EXPLORING REVERSE MENTORING PROCESS BETWEEN IN-SERVICE AND

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TO TEACH VOCABULARY TO 4TH AND 5TH

GRADERS: AN ACTION CASE STUDY

LIZETH ANDREA LÓPEZ VÁSQUEZ

LUIS MARIO VIAÑA PATRÓN

UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PROGRAMME

MONTERÍA- CÓRDOBA

2016
EXPLORING REVERSE MENTORING PROCESS BETWEEN IN-SERVICE AND
PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TO TEACH VOCABULARY TO 4TH AND 5TH
GRADERS: AN ACTION CASE STUDY

LIZETH ANDREA LÓPEZ VÁSQUEZ

LUIS MARIO VIAÑA PATRÓN

Research Study

Summited to the Faculty of Education

In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Licenciado en Educación Básica en Énfasis en

Humanidades - Inglés

Mag. Liliana Valle Zapata

UNIVERSIDAD DE CÓRDOBA

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PROGRAMME

MONTERÍA – CÓRDOBA

2016
ACCEPTATION PAGE

President of the Judge

Judge

Judge
 ABSTRACT

The practicum in teaching programs gives trainees the opportunity to apply theory in a
real context acquiring experience and knowledge from an in-service teacher. However, there
are no professional English teachers in primary levels in Monteria. Thus, the focus of this paper
is to explore the outcomes of the Reverse Mentoring process between an in-service and a pre-
service teacher at Institución Educativa Antonio Nariño in Monteria city when teaching
vocabulary to children. It entails to consider some major points: the extension of the
contribution in the in-service teacher’s vocabulary teaching skills through the process of
Reverse Mentoring. Moreover, the changes observed in the in-service teacher regarding to
vocabulary teaching after the process of Reverse Mentoring. Additionally, we want to identify
the reasons the inservice teacher has for these changes. This case study will explore the issue
within its context through the use of observations, journals, interviews and field notes. With
this study, we expect the process of Reverse Mentoring to close the intergenerational gap
between the in-service teacher and the pre-service teacher while contributing positively towards
their professional practice through self-reflection, which fosters a better understanding of the
learning and teaching process while teaching vocabulary to children.

Keywords: Reverse Mentoring, Practicum, Vocabulary, In-service teacher, Pre-service

teacher.

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Initially, we would like to thank God for give us the strength and all the capacities to

carry out this study. Secondly, to all the people who contribute to make possible this

objective especially our parents for giving us their support in the good and bad times

throught this research. Thirdly, to our advisor Mg. Liliana Valle Zapata for her wisdom,

guidance, motivation and her patience. Finally but not less important, to our professors

for motivating us to continue with this research.

Lizeth Andrea López Vásquez

Luis Mario Viaña Patrón
 CONTENT
Pag.
ABSTRACT iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v
LIST OF APPENDIXES ix
1. INTRODUCTION 10
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 14
2.1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 14
2.1.1. What is mentoring? 14
2.1.2. What is pedagogical practice? 15
2.1.3. What is reverse mentoring? 16
2.1.4. Intergenerational learning 18
2.1.5. Professional development 19
2.1.6. Professional attitudes 19
2.1.7. What is vocabulary? 20
2.1.8. Vocabulary teaching strategies 21
2.2. LITERATURE REVIEW 22
3. METHODOLOGY 26
3.1. DESIGN 26
3.2. PARTICIPANTS AND CONTEXT 27
3.3. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 28
3.4. TREATMENT OF INFORMATION 29
4. FINDINGS 31
4.1. TO WHAT EXTENT DOES REVERSE MENTORING 31
INFLUENCE THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’
VOCABULARY TEACHING SKILLS?
4.1.1. In-service teachers’ teaching style to enhance vocabulary 32
learning
4.1.1.1. In-service teachers’ strategies to teach vocabulary 32
4.1.1.2. In-service teachers’ use of the L2 34
4.1.2. In-service teachers’ materials to teach vocabulary 36
4.1.2.1. In-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching materials 36
4.1.2.2. Interaction students- In-service teachers’ materials 37
4.1.3. In-service teachers’ vocabulary use to enhance vocabulary 38
learning
4.1.4. In-service teachers’ learning styles activities 39
4.1.4.1. In-service teachers’ visual learning activities 39
4.1.4.2. In-service teachers’ auditory learning activities 41
4.1.4.3. In-service teachers’ kinesthetic learning activities 42
4.2. WHAT ARE THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES 45
TOWARDS THE PRACTICUM?
4.2.1. In-service teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum 45
4.2.1.1. Attitudes towards their own English Teaching 45
4.2.1.2. English Learning continual professional development 47
4.2.1.3. In-service teachers’ willingness to learn 48
4.2.1.4. A positive experience with a pre-service teacher 48
5. DISCUSSION 50
5.1. THE EXTENT OF THE INFLUENCE REVERSE 50
MENTORING HAD IN THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’
VOCABULARY TEACHING SKILLS
5.2. THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS 52
THE PRACTICUM IN REVERSE MENTORING
6. CONCLUSION 55
REFERENCES 58
APPENDIXES 68
 LIST OF APPENDIXES
Pag.
Appendix 1 69
Appendix 1.1 74
Appendix 2 80
Appendix 2.1 82
Appendix 2.2 84
Appendix 2.3 85
Appendix 3 87
Appendix 3.1 88
Appendix 4 89
Appendix 4.1 90
Appendix 5 91
Appendix 5.1 92
Appendix 6 93
Appendix 6.1 94
Appendix 7 95
Appendix 7.1 96
Appendix 7.2 98
Appendix 7.3 100
Appendix 8 103
Appendix 8.1 106
Appendix 9 108
Appendix 9.1 110
Appendix 9.2 112
Appendix 9.3 114
Appendix 10 116
Appendix 10.1 117
Appendix 10.2 118
Appendix 10.3 119
Appendix 10.4 120
Appendix 10.5 121
Appendix 10.6 122
Appendix 10.7 123
Appendix 10.8 124
Appendix 10.9 125
Appendix 10.10 126
Appendix 11 127
Appendix 11.1 129
 1. INTRODUCTION

Being in the classroom with an experienced teacher is helpful for the pre-service
teacher to develop very useful teaching skills as it was stated by Johnson and Freeman
(2001, p.55) when they said, “learning to teach is shaped by teachers’ experiences”, in
other words, the professional practice may be influenced by the teachers own experiences
and their colleagues’. Therefore, teaching practices are supported by the analysis and
reflection over situations in the settings when lived or observed by teachers.
Consequently, in the case of the teaching practicum carried out in primary levels entails
an opportunity that provides teachers with new insights in terms of teaching English to
children. It is important to take into account that the practicum not only contributes to the
pre-service teacher’s professional development, but also, it helps in-service teachers gain
more knowledge and new experiences to improve their teaching. This relationship in
which the in-service teacher gains knowledge from the pre-service teacher may be known
as reverse mentoring. We understand reverse mentoring as “…the idea that in-service
teachers in schools, especially senior ones, could gain some knowledge and skills from
the interactions with the pre-service teachers during the practicum by observing their
regular classroom practices” (Personal communication with: Valle. L, March 16 Th2015).
Based on this important thought, reverse mentoring implies a careful examination of each
other’s teaching skills carried within a need for feedback and reflection. Thus, both parts
need to have an open attitude towards each other’s teaching skills including willingness
to learn. In this way, reverse mentoring is not limited only to benefit the mentee but also
the mentor in professional relationships (Ragins and Verbos, 2007).

The present study was carried out at Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo with
4th and 5th graders in Cereté town. There were 33 students in each class, one pre-service
teacher and two in-service teachers. The main issue that we identified is the lack of a
professional English teacher, which implied that abilities and knowledge about how to
teach vocabulary as well as the strategies used have been limited. Most of the time,
students were taught vocabulary by memorizing lists of words or using translation as the
observation showed. Additionally, we faced the issue that some in-service teachers tend
to be cautious to reflect on pre-service teacher’s vocabulary teaching knowledge as some
of them have been teaching English for several years, so they may feel that the pre-service
teacher may be wrong due to their lack of experience. It is relevant to mention that in-
10
service teachers in primary levels have not been trained in teaching vocabulary, which
may affect their performance when teaching vocabulary to children. The in-service
teachers do not usually reflect formally about their teaching practice, however, as they
are not professional English teachers, they are likely to be conscious that the methodology
implemented may not be appropriate to teach vocabulary to children. The opportunity to
gain knowledge from the pre-service teacher could help in-service teachers to improve
their teaching practice in terms of teaching vocabulary through grasping some of the
strategies used by the pre-service teacher and improve their own through self-reflection
during their teaching practicum. It would also contribute to narrow the intergenerational
gap between in-service and pre-service teachers fostering collaborative work in order to
develop teaching skills. Thus, we expected reverse mentoring to help overcome the issues
presented above in order to improve their professional practice.

Bearing in mind the importance of reverse mentoring, this study aims at exploring
the contribution that reverse mentoring had on the in-service teachers’ professional
development in terms of teaching vocabulary. In addition, it seeks to analyze the changes
observed in the in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching practice through reverse
mentoring. In order to accomplish the purpose of our research project, it is required to
consider some major points: first of all, it is required to identify the contribution in the
in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills through reverse mentoring prompting the
following question: To what extent does reverse mentoring influence the in-service
teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills? Another concern is related to the attitudes in-service
teachers’ have towards the practicum because participants should share knowledge,
positive meaning, and emotions to create a positive connection to enhance reverse
mentoring (Spreitzer, 2006). This leads to the following question: What are the in-service
teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum?

