Yes, the CAP is mostly over and I have already finished my practicum in IES Lluís Vives. Now I think I will go to bed better because while I've been implementing the unit every day and night I couldn't avoid thinking on the activities I planned. Depending on how the things were going the day before I changed some contents or I designed new tasks. That's why I think that every single day I worked with the students on this unit was different. I planned plenty of activities and I must admit that most of them had nothing to be with their original conception when they became real. That’s the challenge, I guess. You can design a nice task and spend hours and hours on it and afterwards fail, whereas you can do an activity which didn’t take much of your time and then succeed.
While I was designing this unit I was convinced that only with the participation of my pupils I could achieve some of my objectives. I was in front of a group with a low level of English and partly unmotivated or pessimistic teenagers. I needed to engage them in this project from the beginning and at the end of the first day I thought I could achieve it. The first session, with an advertisement about the need to learn English, a Power Point with a crime scene, some pictures about forensic material and a trailer of ‘Rear Window’, was successful. The interaction student-teacher was fluent and I didn’t have to stress on motivation because they asked and answered without any need to push them. The day after things became more complicated. Now it was their turn to speak. I asked them to summarize in groups of two a text about a specific forensic laboratory and then they had to come in front of the class and explain it to their classmates. In that case I realised they weren’t used to talk aloud and they didn’t like that pressure. The last day some pupils confirmed the impression I got in the questionnaire. Some of them didn’t really enjoy the activity and they felt uncomfortable to speak to an audience. The fact that some of them had such a low level of spoken English turned the activity a little bit slow and tiring for some of the students, which it was a pity because the content was quite interesting. That day I realised I was being too demanding for their taste. Nevertheless, I believe that if we had done the same activity with a Power Point support it would had been different because they wouldn’t have felt so lost and probably the task would have worked better. I decided then to change from task, and as I had 10 minutes left, I decided to start a discussion about Death Penalty. Here the subject attired everybody’s attention. I was glad, we were speaking, interacting, listening and working towards the basic competences.
Apart from improving their oral speech one of my main objectives was to reach their motivation. Did I achieve it? Now I think that sometimes they really enjoyed the class but in some cases they didn’t. It’s really difficult to maintain the motivation in the class and not losing it. But, with no doubt, what I really found most difficult is to generate motivation while teaching grammar. I tried several strategies and I haven’t been teaching long enough to say that I’ve found the clue. I was asked to teach them ‘Modals’ and I assumed they already knew that topic. The problem was they didn’t remember anything and they were listening to me as if everything was new for them. That made me delay the tasks I planned and discard some of them, some nice one I’m sure they would have enjoyed. Now, if I had to implement that unit again I would first check what do they know about modals and then design the activities. It would be like a ‘coming from’ and ‘going to’ previous task necessary to implement a successful six hours unit.
Little by little they got used to my teaching and I think we reached a good climate. My students had always had a good behaviour in class and they were respectful towards me. If the bell rang they waited we finished the task and they never had a bad answer to me. I really enjoyed my time with them. One of my great satisfactions arrived the fifth day when a boy who never used to open his mouth, a really shy boy, started to answer some questions without any need to push him. One of my worries was to make them feel relaxed and be able to participate in class even if they committed errors and in my assessment questionnaire most of them answered that yes, they felt relaxed. Most of them also said that after this unit they felt the need to speak and improve their English, which it is a first step to bring motivation. If you ask them what can they do after the unit, most of them answer they can recognize and understand some crime and scientific vocabulary, give their opinion about a current affair and listen to TV/radio news or other real English audiovisual support and get a general idea of what they are saying, and use modals in their productions. So, from their point of view most of my previous objectives were achieved. However quite a lot of them didn’t like that the teacher spoke all time in English and that she asked a lot of their participation in class. That means that if I stayed more time with them I would have to work harder on these two points so that they fully enjoyed the English class.
Another interesting point was the treasure hunt. Only two out of five groups did the homework I ordered them for the last day. I must admit that first I felt a little bit sad about that. Nevertheless, when the class was over and I read the assessment questionnaire I gave them at home I had a big surprise. Where they were answered ‘What did you enjoy the most from this unit?’ all the people who did the homework answered ‘doing a piece of radio news with my group’. That’s what confirmed me that if you want to reach everybody in an English class you must design plenty of different activities. An unmotivated un disruptive boy enjoyed games a lot, a student who was the whole class half asleep was very keen on ICT activities and joined in the treasure hunt, a diligent girl the modals…
As soon as I had finished the unit with them I felt I had done a first important step in my way to become a teacher. I thanked them all to let me stay and observe them all this time, I think they didn’t really understand why I was so pleased for the chance they gave me. I learned a lot from them but what’s more important they made me aware about my lacks and my needs to become one day a good and respectful English teacher.
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