, this time the students seemed restless and eager to leave. Their attention span was noticeably shorter, but despite this, we managed to complete some practice exercises.

With 1st D, I had to spend extra time explaining the rule about adding -s to verbs in the third person singular, as they found it more difficult to grasp.