This research follows a qualitative approach called action case study to gather the
information needed for the present study. Action case study is a naturalistic approach
that implies the careful examination of an issue within its context while having the
researcher as a participant. In relation to the collection of information, the procedures
used were interviews, observations, field notes, journals, and a feedback session. The
collection of information was organized in three stages. For this reason, we observed in
three moments: the first observation was before the practicum in order to identify the in-

11
service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills; then the second observation was carried out
during the practicum in order to observe the researcher as a pre-service teacher. Finally,
the third observation was carried out once the practicum culminated in order to observe
the changes in terms of vocabulary classroom practices in in-service teachers after reverse
mentoring. Some journals were used, which were written by the in-service and pre-service
teachers describing their experience while observing each other’s teaching skills.
Additionally, they were interviewed in order to analyze their attitudes towards the
practicum. Finally, field notes were useful tools to obtain an outsider’s perspective about
the teaching process.

The main contributions of this study was to understand the way reverse mentoring
takes places during the practicum and how it benefits the in-service teachers’ vocabulary
teaching skills. Additionally, reverse mentoring helped connect the experience of the in-
service teachers with the new knowledge the pre-service teacher can provide during the
practicum. To achieve the purpose stated above, it was necessary for the in-service
teachers to reflect on their own teaching practice and the pre-service teacher’s. Thus, the
in-service teachers was able to apply new strategies to teach vocabulary to children
increasing their vocabulary skills. This research provides a basis for future studies about
the impact of the practicum in non-professional English teachers widening the range of
opportunities for them to improve their professional practice

By taking into account how vocabulary-teaching strategies contribute and

facilitate vocabulary learning in primary levels it is possible to remark the importance
vocabulary has when learning another language. This idea is reinforced when Wilkins
(1972, pp.111-112) stated “...while without grammar very little can be
conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. In order to reach the goal of our
Colombian Bilingual Plan, English teachers need to be able to use different strategies
when teaching vocabulary to children so that students develop the use of the language.
However, there are no professional English teachers in primary levels in Cereté, which
tends to affect the way vocabulary is taught. Nevertheless, the practicum is an opportunity
for in-service teachers to improve their teaching practice through the analysis of the
implementation of vocabulary teaching strategies applied by the pre-service teacher.
Some in-service teachers may be reluctant to reflect on them, therefore, their performance
might be affected by the lack of vocabulary teaching strategies, which may be evident

12
when students are usually taught vocabulary by memorizing lists of words and their
meaning in L1. The issues presented above could be overcome by the generation of
knowledge in the teaching practicum experience, in which an in-service teacher is paired
with a pre-service teacher in order to learn from each other.

This paper is divided in 5 different sections. First, the conceptual or theoretical

framework in which all the concepts related to the research topic are described. Also, a
brief review of the literature regarding reverse mentoring and vocabulary. Second, the
methodology section in which type of research and the research questions are described,
and the data collection procedures that were used in this research. The findings and
discussion explaining the information gathered through the different procedures and the
data analysis. Finally, the conclusion chapter stresses the main findings, the limitations
that were faced during the research and suggestions for further projects.

13
 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

As stated in the introduction, this research focuses on the influences that reverse
mentoring could have on the in-service teachers when teaching vocabulary during the
practicum. This chapter states key concepts about reverse mentoring, vocabulary
teaching strategies and its connection with the practicum. The first section will define
relevant terminology such as mentoring, participants’ roles in mentoring, practicum, and
the relevance of reflective teaching, reverse mentoring, feedback, vocabulary, and
vocabulary teaching strategies. Then, we will present previous studies related to our
research in the second section.

2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

2.1.1. What is Mentoring?

According to Cotugna and Vickery (1998, p.1) mentoring includes “…words such
as guide, preceptor, tutor, adviser, and role model in a relationship where the mentor helps
a protégé or mentee become professionally competent …”. Consequently, mentoring
implies a less experienced person, the mentee, being taught some skills and knowledge
by an experienced person, who is called mentor. Thus, mentor and mentee assume a
positive attitude towards knowledge in order to grow professionally in a relationship.

Many authors provide different conceptions about the position each party has
within the mentoring process. As it was stated by Callan (2006, p.8) “…the mentor assists
in the transmission of knowledge and skills and encourages practitioners to develop
reflective practice”, their role entails being in charge of fostering reflection in the pre-
service teacher regarding the teaching practice, which is usually done through the
provision of feedback. The mentor also provides new insights according to their
experience in the field. In the same way, the person being taught is called mentee “…to
refer to the broad range of individuals who may be in the role of “learner” in mentoring
relationships, regardless of the age or position of the mentor and mentee ”(American
Psychological Association, 2006, p. 5). Taking into account the definition provided
above, the mentee can be seen not just as a young individual but also as a senior who

14
needs guidance from another individual who is more experienced or with a different
perspective in a common field. Moreover, what matters is a person’s willingness to learn
and assume the role of mentee when needed. All these definitions will guide our study in
the analysis of common practices carried out by teachers to reflect about their teaching
practice.

2.1.2. What is Pedagogical Practice?

Kiggundu and Nayimuli (2009, p. 347) defined pedagogical practice (practicum)

as “… a period of time when students are working in the relevant industry to receive
specific in-service training in order to apply theory in practice.” In other words, the
practicum is when students gain experience in a real teaching-learning context putting
into practice all what they have learned during their teaching degree. Thus, the practicum
provides an opportunity to prove the effectiveness of theories in the real life, develop a
better understanding of what the teaching and learning process involves, and contribute
to the acquisition of classroom management skills.

The student who goes to the school in order to apply the theories they have learnt
is called Pre-service teacher, as it was pointed out by Plodkaew and Tanamai (2014, p.
1): “the college student is gradually introduced into the teaching role for a particular class
by a mentor or cooperating teacher.” This means, a slow introduction into the target field
while tutored by a more experienced teacher. As a result, the pre-service teacher will gain
some experience before getting a job, furthermore, it is an opportunity to put theory into
practice without being afraid of making mistakes as they will not affect students’
curriculum vitae. The pre-service teacher is guided by a senior experienced teacher, as it
was argued by Allen et al.(2013, p.110) “…the latter is a role generally filled by a senior
teacher who provides professional learning for the colleague teachers and has oversight
of the group of pre-service teachers doing practicum in his/her school.”, in other words,
the senior teacher, who is usually called in-service teacher provides feedback to the
mentees (the pre-service teachers) according to their performance during the practicum
in schools. The in-service teacher is, then, recognized as an authority within its context
in which the pre-service teacher develops teaching skills before graduating.

As the practicum is a process, there is an important tool in order for it to be

successful, which is called reflective teaching. As Barlett (1990, p. 205) puts it, reflective

15
teaching “refers to an activity or process in which an experience is recalled, considered,
and evaluated, usually in relation to a broader purpose.” In this quotation we can clearly
see how reflective teaching is a very useful instrument to improve the teaching skills as
it implies a conscious recall of an experience to understand what needs improvement
through a careful evaluation of the event. It is also useful as it will guide further
decisions, planning and acting towards the teaching practice.

2.1.3 What is reverse mentoring?

The mentoring process requires a mentee and a mentor in order to be carried out,
however, the more experienced person is not always in charge of being the mentor,
sometimes the mentee holds updated insights about the field. Thus, the process in which
a mentee tutors their mentor is called reverse mentoring. In other words, reverse
mentoring is the idea that in-service teachers in schools, especially senior ones, could
gain some knowledge and skills from the interactions with the pre-service teachers during
the practicum by observing their regular classroom practices (Personal communication
Th
with: Valle. L, March 16 2015), Reverse mentoring implies a careful examination of
one another’s teaching skills, self-reflection about one’s performance as well as the
provision of feedback. Thus, both parts need to have an open attitude towards each other’s
teaching skills including willingness to learn. Additionally, reflective teaching is
important as it allows in-service teachers grasp what they feel they need from the pre-
service teacher. Another contribution that supports what was stated before is provided
by Peterson (2012, P. 18) when he assures that “Reverse-mentoring generally means a
younger person teaching or “mentoring” a more senior person.” Consequently, the
process of reverse mentoring does not depend on the age of the participants but on the
role, they assume according to what is needed. This implies they are involved in a
reciprocal relationship while tutoring at the same time they are being tutored.

Being a mentee as well as a tutor is a valuable opportunity for the professional

development of its participants. The process of Reverse mentoring provides a range of
benefits as the ones mentioned by Thielfoldt (2013, p. 40-41) when he claimed that
“Reverse mentoring helps to engage, retain, and promote younger talent…Reverse
mentoring begins to close the knowledge gap between long-time employees and newer
hires… Reverse mentoring offers different, fresh, and/or younger perspectives.” As a

16
result, it closes the generational knowledge gap for both parties (in-service and pre-
service teacher), which contributes to create openness to new ideas and perspectives.
Moreover, the knowledge the pre-service teacher has is taken into account as a valuable
source of ideas for performance improvement while fostering a sense of trust between
both parts.

