ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICE

OBSERVATION STAGE

Task 1: The School and Learning Environment

Name of student: Leonor Tulleres Cabrera

Name of School: Joaquín Edwards Bello

Number of students: 37

Date: May 12th 2010 Class: English, 6th grade.

Briefly describe the following aspects:

1. The school:

The school is pretty big. It is located in Rodelillo and it is a

State School; most children who go there are in social risk, and
came from vulnerable homes. Teachers say to be responsible of
children’s knowledge, because there is no interest of this at
their homes. They have to deal with a lot of problems; students
do not pay enough attention to classes, the attendance is not
good, and they show disrespect to the teachers. Despite all of
this, the school is worried about children and all of the personal,
including the principal, the teachers and the teaching
assistants. All of they are always controlling tense situations,
for example, children’s suspensions, which is a common way to
put order when there is much disorder.

2. The classroom

The class where I am in is only for boys. Boys and girls are in
separated rooms, according to each grade, in order to have
more discipline. Students are sitting looking to the front, in
pairs.
In the classroom is one whiteboard, about 20 desks (one for the
teacher) and a bookcase.
There is enough light to work, but sometimes the air is dense
because children tend to be restless.
Children are not always paying attention to the teacher.
Sometimes they start to fight, yell, and throwing things to each
other. The teacher needs to be always calling their attention
and even yelling them in order to teach the subjects. The
students do not understand at the first time, so they sometimes
ask me for help. Depending on how much they know about the
subjects, they will pay attention.

3. The activities & resources

The activity I observed was during the English class. The

teacher taught them about “professions and activities”. The
way she used to teach this was the traditional model based on
memorization and repetition. She used the English books to
support her class. Students did the activities they were asked to
do, but while they were working were also talking, yelling and
singing. By the end of the class, the teacher asks the children to
do an activity of the book which was kind of a review. Students
did most of it well. After that, they went home, because it was
the last class of the day.

The resources used in the school are mainly based on texts. In

the English class, for example, the teacher uses the book and
also use it the students. They are texts gave by the government,
so they are free cost for the students. The books are kept in the
classroom and children are not aloud to take them off.

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

Students are not much motivated. They say to dislike the

English class. The teacher does her best in order to get
children’s attention. There is a point of the class where students
take care of the subjects and try to do some exercises, but there
are some children who do not anything at all.

2. Behaviour during classroom activities

 Most of the children do not care about the subjects. They are
just waiting the time for going home. The teacher talks to them
about knowing new things and a future life of studies and work.
There are some children who like the idea of being someone else
in the future and try to understand the class, but there are
others that do not expect any different situation from the have
had at home. The teacher is worried about this kind of children
and she said to have tried talking to their parents, but “they not
always listen to me”, she said. The teacher try to help them the
most, teaching them values and make them work in groups in
order to teach them how to be more tolerant and hopeful about
the future.

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

classroom.

The class in general has a middle level of English. Children

know the basic subjects about it. There are some students who
know a bit more or a bit less. Some children like the traditional
way of learning, by memorization and repetition, doing the less
effort. On the other hand, there are students who like to
participate more and discuss, following, even without knowing
it, the constructivist model of learning. The results of the test
show that the students have an acceptable level of English for
their ages (from 11 to 14).
Leonor Tulleres Cabrera
16.540.115-8