Journal I

APPENDIX 3: POST OBSERVATION STUDENT

TEACHER’S SELF-EVALUATION FORM (Journal)

 

Name: _Astrid Yarleth Trujillo Urriago____ Date: _Monday, April 1, 2019 to Friday, April 5, 2019_

Write a reflection about the classes you oriented this week (bear in mind the following aspects: what you planned, what you did, and what you would do differently if you were to teach your lessons again). Give examples and descriptions of those situations that, in your view, are relevant to your learning experience.

           

First Week: Observation

In the first week of my practicum, I carried out the observations of the three groups I am in charge of teaching. It was impossible for me to do this process the first week of the semester since the Interlingua groups were still a little messy. The first group I observed is an English level II, which students are from the Education Faculty, more specifically from the BA Natural Sciences Education Program. I could observe this class in two occasions. The first time, the teacher told students about what book they were going to be working on, they made a short presentation about themselves, and they worked in groups in order to carry out an activity, which final product was a short role-play. I could identify that this group is tidy and quiet, which means it will not represent major problems about the group management. The students from this group seem to understand the target language most of the time since the teacher always speaks in English. However, students seem to have some problems in terms of the pronunciation, vocabulary, and the tense they are using to communicate. The second time I observed this group, I could notice it takes students a lot of time to complete the tasks they are asked to do since they do not understand what they have been asked to carry out; then, students have to ask their classmates in order to achieve the goals. In addition, they seem to forget some basic aspects about the target language such as how to tell the time or which possessive adjective use with the pronouns. Students from this group tend to be a little distracted. They are interested in having a good pronunciation so they asked many questions about how to pronounce a word. Since this is a homogeneous group, I think it will be interesting to implement my innovation plan with these students and because they seem to enjoy activities that means doing things different from the traditional ones.

            The second group I will be working with is also a lever II. This is a heterogeneous and large group, which means it may be difficult to manage. Students expressed they would like to develop the course through the implementation of different activities such as worksheets, dynamic activities, conversations, and vocabulary exercises. They also said they feel their English level is too low. From this class, only some of the students participate and most of the students do not follow the instructions given. Some students are very talkative and noisy, besides they are most of the time using their cellphones. At the beginning, they seemed to be a little confused about the verb “be”, but after some examples and explanations, they remembered about it and it turned out they do know the structures for present simple. However, when they are referring to the third person, they do not use the verb in the correct form. The teacher uses some motivation strategies such giving extra points to the students who participate in class and they like it. They lack of vocabulary and need to be provided with many clarifications for them to understand. Furthermore, students from this group do not like activities in which they have to work on their own. They like to move from their places and make communicative activities. These students also ask many questions.

            Finally, the last group I observed was English level I. Most of the students from this group seem to have good command of the target language. However, they are very noisy and talkative. There are some moments in which students are focused on what the teacher is saying and they like to participate when the activities are about something that is different in their perception. This is not a very large group, but the classroom is a little small for them to feel comfortable and for the development of the class implementing some activities that require movement. The majority of these students are from the BA Natural Sciences Education Program. Sometimes it is difficult to get students’ attention since they are noisy and messy. The implementation of good classroom management activities and strategies will be necessary for working with this group. It is important to keep students busy since after some time working in the same exercise, students get messy and noisy again.

            To sum up, I could observe that for making a successful job with these three groups, many interactive and dynamic activities will be necessary. It will be easier to work with the smallest groups. Students like activities that mean doing something different to what is usually done, but because of these activities, they also get messy. For the groups, which are level II, I will have to give them more time in the completion of the activities since they seem to work at a very slow pace. Finally, with the level I, I will have to implement activities that involve working in groups or at least in pairs and control the time carefully in order to avoid chaos.