Certainly, as reverse mentoring depends upon Reflective teaching, it is important

to have clear its stages. The stages help identify the way Reflective teaching is done,
therefore, it is useful to understand the way participants are influenced by each other
during the process. Those stages were defined as follows:

Stage 1 the event itself: The starting point is an actual teaching episode,
such as a lesson or other instructional event... Stage 2 Recollection of the event: it
is an account of what happened, without explanation or evaluation. Several
different procedures are available during the recollection phase, including written
descriptions of an event, a video or audio recording of an event, or the use of check
lists or coding systems to capture details of the event. Stage 3 Review and response
to the event: the participant returns to the event and reviews it. The event is now
processed at a deeper level, and questions are asked about the experience.
(Richards, 1991, p. 8-9)

Taking into account what was stated above, in the first stage, the in-service teacher
makes a self-reflection of his or her own teaching when observing the pre-service teacher
teaching style, which is an external influence to his or her own performance leading to an
awareness of what is being done in class. The second stage allows the in-service teacher
to recall the event while making a careful examination. It is necessary for some in-service
teachers to take notes or write descriptions of the event in order for them to be able to
analyze it. The event is analyzed in the final stage when the in-service teacher tries to
find the underlying reasons that explain the flow of actions that were followed as well as
questions about the event are asked; what was done? Why was it done? How was it done?
How can I use it to improve my teaching practice? What should I correct based on what
I saw? What can be taken from the event? How did it work? Why did not certain aspect
work? How can it be done in a different way? How does it differ from what I do?

17
 For reverse mentoring to take place, it is important to reflect on what has been
happening and to provide feedback regarding each other’s teaching practice. According
to Hattie and Timperley (2007, p.81) “Feedback is conceptualized as information
provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, peer, book, parent, self, experience) regarding aspects
of one’s performance or understanding.” Consequently, taking into account the need of
reflective teaching in order for the Reverse mentoring process to take place, feedback is
recognized as an essential tool within the process as it provides information about what
was accurate during the event as well as new insights about what can be improved from
an emic perspective.

2.1.4. Intergenerational Learning

According to the Europan Network for Intergenerational Learning ENIL (2012)

intergenerational learning can be defined as “the reciprocal exchange of knowledge
between people of all ages so they can learn together, and learn from each other and from
those in a variety of sectors, such as culture, environment, sociability, education,
mediation.”, in other words, it entails sharing knowledge with colleagues no matter their
age, status, culture or context. In addition, the intergenerational learning allows
professional growth (Murphy, 2012), as experiences in the workplace are shared and
people tend to reflect upon them.

Intergenerational learning benefits the trust and rapport between senior and
younger employees in the workplace (Murphy, 2012). Following this idea, the
intergenerational learning not only contributes to the individual’s professional growth,
but also it strengthens co-workers relationships and fosters cross-generational
communication. If the individuals develop a mentoring bond, it is probably that there is
going to be a mutual support for learning (Ragins &Verbos, 2007), in this way, the
intergenerational learning is a two-way process in which the participants share knowledge
and experiences that benefit each other. This is enhanced when there is good rapport and
trust in each other.

18
 2.1.5. Professional Development

The experiences lived by the teachers provide a wide range of insights modifying the way
the teaching practices are carried out. Moreover, the teaching environment is crucial for
the development of new methodologies as it influences the way the teaching and learning
processes are perceived. Thus, the teachers’ professional development will be influenced
by a range of factors covering from their own experiences to those learnt when observing
their colleagues in their own teaching practices. As it was stated by Day:

Professional development consists of all natural learning experiences and

those conscious and planned activities, which are intended to be of direct or
indirect benefit to the individual, group or school, which constitute, through these,
to the quality of education in the classroom. It is the process by which, alone and
with others, teachers review, renew and extend their commitment as change agents
to the moral purposes of teaching; and by which they acquire and develop
critically the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence essential to good
professional thinking, planning and practice with children, young people and
colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives. (1999, p. 27)

In other words, professional development entails teachers to reflect about their own
teaching practices as well as their colleagues’, in which they analyze what was done
taking into account the effect it had in the setting involving a careful examination seeking
for a better understanding of the process and an improvement whenever possible. This is
not restricted only to one’s self experience but also extended to others’ experiences so
that the teaching practices are enriched by widening the insights through the analysis of
the different teaching styles. Actions to prompt teachers’ professional development can
be direct or indirect according to the context. In both cases, self-reflection is required.

2.1.6. Professional Attitudes

Attitudes are usually seen as individual’s reactions towards social elements

(concept, event, person) after considering them favorable or unfavorable (Kartz, 1960,
Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, Doron & Parot, 1999), they can influence the way in-service and
pre-service teachers react towards each other’s teaching practices. Beliefs shape
attitudes, which leads to a specific behavior toward what it is, directed (Fishbein, Azjen,

19
1975). In this way, beliefs affect behavior directly, which leads to create attitudes.
Attitudes are predispositions that shape the way people respond to stimuli based on their
beliefs and perspectives (Fishbein, 1967). According to Hammer (2000, p.458) “a
professional attitude could be defined as a predisposition, feeling, emotion, or thought
that upholds the ideals of a profession and serves as the basis for professional behavior”.
Following this idea, professional attitudes are directed towards what is believed to be
appropriate practices, even if they differ from the ones the person holds, therefore, they
help modify the behavior in order to reach the ideal stated.

In a similar way, Verma (2008, p.6) defines attitudes as “a set of beliefs developed
in a due course of time in a given sociocultural setting. Although it necessarily so not
determine behavior but can have some impact on it”, in other words, attitudes can shape
behavior to some extent, but it is not limited to the person’s beliefs, people may react in
a different way besides their beliefs. This suggests that attitudes have a big influence on
individual’s behavior but it is does not have define the way the individual is going to react
towards the objects they direct their beliefs. Additionally, if the learner does not have a
positive attitude, they are not going to learn as positive attitudes facilitates learning, while
negative ones involve a constraint when learning (Verma, 2008).

2.1.7. What is vocabulary?

As Hatch and Brown (1995, p.1) stated, “vocabulary is a list of set of

words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual speakers of a
language might use.” In other words, what is known as vocabulary refers, then, to those
lexical units which are common to speakers of a same language. Therefore, it entails that
they are in the same context and can use these units in a similar way so that the ideas
expressed can be easily understood by their peers. When we talk about vocabulary, we
tend to think of words and their meanings, as the Oxford Dictionary (2015) puts it, a word
is “a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or
sometimes alone) to form a sentence…”, this means, a word is each small part of the
sentence which joined together with others contribute to express and idea. For that reason,
words acquire specific functions according to the space they occupy within a sentence
even if they are just connecting ideas or expressing meaning themselves.

20
 Being able to handle words in different contexts is known as word knowledge.
According to Richards (1976, p.77), “knowing a lexical item includes knowledge of word
frequency, collocation, register, case relations, underlying forms, word association, and
semantic structure”, bearing in mind what was stated above, knowing a word implies
being able to recognize it within different contexts even when it is written or spoken.
Additionally, it implies being able to recognize its different meanings according to the
place they have within the speech or discourse. Having the ability to recognize a word
within a speech also includes the ability to pronounce it, even when it is a different type
of language, and the production of sentences carrying an appropriate use of grammatical
forms according to the nature of the word.

2.1.8. Vocabulary Teaching Strategies

Children learn differently from adults and teenagers, so specific strategies are
required as children learn in different ways than adults and teenagers do. It is relevant for
teachers to take into account the learning styles, abilities and types of intelligence students
have in order to be able to address the learning process adequately. There are thousands
of vocabulary teaching strategies such as Total Physical Response (Asher, 1982), realia
(Boyd-Batstone, 2012), and STARSS (Weitzman & Greenberg, 2010) among others. In
this research study, we will focus on the Dual Coding Theory and Mnemonics to develop
the ones previously mentioned. The first one provides a range of different perspectives
about the way vocabulary should be taught. As it was developed by Paivio, A. (1986, p.
53) “human cognition is unique in that it has become specialized for dealing
simultaneously with language and with non-verbal objects and events”, as a result, the
language system can relate words to images. In other words, it makes mental
representations of objects by associating them with an image or with a word. Concrete
objects can be easily represented in the human mind through images and words as well,
however, abstract words requires to be thought in terms of its context and form, this
implies that both systems are related and they complement each other. Then, it is a
duality which requires the combination of both functions in order to retain vocabulary
easier. While the second one involves the memory. There are different mnemonics: loci
method, visual mnemonics and spatial mnemonics. First, the loci method was mentioned
by Mirhassani and Eghtesadei (2007, p. 91-98) “…using this method entails imagining a
very familiar place like a room or a house and then associating each new word to a part
21
of it to be remembered”, as a result, in this method, the learning process is facilitated by
associating familiar places with new words, which allows students to make words part of
their context in order to get accustomed to them, so mental immersion is enhanced. This
method provides a mental environment which is equivalent to a direct exposure to the
language as if the learner were in an L2 context. Then, visual mnemonics were described
by Thompson (1987, p. 43-56) as a strategy in which “new words are usually paired with
their definitions or equivalents. They can be, however, better, learned if they are paired
with pictures.”, accordingly, this method is really useful as it allows students to bear with
a word in different ways, thus, students will be able to learn remember word meanings
not just because of its explanation but also relating them with an image or equivalent.
Another useful mnemonic strategy is known as spatial mnemonics, which were described
by Mirhassani and Eghtesadei (2007, p. 91-98) as a strategy in which “the learner
imagines a picture or a scene which is associated with the target word. Abstract words
can be learned through this method by relating them to a visual picture”, thus, as abstract
words cannot be related to an image of an object, the method entails the imagination of a
complete situation in which the word is represented indirectly, then, the word is learned
through the understanding of the situation.

