Observation Stage
OBSERVATION
A) Pedagogical event nº1:
It is the first day in my practicum. I enter to the classroom, the teacher (my guide teacher) introduces me to the students, I say hello to them, tell some information about me and the class starts...
I'm looking around, seeing the students' faces. Suddenly I realize that there is a student who uses deaf- aids, and something calls my attention...the teacher is talking and talking as there aren't any "special" students in the classroom. The teacher explains the contents, moving her mouth while talking very quickly, and the deaf student look at her, with a question mark in her face all the time. She doesn't understand what the teacher is talking about.....
In that moment I say to myself "I know that face, it's the very same as my sister's. All deaf people have that face....
The teacher continues talking and asks the deaf girl to read a piece of paragraph from a handout that she has given to the students. The rest of the class is in silence, the girl starts reading with difficulty, because most of the words are unknown for her (can you image how she feels?., I look at the teacher’s face…she is looking at the deaf girl with an expression in her face as feeling bored. The teacher insists on correcting every single word after the girl reads them…That’s uncomfortable. And suddenly the teacher says “ok, who else? You! Please read the next one…” or something like this, with a really contemptuous tone. It’s seems to be that she felt annoyed because the girl takes too long to read a short paragraph…
B) Reflexion nº1:
It was inevitable to think about Catalina’s face every time, because it made me recalls my sister’s face (she is deaf too) when she doesn’t understand something. It is typical in deaf people.
After that day I thought “hey, it is a sign! Catalina needs especial attention and a different teaching style and I’m here to give it to her!” Surely I can help her a lot; I’m going to make a great contribution.
To my surprise, a couple of days after that issue, my guide teacher told me that she has a deaf child so she really understands how Catalina feels…In that moment I said (to myself) “are you kidding me? You just behaved as you don’t have any idea how to deal with deaf children!”
I really couldn’t understand how a person who is a teacher and who is a mother too behave like this. That’s completely absurd. I felt deeply sad. I felt angry.
From that day I set out to help Catalina to keep away that question mark from her face. My purpose would be not only helping her to learn English but also helping her to feel integrated in the class group. I took it as a MUST. No matter how long it would takes me, no matter if the teachers get annoyed with me because of taking too long to explain contents. But my premise was, is and will be to help students to feel happy and to be better people through English, and not expecting to have human- dictionaries.
Sad! How did you interact with the guide teacher during all your student teaching practice after that?? I´d like to know.