Lidiando con el conductismo, Práctica Profesional...

Collaboration activities:

If I had to talk about “collaboration” activities I don’t have too much to say, because during the team teaching stage I was asked to teach. There weren’t any instance in which the teachers ask me to prepare any special material to COMPLEMENT what they were teaching or an instance in which we prepared material together. I just have to teach what they had planned and that’s it.

For example, if the teacher had a worksheet for the class, he/she asked me to teach the whole class according to what the worksheet said.

In the previous stage, I mean in the observation stage, I was asked to explain some concepts, to answer some doubts that students asked me. I also write some information, definitions, answers (worksheet), etc on the whiteboard. It was asked for the teachers any time they need.

Another important issue in that stage was that teachers do not stay with me in the classroom either. So, I teach twice for each class (7º and 3º) and I was alone in the classroom (without the guide teacher).

Well, when I was teaching the students behave very properly. They don’t realize that I was doing something that the other teacher was supposed to do. They are used to have different teachers, so fortunately they don’t get confused. Comparing with another previous experiences that I have had in other schools, I can say that students here are very respectful with teachers, no matter if they are permanent ones, or student teachers. There are not different manners between one and the other.

Lesson Planning:

Planning classes was very difficult, considering that I had just two weeks (or less) to know my students. But the first time I knew them I used a couple of minutes to ask them some relevant information that I considered useful for planning my classes. For example I asked them what her /his favourite hobby is. With that information I could have an idea about what kind of activities could be interesting for them.

Then, of course I had to give a look to the “planes y programas”. I also asked my guide teacher about what she suggested me to teach for third grade of high school, since it is the first time that I teach for that class. Moreover, remembering the names and personalities of twenty different students is a bit different. So, that’s why I asked to the other English teacher also about some important aspects of this class in terms of level of proficiency, behaviour in the English class, etc. they both give very important pieces of advice, and one of the teacher lent me his workbook (the one assigned for the “ministerio de educación”) which was really useful for me, there I could find a lot of ideas in terms of activities and in terms of outcomes also.

With 7º grade was different, because I had taught to that class before in other schools, and it is easier to know a class with eight students, I could remember their names, I had an idea about their personalities, etc. Besides, the head teacher of them is the same teacher of English, so he had provided me a lot of information about that class.

Till now, it have took me about a whole week (working long ours every day) to prepare the first didactic unit for both classes, and the two firsts classes for both classes too.