The foundations presented above helped us develop the current study. Thus, by
understanding what reverse mentoring implies, the practicum experiences could be
observed and analyzed in order to know whether the process was taking place or not. It
was important to know the relevance of reverse mentoring and the way it contributes to
the professional development of its participants, being able to identify the different
strategies that can be used to teach vocabulary to children was essential for such purpose.
As it was stated above, self-reflection was needed to help teachers improve their
professional practice through the constant questioning of actions and experiences. As our
research project focus on reverse mentoring in terms of vocabulary teaching strategies,
handling all these foundations provided a better understanding of the study as well as it
will serve as a guide for further research projects.

2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Researchers have had an increasing interest on reverse mentoring in professional

development in recent years (Epstein, 2011; Hall and Jaugietis, 2011; Monkeviciene and

22
Autukeviciene, 2011; Murphy, 2012). The mentoring process requires a mentee and a
mentor in order to be carried out, however, the more experienced person is not always in
charge of being the mentor, sometimes the mentee holds updated insights about the field,
which is called reverse mentoring, consequently it is believed to improve
intergenerational professional relationships which facilitates learning in workplace
(Murphy, 2012). Most studies have analyzed the effects of using Reverse mentoring in
professional relationships in technology, public relations and business (Chen, 2015;
Evans and Kingdom, 2009; Hays and Swanson, 2012; Leh, 2005). Even though few
studies have been carried out in the educational field, Agustiniene and Ciulciulkiene
(2013) explored the contribution of reverse mentoring in beginning teachers’ self-
authorship process as they became professional. In the present study, we aim to fill the
gap in literature in the educational field by exploring the use of reverse mentoring
between in-service and pre-service teachers when teaching vocabulary to children.

Reverse mentoring has been defined as a two-way process in educational studies

in which the mentor provides guidance to a mentee as well as reflects upon the mentee’s
ideas to build new insights (Dickinson, Jankot and Gracon, 2009). In this way, reverse
mentoring is not limited to benefit the mentee but also the mentor in professional
relationships (Ragins and Verbos, 2007). Such perspective provides one of the main
foundations for our study to fill the gap in literature about reverse mentoring during the
practicum. Despite the fact that educational studies have a wider view of reverse
mentoring than technological and business studies, many studies focused on similar issues
such as the influence reverse mentoring has on traditional mentoring functions and
professional development (Agustiniene and Ciuciulkiene, 2013; Chen, 2013). In this way,
the studies attempted to understand what was different between reverse mentoring and
traditional mentoring, and the way it involved its participants within a professional
relationship. The experience of a mentee acting as a mentor (Evans and Kingdom, 2009;
Leh, 2005) is one of the main issues under study in different research papers, they
analyzed the perceptions the mentee had when acting as a mentor as how the experience
affected their beliefs. Another requested issue in many articles has been the way reverse
mentoring is applied in specific fields (Eroz and Rakicioglu, 2014; Hays and Swanson,
2012), the intention of these studies was to fill in the gap in the literature within the field;
the studies were usually accompanied by one of the issues mentioned above.

23
 The method used to address reverse mentoring depends on the issue under study
whether or not there is a will to change it or just to explore it. Therefore, for modifying
issues such as what a mentee thinks about being a mentor after having this experience,
action research was key to accomplish this purpose (Evans and Kingdom, 2009; Leh,
2005), while the researcher only looked for an understanding of issues such as the
influence reverse mentoring has on professional development and traditional mentoring
functions, case study was the chosen method (Agustiniene and Ciuciulkiene, 2013; Chen,
2013; Hays and Swanson, 2012). However, for exploring the issue without trying to
modify it may appeals for the same instruments as if they were going to be modified it
(Agustiniene and Ciuciulkiene, 2013; Chen, 2013; Evans and Kingdom, 2009; Hays and
Swanson, 2012; Leh, 2005). As we aim to explore the issue within its context while
participating, a mixture of action research and case study called action case study was
selected as the appropriate method to address the issue. It is common to observe that many
studies used a small sample to solve their research questions (Agustiniene and
Ciuciulkiene, 2013; Chen, 2013; Evans and Kingdom, 2009; Leh, 2005), others needed
to use more than 200 individuals (Hays and Swanson, 2012), which implies that the
sample size may be affected by cultural factors such as world-region or number of authors
(Cardon, Fontenot, Marshall and Poddar, 2013).

Reverse mentoring has been found to narrow the intergenerational gap between
its participants as mentees challenged their mentor’s beliefs and faced their own
prejudices about their mentor’s expertise, develop self-confidence, learn cooperatively,
and influence participants towards learning outcomes, participants are conscious about
the effect they have on each other’s role, intention and learning process. Reverse
mentoring also promote self-authorship process in novice teachers fostering self-
reflection, personal commitment which are promoted by sharing knowledge, mutual
learning, engagement and support, which involves a positive partnership (Agustiniene
and Ciulciulkiene; 2013; Chaudhuri and Ghosh, 2012; Murphy, 2012). Further studies
have suggested that in most of the cases the participants had no idea what reverse
mentoring was (Hays and Swanson, 2012). Others claimed that the traditional mentoring
functions were also involved on reverse mentoring (Chen, 2013; Murphy, 2012). Reverse
mentoring involves a junior employee acting as a mentor of a senior employee acting as
mentee engaged in a professional relationship. Thus, reverse mentoring can be defined as
a relationship in which experience learns from expertise (Murphy, 2012).

24
 The studies presented above show the relevance of reverse mentoring as a tool for
improving teachers’ pedagogical practice. They also make emphasis on the need of a
positive attitude towards each other in order to avoid stubbornness or reluctance towards
each other’s methodology when teaching. With this type of mentoring, both teachers will
benefit from sharing knowledge, skills, insights and experience to enhance their ability to
help the learning process of their students.

25
 3. METHODOLOGY

In the present section, the type of research that this study follows by providing a
definition of qualitative research is stated. Then the method used is defined, which is
action case study, and its relevance for this project. Additionally, the research questions
are presented and explained. Furthermore, this section contains important information
about the participants and the context in which this research will be carried out. Lastly, it
indicates in which way data will be gathered through the application of some data
collection procedures and the correspondent interpretation about the data collected.

3.1 DESIGN

The current research followed a qualitative research, according to Hancock (2008,

p. 7) “qualitative research is concerned with developing explanations of social
phenomena. That is to say, it aims to help us to understand the social world in which we
live and why things are the way they are”. In other words, it helps researchers understand
the issue under study by developing explanations of the phenomena and the way it appears
in the setting. The method selected was action case study, which we used to explore
reverse mentoring between two in-service teachers and a pre-service teacher when
teaching vocabulary to children. The research method selected for this study was defined
as follows:
Action case is a hybrid of understanding of theory and its change to
practice, designed to balance the trade-offs between being either an researcher
capable of making interpretations of theory to design and a researcher/practitioner
involved in creating change in design practice. In this case, researchers operate as
or collaborate with practitioners in studying and transforming such knowledge
generated from the design theory into practice. (Braa and Vidgen, 1997, p.524)

Thus, the action case study approached the issue in the appropriate way to foster
understanding as well as the role it plays within the specific context while having the
researcher as a participant. In other words, the researcher not only analyzed the issue but
also participated in the study as the pre-service teacher to assure the adequate use and
variety of vocabulary strategies when teaching English to children. This action case study
will show the way reverse mentoring takes place during the practicum and its implications

26
leading up to an analysis about the impact that the practicum will have in the pre-service
and in-service teachers.

As this study aims to explore reverse mentoring during the practicum in terms of
teaching vocabulary, the following questions were stated:

 To what extent does reverse mentoring influence the in-service teachers’

vocabulary teaching skills?
 What are the in-service teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum?

The questions stated above helped identify the way reverse mentoring in case
happened as well as it defined the contribution reverse mentoring had during the
practicum in terms of the improvement of the in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching
skills, and the in-service teachers’ attitude towards the practicum.

3.2 CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS.

The current study explores the outcomes of reverse mentoring between two in-
service teachers and a pre-service teacher when teaching vocabulary to children. This
research was carried out at Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo in Cereté town. This
public institution is located within an urban zone at Calle 18 # 5-97. The socioeconomic
status varies in a scale of 1 and 2 for people living in nearest neighborhoods.

Regarding the environment of the school, specially the physical facilities, and the
school has a principal, secretary, coordination, system office, a library and bathrooms.
Also, they count with a teachers’ room which is well equipped, a nursing room and a
considerable number of classrooms which includes a digital classroom that has projectors,
speakers and computers that can be used by teachers and students as well.

As this research is an action case study, the study focused on two in-service
teachers at Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo and a researcher as a pre-service
teacher. The in-service teachers were chosen taking into account some characteristics as:
their experience, they both work in primary levels, they teach English, they are not
professional English teachers, and their willingness to learn. The pre-service teacher is

27
one of the researchers of the present study who was chosen to be sure that the vocabulary
strategies are appropriate, diverse and included in the classes as well as their willingness
to learn.

