THE LOWEST IS THE LEVEL, THE HARDEST MUST BE THE MOTIVATION

20th of October: IES Lluís Vives, a former primary school built during the Republic in Sants (Barcelona), is where I'll do my practicum with my colleague Anna, who is also studying the CAP. Our tutor is an experienced teacher who has been working in this centre for 15 years. She knows well her students and from the first day you can see she has a good empathy with them. As the English level is extremely different in a same class they have decided to divide all the pupils which integrate a year of ESO into three levels depending on their skills and needs. Although the tutor has assigned me a 1st year of Batxillerat class, the first meeting I had with pupils was with a group of 10 from 4th of ESO in an ICT activity. They were the ones who had the lowest English level of their year and it wasn't at all an easy group. Besides the social and cultural circumstances that might affect to all boys and girls attitude who where there, I must admit that I didn't expect quite an elementary level in 4th of ESO. The teacher had to translate once and again every little thing she said so that her pupils could follow the lesson. One of the boys didn't even unload his rucksack and stood the whole hour in front of the PC with it on. It was as if he was saying 'common, hurry up, I wanna go home'. That was a pity because he seemed to be clever. So, after one hour with them I realized that most of them were unable to concentrate on what were being taught and that they really needed lots of attention, motivation and a well-planned activity which didn't give them the chance to disconnect constantly from the lesson were doing. In that case is where you really must become a creative teacher. So, the lowest is the level, the hardest must be the motivation. That means the teacher must work hard to look for strategies that work with the children.

The bell rang and the lesson finished. Afterwards came a group of 15 from the same year but with a better level in comparison with their previous classmates I met. The first thing I noticed is that when they entered the classroom they said 'Good afternoon' to the teacher. Their concentration capacity was a little bit better, just a little bit, and even if they were more pupils the lesson was quieter and the teacher could do more work with them. Nevertheless, I must say that in the previous lesson the teacher had asked them to bring a CD they have from the text book and only two of a group of 15 brought it! So she had to improvise and change the activity. I asked myself if the same happens when homework is ordered.