3.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES

The data collection procedures used in the present study were journals,
observations, field notes, interviews, feedback dialogues and lesson plans. Before starting
the practicum, participants were asked to write journals after each class about the way
they felt regarding their own vocabulary teaching skills, the journals was collected after
the second phase of the study. The study was carried out in three main stages. In the first
stage, the vocabulary strategies were identified as well as in-service teachers attitudes
towards the practicum. The second stage the pre-service teacher practicum process was
analyzed, in which he taught four classes. In the final stage, the identification of
improvements in vocabulary teaching were identified.

The main purpose of the first stage was to identify the way the in-service teachers
teach vocabulary as well as their attitudes towards the practicum. In this stage, there was
an observation, which according to Marshall and Rossman (1989, p.79) is "the systematic
description of events, behaviors, and artifacts in the social setting chosen for study". In
other words, the observation helped researchers describe the events in the setting leading
to the identification of the in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills during their
English classIn addition, the researchers took field notes, which according to Emerson
(1995, p.3) “… are accounts describing experiences and observations the researcher has
made while participating in an intense and involved manner”, so that researchers had a
detailed description of what happened in the class. Also, the in-service teachers were
interviewed after the class in order to get information about their experience when
teaching and learning English. As it was defined by Turner (2010, p.754) “interviews
provide in-depth information pertaining to participants’ experiences and viewpoints of a
particular topic.”, consequently, the interviews provide a wide range of details concerning
the issue under study as well as they allowed the participants to provide relevant data
through the recollection of their experience

28
 During the second stage, by taking into account what was stated by Richards and
Lockhart (1994, p.7) when they defined a journal as “a teacher’s or a student teacher’s
written response to teaching events”, teachers were asked to write a journal in order to
foster self-reflection and to get their perceptions about each other’s teaching skills. Also,
there were observations and field notes during the pre-service teacher’s English classes.
Following the idea proposed by Richards (2002, p.31) lesson plans “help the teacher think
about the lesson in advance to “resolve problems and difficulties, to provide a structure
for a lesson, to provide a ‘map’ for the teacher to follow, and to provide a record of what
has been taught”, lesson plans were relevant for this study in order to assure that the pre-
service teacher is implementing different vocabulary teaching strategies, which provided
more opportunities for the in-service teachers to distinguish a new range of vocabulary
teaching strategies.

In the final stage, the in-service teachers were observed while teaching an English
class after the practicum is over, they were also asked for their journals. The researcher
observed the class in order to identify new vocabulary teaching strategies implemented
by the teachers. In addition, the recollection of journals was useful to analyze the way the
teacher reacted during the practicum and to know their opinion about the strategies
applied by the pre-service teacher. Moreover, by taking into account the definition
proposed by Malderez, and Bodóczky (1999) when they said that feedback dialogues
“not only models a process mentors will want to model for their mentees: that of seeking
feedback from learners, but it provides both the course leaders and the participants with
valuable insights into the group and its development.”, a feedback dialogue was carried
out in order to identify the way the in-service teachers felt during the process as well as
their perceptions regarding the significance of the process for their continual professional
development. The data collected during the final stage was compared with the data
collected during the first one so that changes were analyzed and to know the extent of
reverse mentoring.

3.4 TREATMENT OF THE INFORMATION

Since it is relevant for this study to determine the extent to which reverse
mentoring influence the in-service teacher’s vocabulary teaching skills during the
practicum, three observation cycles were carried out at different times; the first one
provided information about the initial in-service teacher´s vocabulary teaching skills

29
before the practicum. The second one allowed the researcher to know the pre-service
teacher’s vocabulary teaching skills during the practicum. The third one provided the data
required to analyze the in-service teacher’s change when teaching vocabulary since the
in-service teachers were observed teaching vocabulary in their L2 classes after the
practicum. During the observations, field notes were used in order to analyze in detail the
performance of both teachers. Another useful tool that we used were lesson plans, in
which teachers define the methodology they were going to follow during the class. Thus,
by analyzing the field notes, we were able to report changes in in-service teacher’s
methodology when teaching vocabulary in case they appear. The main foundation that
allowed us to analyze the data is called

In other words, the data analyzed was categorized with the aim of establishing
common features between the pre-service teacher’s vocabulary teaching skills and the in-
service teacher’s. Categories came across once we analyzed the data collected.

Furthermore, the second question of this research study required the analysis of
the attitudes in-service teachers had taking into account their prior experience with pre-
service teachers, learning and teaching English. In this way, interviews were key in order
to obtain their own perspective regarding their own performance and each other’s
performance. In addition, interviews were supported by the use of feedback dialogues so
that participants were able to offer feedback and opinions regarding the practicum.
Finally, the collection of journals allowed us to analyze the reflection made by both
teachers and draw conclusions about the reasons for their performance when teaching
vocabulary. After analyzing the information, which was previously triangulated and
coded, it was possible to report the attitudes in-service teachers had towards the practicum
and how they contributed to reverse mentoring.

For defining the categories, the information was triangulated taking into account
the definition provided by Cogen, Manion and Morrison (2011, p.195) when they stated
that it is “the use of two or more methods of data collection in the study of some aspect
of human behavior”. This was done through the use of the different procedures mentioned
in the prior section. Triangulations leads to the identification of differences and
similarities among the whole data, which provides validity and reliability. By gathering
information from the observations (checklists), interview, field notes, journals, feedback
sessions and lesson planners, the categories emerged.

30
 4. FINDINGS

In this section, we will show the results of the research study after collecting the
data using the instruments proposed in the previous chapter. This part is divided into two
sections; which contains the results of the two research questions in which our study was
based, having as an objective the influence of reverse mentoring on the in-service
teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills when teaching in primary levels. The first question
aims to identify in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills and to what extent reverse
mentoring influenced them during the practicum. The second question is intended to
identify the attitudes in-service teachers had towards the practicum. At this point of the
study, it is relevant to evoke the definition of reverse mentoring in order for the reader to
have a clear understanding of this chapter. Reverse mentoring can be understood
according to what Peterson (2012, P. 18) stated when he assured that “reverse-mentoring
generally means a younger person teaching or “mentoring” a more senior person.” this
means that the pre-service teacher is the mentor, and the in-service teacher is the mentee.

4.1 TO WHAT EXTENT DOES REVERSE MENTORING INFLUENCE THE IN-

SERVICE TEACHERS’ VOCABULARY TEACHING SKILLS?

In order to answer this question, it was required to identify in-service teachers’

vocabulary teaching skills when teaching English to children, before having contact with
a pre-service teacher. For the identification of these skills, field notes, one observation
(checklist), and an interview were used in the first stage of the present study. The checklist
and the field notes helped us identify those practices performed by the in-service teachers
when teaching vocabulary, while the interview allowed us to confirm the information
gathered during the observation process through the awareness the in-service teachers
showed when talking about their vocabulary teaching skills. After these skills were
identified in the first stage, it was needed to contrast the in-service teachers’ vocabulary
teaching skills after having contact with the pre-service teacher in the third stage. To
contrast the in-service teachers’ performance in the two stages, it was necessary to use
interviews, observations, field notes, a feedback session and in-service teachers’ journals

31
to identify if in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills had been influenced at some
point by reverse mentoring. The following are the findings obtained in the first stage
gathered in the observation with the help of a checklist (see from appendix 2 to appendix
2.4), in the interview (see appendix 1 and appendix 1.1), and the field notes (see from
appendix 2 to appendix 7.1) collected at the beginning of the research process. These
findings will be contrasted with the results obtained in the third stage through
observations (checklist), field notes, in-service teachers’ journal and a feedback session
(see appendix 8- 8.1 and 10- 10.7). After triangulating the information gathered in stage
one, four categories resulted from this process. They are:

1. In-service teachers’ teaching style to enhance vocabulary learning.

2. In-service teachers’ materials to teach vocabulary.
3. In-service teachers’ vocabulary used to enhance vocabulary learning.
4. In-service teachers’ activities to address learning styles.

4.1.1. In-service teachers’ teaching style to enhance vocabulary learning

Under this category, the description of the strategies in-service teachers used to teach
vocabulary and the use of the L2 will be explained. Two sub-categories emerged:

4.1.1.1. In-service teachers’ strategies to teach vocabulary

In this part, the vocabulary teaching strategies used by in-service teachers’ were identified
during the first stage and contrasted to the third one.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I Translation was used to teach the Total Physical Response (TPR)
new vocabulary items. Elicitation was used when the participant
was also used to bring back mentioned the names of the body
memories about vocabulary items parts and students had to show
that had been taught before and them.
that were related to the new one.
Imagery was used when a poster
(See appendixes 2- 2.1)
with a cartoon was shown in which

32
 the body parts were named. In
addition, flashcards of the body
parts were shown and students had
to tell their names in the L2.

Realia was used when the teacher

showed parts of their body to
students and name them in the L2.

Translation was used when

students did not understand what
the teacher said or did not
recognize the part of the body.
(See appendixes 7- 7.1)

In-service teacher II Translation was used as the only Total Physical Response (TPR)
strategy to teach vocabulary by was used when the participant
singing and translating one song sang a song in English with
from L1 to L2. (See appendixes students related to the body parts
2.2 -2.3) and they had to touch their body
while singing in L2.

Imagery was used when flashcards

of the body parts were shown and
they had to be matched with the
corresponding part in L2, so word
and image would be related
without the mediation of the L1.

Translation was used when

students did not understand what
the teacher said or did not
recognize the part of the body.

33
 Realia was used when the teacher
showed parts of their body to
students and name them in the L2.

(See appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

In this sub-category, it was possible to observe that the in-service teachers’ used new
strategies to teach vocabulary. They used to use only translation, but once they knew other
strategies, they realized that the former could be applied as a strategy when students do
not understand what was being said in the L2 after using other strategies such as realia,
TPR and imagery. This is a very important aspect that indicates that reverse mentoring
took place as the strategies used by the in-service teachers’ were developed during the
pre-service teacher’s class, this can be observed in their lesson plan (see from appendix 9
to appendix 9.3).

4.1.1.2. In-service teachers’ use of the L2

This sub-category addresses the use of the L2 by the in-service teachers in order to give
instructions, provide feedback and introduce vocabulary items, which was observed
during the first stage and contrasted to the third one.

Participant Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I The only moment in which the L2 The participant used the L2 to
was used was at the moment of introduce the vocabulary items
introducing the vocabulary items. without using the L1. This is seen
Explanations, activities and when the participant used the
feedback were provided in the flashcards and showed a poster
L1. (See appendixes 2- 2.1) pointing out the vocabulary items
in English (See from appendix 7
to appendix 7.3)

In terms of giving instructions and

providing feedback, L1 was used
all the time. (See appendixes 7-
7.1)

34
 In-service teacher II This participant used the L2 only The participant used the L2 to
to mention the vocabulary items. introduce vocabulary items
When it came to activities, through a song and flashcards.
explanations and feedback, the
When giving instructions, the
L1 was always used. (See
participant tried to do it in L2, but
appendixes 2.2- 2.3)
most of the time they were in the
L1. (See appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

The provision of feedback was

done in the L2, in case students did
not understand, pointing and
miming were useful strategies to
help students understand. When it
was difficult for students
understand after using miming and
pointing, she used the L1. (See
appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

The contrast between the first and third stage showed that the in-service teachers’ not
only were aware of the importance of the L2, but also started using the L2 to introduce
vocabulary items. Even though, not both participants tried to use the L2 to give
instructions nor to provide feedback, they mentioned that it was due to the lack of mastery
of the language. (See appendixes 1- 1.1)

Having the in-service teachers’ introducing vocabulary items in L2 shows that reverse
mentoring was helpful to improve the way they use of the L2 within the classroom. (See
appendixes 8- 8.1)

35
4.1.2. In-service teachers’ materials to teach vocabulary.

This category focuses on the materials that in-service teachers’ use in the classroom and
the interaction students-materials. It is divided into two sub-categories:

4.1.2.1.In-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching materials

This sub-category shows the materials used by the in-service teachers during the first and
third stages.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I No material was used besides The participant used:
the blackboard.
Flashcards
Posters
Body parts (See appendixes 7- 7.1)

In-service teacher II A song was used to introduce The materials used by this participants
the vocabulary items while were:
singing it while translating
from L1 to L2. Flashcards
(See appendixes 2.2- 2.3) Song in L2
Body parts
(See appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

It is easy to observe the difference between the first and third stage in terms of vocabulary
teaching materials used by the in-service teachers. At the very beginning, materials were
limited to the blackboard or the translation of a song in L1, but after having contact with
the pre-service teacher, the in-service teachers developed new materials taking into
account what they observed in the pre-service teacher’s class (See appendixes 9- 9.3).
The influence the pre-service teacher’s class was adapted by the in-service teachers in
their own teaching practices. (See appendixes 8- 8.1)

36
 4.1.2.2. Interaction students- In-service teachers’ materials

In this sub-category, the interaction presented between students and materials was
identified during the first and third stages.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I No interaction was observed. The participant used:

Flashcards: students mentioned the

names in L2 taking into account the
image.

Posters: students practiced the

pronunciation of the words and related
words to the image of a human body.
(See appendixes 7- 7.1)
In-service teacher Students sang along with the The materials used by this participants
II in-service teacher, then they were:
tried to sing it in the L2. (See
appendixes 2.2- 2.3) Flashcards: students had to match
flashcards with words in L2 on the
board.

Song in L2: students sang along with

the teacher and they had to touch the
part of the body that were mentioned in
the song as well as they had to
remember what parts of the body were
mentioned in the song. (See appendixes
7.2- 7.3)

The way in-service teachers promote interaction students-materials was highly developed
after the process of reverse mentoring (See appendixes 9- 9.3). In-service teachers

37
 enhanced interaction by allowing students to use different materials in order to teach the
vocabulary items and reinforce it through practice. FOTOS APPENDIX

4.1.3. In-service teachers’ vocabulary use to enhance vocabulary learning.

This category presents the use of the new vocabulary items in different activities during
the English class.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I Students were asked to Students were asked to mention
complete sentences on the the vocabulary items according to
board using the new the flashcards.
vocabulary items. The
sentences were about filling in Students went to the board and
the blanks. (See appendixes 2- showed one part of their body and
2.1) mentioned its name in the L2.

Students also mentioned the parts

of the body that they observed in
the flashcards.

One student showed parts of their

body and the rest of the class had
to tell the name of the part. (See
appendixes 7- 7.1)

In-service teacher II Students wrote on the board Students were asked to stand up
new vocabulary items they and sing along with the teacher
already knew in the L2. (See while miming the song.
appendixes 2.2 - 2.3)
Then, students matched flashcards
with words in L2.

38
 Students were given a worksheet
in which there was a picture of a
boy or a girl according to write the
parts of the body.

The teacher asked a student to

show the parts of the body that she
mentioned.

After that, the teacher showed a

flashcards and students had to tell
the name. (See appendixes 7.2-
7.3)

A change in methodology was observed when activities performed by students are taken
into account. The in-service teachers’ used different activities to promote vocabulary
learning, these activities fostered a major interaction in terms of materials, and also
allowed students to use the L2. The contact with the pre-service teacher influenced the
way the in-service teachers used the materials (See appendixes 9- 9.3).

4.1.4. In-service teachers’ learning styles activities

This category is related to the way the different learning styles were addressed by the in-
service teachers in the first and third stages. We chose to classify their actions according
to three main different learning styles; visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

4.1.4.1 In-service teachers’ visual learning activities

This sub-category shows the activities related to visual learners in the first and third
stages.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I The visual learning style was The teacher brought to the class a
addressed by drawing on the poster in which there was a

39
 board some vocabulary items. drawing of a man with his body
(See appendixes 2- 2.1) parts written.

Also, the teacher brought some

flashcards that contain the
different parts of the body. (See
appendixes 7- 7.1)

In-service teacher II This style was addressed by The teacher brought some
writing the new vocabulary items flashcards of the different parts of
on the board. (See appendixes the body. Moreover, the teacher
2.2- 2.3) wrote on the board the parts of the
body related with the flashcards.

Additionally, the teacher gave

students a worksheet that had a
picture in which they had to
identify the different parts of the
body. (See appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

It was possible to observe that the in-service teachers addressed the visual learning style
by using flashcards and posters. It is important to highlight that even though they were
able to address this learning style before the practicum, after reverse mentoring, they
widened the range of materials used to achieve this purpose (Appendix 11-11.1). This
idea is supported by the evidence shown in the pre-service teacher class plan (See
appendixes 9- 9.3) when they used similar material to teach other topics. In-service
teachers assured that the use of flashcards to relate image-words in the L2 (imagery) was
a very helpful strategy strategies, this can be observed in the interview. (See appendixes
8- 8.1)

40
4.1.4.2 In-service teachers’ auditory learning activities

This sub-category shows the activities related to auditory learners in the first and third
stages.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I The auditory learning style was Students were asked to repeat the
addressed by asking students to parts of the body before the
repeat the new vocabulary items teacher pronounced them. (See
written on the board. (See appendixes 7- 7.1)
appendixes 2- 2.1)

In-service teacher II This style was addressed by The teacher sang a song about the
checking the pronunciation of the body parts and students sang it too.
new vocabulary items on the Then the teacher told students the
board. Also, when the items were pronunciation of the vocabulary
introduced by singing a song and they repeated them.
from L1 to L2. (See appendixes
2.2- 2.3) Furthermore, the teacher asked
students to go the front of the class
and to touch the part of the body
that was being mentioned. (See
appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

As a conclusion, it can be said that this learning style was addressed in a similar way in
the first stage and in the third one; nevertheless, it is remarkable to mention that the in-
service teachers addressed this learning style in the L2, when they used to do so in L1.
During the first stage, in-service teachers reported that they wanted to use the L2 more
often, but they did not, however, after reverse mentoring, they started using the L2 to
address this learning style even when they made. (See appendixes 1- 1.1 and 8- 8.1)

41
4.1.4.3 In-service teachers’ kinesthetic learning activities

This sub-category shows the activities related to kinesthetic learners identified in the first
and third stages.

Participants Stage 1 Stage 3

In-service teacher I The kinesthetic learning style was Students were asked to stand up
addressed by asking students to and go to the front of the class
go to the board and simple write and touch the body parts that
sentences. (See appendixes 2- teacher was mentioning. (See
2.1) appendixes 7- 7.1)
In-service teacher II This style was addressed by At the beginning of the class
asking students to go to the board students were asked to stand up,
and write new vocabulary items sit down (commands)
they already knew. (See
appendixes 2.2- 2.3) Then they were asked to go to the
board in order to match some
pictures with their correct
writing.

In addition, students were asked

to go the front of the class and
touch the part of the body that the
teacher was mentioning. (See
appendixes 7.2- 7.3)

Varying intensity was shown when addressing the kinesthetic learning style. It is
observable during the first stage in which in-service teachers used to address it only by
asking students to go to the board and write sentences, but after reverse mentoring, they
started asking students to move and do activities which required movement, it was done
by taking into account the strategies used.

42
To conclude, it is possible to say that reverse mentoring happened and influence the in-
service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills. It can be seen when they used to introduce
new vocabulary by using translation as their main strategy in stage one. After having
contact with the pre-service teacher, it was observed that in-service teachers used other
strategies different from translation to teach English, such as imagery, realia and TPR.
Additionally, in-service teachers were conscious about the importance of the L2 in the
classroom, the introduction of vocabulary items, but not at the moment of giving
instructions and feedback, as they were not proficient in the L2 (English). In terms of
materials, a big difference was observable between the first and third stage. In the first
stage, in-service teachers tend to use the blackboard and a song as their materials during
the class. In contrast with the third stage in which they developed new materials and
brought them into the class as posters and flashcards taking into account the ones that the
pre-service teacher had used before. In-service teachers promoted interaction by allowing
students to use different materials in order to teach the vocabulary items and strengthen
it through practice. Additionally, In-service teachers used different activities to develop
vocabulary learning; these activities promoted a considerable interaction in terms of
materials, which let students use the L2. In terms of learning styles, in-service teachers
addressed the visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles by promoting diverse
activities in which students had to repeat and touch, watch pictures and posters, and go to
the board in order to match the vocabulary items taught during the class with their
correspondent image. It is important to mention that in-service teachers used vocabulary
teaching strategies such as imagery, realia and TPR which were different from the only
one used in the first stage that was translation. The findings suggest that reverse
mentoring influenced the in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills in a noticeable
way. The following table supports the ideas stated above.

In-
In- Pre-
service Reverse
Category Subcategory service service
teacher Mentoring
teacher I teacher
II
In-service teachers’
In-service teachers’
strategies to teach    
teaching style to
vocabulary

43
 enhance vocabulary
learning. In-service teachers’
   
use of the L2

In-service teachers’
In-service teachers’
vocabulary    
materials to teach
teaching materials
vocabulary.
Interaction
students- In-service    
teachers’ materials
In-service teachers’
vocabulary use to
   
enhance vocabulary
learning.
In-service teachers’
visual learning    
In-service teachers’ activities

activities to address In-service teachers’

learning styles. auditory learning    

activities
In-service teachers’
kinesthetic    
learning activities
TABLE #1. Reverse mentoring findings in terms of vocabulary.

The table presented above is divided into lines and columns. The lines correspond to the
categories, and columns are related to the in-service teachers, pre-service teacher and
reverse mentoring. Ticks are used to show that in-service teachers modified their
practices. When the in-service teachers have a tick, and so does the pre-service teacher in
the same line, it implies that the in-service teachers were influenced by the pre-service
leading to tick the cell named “reverse mentoring”.

44
4.2 WHAT ARE THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE
PRACTICUM?

This question addresses the perspectives in-service teachers had towards the practicum
before reverse mentoring. This question allowed us to identify if the in-service teachers
had a positive attitude towards the practicum or if they were reluctant towards the pre-
service teacher’s methodology and the practicum. The identification of these attitudes
was important in order to analyze if they felt they were able to learn from a younger
person. In order to answer this question, it was required to identify in-service teachers’
attitudes towards the practicum. To achieve the purpose stated above, it was necessary to
identify how was the in-service teachers’ experience when teaching and learning English
as well as their experience with a pre-service teacher. For the identification of these
issues, an interview was used in the first stage of the study. The interview allowed us to
identify the in-service teachers’ perspectives about the practicum and their experiences
within it. These attitudes continued throughout the whole process, therefore a comparison
between stage 1 and stage 3 was not needed. The following are the preliminary findings
of the first stage gathered in the interview (See appendixes 1- 1.1). The information in
stage one was organized into one emergent category, which is:

4.2.1 In-service teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum

The instrument used allowed us to identify the attitudes in-service teachers’ had
towards classroom teaching practices. It is divided into four sub-categories:

4.2.1.1 Attitudes towards their own English Teaching

In this sub-category, the way the in-service teachers report their own
methodology is stated.

In-service teacher I In-service teacher II

This participant mentioned that they had taught This participant mentioned that they had taught
English since they started working. It can be English since they started working. It can be
seen in appendix 1 in turn 4: “Sí, señor. En seen in appendix 1.1 in turn 5 “Siempre me ha
todas las instituciones donde he trabajado me tocado dar las clases de inglés”
han asignado ésa área (Inglés)”

45
In addition, they mentioned that teaching This participant reported that their experience
English has been a wonderful experience. It when teaching English has been good even
can be seen in appendix in turn 6: “Pues para when they have never taken a course to teach
mí maravillosa porque siempre me ha gustado or learn english. It can be seen in appendix 1.1
trabajarla…eh… y comparto con otros in turn 7 “Pues bien, porque yo me preocupo
profesores que son los que me van guiando por lo que no sé y consulto en libros, consulto
cómo debo trabajarla”. en internet y en enciclopedias. Y eso para
darles las clases bien a los estudiantes” and in
turn 11 when they answered whether or not
they took an English teaching or learning
course “No, nunca”.

Moreover, the participant reported that they

Additionally, the participant reported that they
are doing an online English course from which
included speaking and listening. This can be
they have brought exercises for children in
observed in appendix 1.1 in turn 26 “ehhh,
school. In turn 12, appendix 1 “Estoy haciendo
osea mmmm escucha, escuchar, hablar, oír,
un curso con con ADBA por internet” and in
¿escuchar es lo mismo que oir no? No, no es
turn 20 “pues como es práctico, allí le colocan
lo mismo pero tiene que ver. O hablar,
a uno ejercicios y me sirven pa’ acá ponerlos
escuchar y speaking, ¿cómo es?”
en práctica de una vez en el colegio”

They reported elicitation and translation as

The participant reported that they included in
strategies to teach vocabulary. To this respect,
their class reading and writing. It can be seen
it can be observed in appendix 1.1 in turn 28
when in appendix 1 in turn 30 when asked
“pues así como lo di hoy, la clase de hoy fue,
about the skills included in class “Bueno…
pues explotando los pre-saberes de los
competencia lectora y escritora”.
estudiantes y con motivaciones, con canciones,
They also reported translation as the only con juegos…” this was reinforced in turn 36 “o
strategy used to teach vocabulary. To this sea, la estrategia esa, primero los pre-saberes
de los estudiantes, después escribírselos, se los

46
 respect, in turn 36 in appendix 1 they anoto en el tablero, les presento flashcards, se
mentioned “Sí, solo traducción” los… los repite conmigo, repiten ellos solos,
eeeh lo repiten individualmente, repiten en
grupo, por pareja, y asi sucesivamente.”

Taking into account what was found in the interview, it is possible to say that in-service
teachers had a positive attitude towards their own English teaching despite the fact that
they are not professional English teachers. They enjoy teaching the L2 and they ask when
guidance is needed, which implies that they are willing to learn.

4.2.1.2 English Learning continual professional development

This sub-category is related to the in-service teachers’ experience when learning English,
it was taken from what was found in the interview:

In-service teacher I In-service teacher II

The participant reported that they are doing an The participant reported that they have never
online English course from which they have taken an English course. To this respect, turn
brought exercises for children in school. In 11, in appendix 1.1“No, nunca”.
turn 12, in appendix 1 “Estoy haciendo un
curso con ADBA por internet”

It is possible to observe that the in-service teacher I is taking an online English course,
while the in-service teacher II has not had any experience when learning English besides
what they learnt in school. Based on this fact, in-service teacher I has had the experience
of learning English and reported it as something good, while the in-service teacher II has
not had that experience. It is relevant to mention that the process was an opportunity for
the in-service teachers’ professional growth, even if one of them had never taken an
English course.

47
4.2.1.3 In-service teachers’ willingness to learn

In this sub-category, we report the willingness to learn shown by the in-service teachers
during the interview.

In-service teacher I In-service teacher II

This participant mentioned that they were This participant mentioned that they would like
doing an online English course in turn 12 in to do an English course. It can be seen in turn
appendix 1 “Estoy haciendo un curso por 13, appendix 1.1 “yo sé que no voy a
ADBA por internet”. aprenderlo porque no sé, el inglés me parece
difícil… pero si me gustaría … (Risas)….”

However, they mentioned they were willing to

They reported that they would like to learn
learn new vocabulary teaching strategies. It can
new strategies when they are asked whether
be observed in turn 42, appendix 1.1:
or not they would like to learn yo sé que no
“¡también! Porque el vocabulario es la base, si
voy a aprenderlo porque no sé, el inglés me
un niño pues no maneja el vocabulario no
parece difícil strategies to teach vocabulary,
puede nada, no puede hacer nada en el inglés.
which can be seen in turn 38, appendix 1
Lo más importante es el vocabulario.”
“Por supuesto”.

Taking into account what is observed in the chart, it can be said that in-service teachers
were willing to learn how to teach vocabulary, even if one of them had not had the
experience of learning the L2 besides their experience at school. It is important to
mention that in-service teacher II reported the age as the main reason; this participant
feels that it is not so easy to learn the L2, but that they were willing to learn.

4.2.1.4 A positive experience with a pre-service teacher

In this sub- category, we report the experience the in-service teachers have had with prior
pre-service teachers when teaching English.

In-service teacher I In-service teacher II

This participant reported that they have had the This participant mentioned that they have had
opportunity to have pre-service teachers from the experience of having eleventh graders as
11th grade in the same school, and an English practitioners. This can be seen in turn 16 in

48
 course student from the University of appendix 1.1 “Sí, pelaos de aquí del colegio
Cordoba. This can be observed in turn 24 in que dan servicio social”. Regarding this
appendix 1 “Sí, el año pasado tuve la experience, they said that it was useful to have
oportunidad con estudiantes que vinieron de students teaching English. This can be reported
la jornada de la mañana en un proyecto que in turn 20 in appendix 1.1 “… una ayuda,
tienen aquí en el colegio, y otra estudiante que claro, sobre todo para mí que no manejo esta
estaba haciendo un curso en la universidad de área”.
córdoba”.

It was reported that the experience with the

This participant was in agreement with the
pre-service teachers motivated students. It can
methodology used by the practitioners. This is
be observed in turn 26 in appendix 1 “… los
shown in turn 22 in appendix 1.1 “…buena
niños recibieron los practicantes con mucho
porque es muy active…eh… utilizan bastante
respeto, con mucho interés”. This idea was
material didáctico y explotan bastante la
reinforced in turn 28 in appendix 1 “Pues
participación de los niños”
utilizaban muchas láminas… con canciones, y
a los niños eso les despierta el interés”.

It is observed that in-service teachers have positive attitudes towards the pre-service
teachers’ methodology. They also recognize that the strategies used by pre-service
teachers were engaging. They also seem to be in agreement about learning from a younger
person.

The attitudes in-service teachers have towards the practicum are positive. They are in
agreement with the pre-service teachers’ methodology. In addition, they are willing to
learn from them as well as they consider the materials the use engaging.

49
 5. DISCUSSION

In this section, we discuss the findings obtained during this research regarding the
significant literature about the issues involved in the study. As a relevant aspect to
highlight in this research, this discussion is based on two main themes: First, the extent
of the influence of reverse mentoring on the in-service teachers’ vocabulary teaching
skills, and in-service teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum in reverse mentoring.

5.1 THE EXTENT OF THE INFLUENCE REVERSE MENTORING HAD IN THE

IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ VOCABULARY TEACHING SKILLS

Taking into account that reverse mentoring has not been broadly explored in the
educational field in terms of English teaching, the discussion of this research have been
developed from different studies in the technological, business and educational fields. As
it was stated by Murphy (2012):

Reverse mentoring is an innovative way to encourage learning and facilitate

cross-generational relationships. It involves the pairing of a younger, junior employee
acting as mentor to share expertise with an older, senior colleague as mentee. The
purpose is knowledge sharing, with the mentee focused on learning from the mentor’s
updated subject or technological expertise and generational perspective (p.549)

The idea stated above suggests that in reverse mentoring a junior collaborator, in this case
the pre-service teacher, can be paired with a senior employee, the in-service teachers,
leading to a relationship in which they both share knowledge in which the junior
employee acts as the mentor in order to help the mentee keep updated. This thought is
confirmed in the present research when the in-service teachers modified their vocabulary
teaching practices by applying some of the strategies used by the pre-service teacher
during the practicum. Additionally, it is supported by the fact that the in-service teachers,
before having contact with the pre-service teacher, used to apply only translation as
strategy to teach vocabulary to children as they were not proficient in the L2 and they
had not been trained to teach vocabulary. However, now they use different vocabulary
teaching strategies such as realia, TPR, and imagery. The use of this strategies benefit the
acquisition of vocabulary items (Ningtyas, 2009; Widodo, 2005; Zahedi & Abdi, 2012)

50
as well as enhanced the use of different materials such as flashcards, posters and parts of
the body to help students internalize them.

Materials ( flashcards, posters and parts of the body) used by the in-service teachers
address learners’ memory for objects, which helps them remember vocabulary items
easily, they act as prompts enhancing words remembrance (Takač, 2008). The prior idea
is reinforced when the in-service teachers developed their new vocabulary teaching
strategies by using the materials mentioned above. In addition, interaction students-
material was fostered as they were able to have contact with the materials encouraging
students’ participation throughout the class. This is confirmed by the findings obtained
by Philips (2004, cited in Khader, 2011, p.204) when he stated, “students learn best when
they engage with course material and actively participate in their learning”. Findings
showed that the in-service teachers not only grasped vocabulary-teaching strategies from
the pre-service teacher, but also were influenced on the use of materials when applying
those strategies enhancing students’ participation, which implies that reverse mentoring
took place.

As it was stated by the RMTI University (2014, p.3) “a range of learning activities
is necessary to engage students in learning and to appeal to different learning styles”.
This important thought was evidenced when the in-service teachers developed different
learning activities such as matching, drilling, singing along, and elicitation after having
contact with the pre-service teacher. During these activities, the target language was
highly used, which leads to believe that in-service teachers acknowledged the use of the
target language as something important, this was a result of reverse mentoring due to the
fact that in-service teachers did not do so at the very beginning, but only after having the
opportunity to share the workplace with the pre-service teacher. Something similar was
found in a research conducted by Harmer (2007, p. 134) when he assured that “the teacher
is a principal source of useful comprehensible input, then the more time we spend
speaking English, the better”, in other words, students need to have contact with the L2
as much as possible in order for them to acquire and develop it. As a result, students were
engaged with the class participating actively because the in-service teachers varied the
activities students had to perform taking into account their different learning styles.

Teachers have to take advantage of students’ preferences when taking information

through their senses in order to help students learn. These preferences will shape the way

51
in which students learn best (Gilakjani, 2012, p.104). This is evidenced in this research
when the in-service teachers not only included but also widened the range of activities
and materials, after being in the classroom with a pre-service teacher, to address the
different learning styles taking into account students’ preferences leading to an increasing
participation. Following this idea, three main learning styles addressed by the in-service
teachers: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Felder and Silverman (2002, p.676) states that
“visual learners remember best what they see: pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines,
films, demonstrations…” this was evidenced when the in-service teachers used
flashcards and posters in order for the students to associate the pictures with the words in
the L2 to establish a connection. Learners who remember much of what they hear and
say are considered to be auditory learners, they prefer verbal explanations, discussions,
and explaining things to others over visual demonstrations (Felder and Silverman, 2002,
p.676). This learning style was addressed by the in-service teachers when they used drills,
and sang a song. Finally, the kinesthetic learning style was defined by Sivilotti and Pike
(2007, p.362) as “a process in which students learn by actively carrying out physical
activities rather than by passively listening to lectures”, the in-service teachers addressed
this style when they gave orders such as “stand up, sit down, go to the board” and also
when students were asked to perform activities in front of the class such as showing parts
of their body. The findings obtained in terms of learning styles revealed that in-service
teachers expanded the way they addressed them by adding new materials and activities to
enhance students’ learning, due to the fact that the in-service teachers had contact with
the pre-service teacher.

To sum, reverse mentoring contributed positively to the in-service teachers’ vocabulary

teaching skills in terms of vocabulary strategies, materials, and activities. It is important
to highlight that it was not limited to the issues mentioned above but also, it strengthened
the use of the L2, and the way the in-service teachers addressed the learning styles.

5.2 THE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE

PRACTICUM IN REVERSE MENTORING

Bearing in mind that attitudes are usually seen as individual’s reactions towards social
elements (concept, event, person) after considering them favorable or unfavorable (Kartz,
1960, Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, Doron & Parot, 1999), they can influence the way in-
service and pre-service teachers react towards each other’s teaching practices. This is

52
supported when the in-service teachers assured in the first interview that they had being
in the classroom with a pre-service teacher before, but it was not until after the practicum
that they even grasped some vocabulary strategies used by the pre-service teacher, which
shows that reverse mentoring happened. This suggests that the relationship between in-
service and pre-service teachers was favorable and that the in-service teachers had a
positive attitude towards the pre-service teacher when we take into account that the
effective manifestation of knowledge and skills to teach is influenced by the teaching
profession attitude. Thus, coherence is expressed when the competences are enhanced by
a positive attitude (Andronache et al, 2014). This idea is supported by Inzer and Crawford
(2005, p.34) when they claimed that “without a relationship where each person values the
other, and makes a connection with the other, the quality of the mentoring will be
lessened.” Then, the in-service teachers learnt from the pre-service teacher in terms of
strategies. This idea is strengthen by Hansen (2000, p.23) when he establishes that “for
decades, educational psychologists have studied the learning process. They concluded
that learning is equated to a change in behavior”. The findings of this study showed that
for reverse mentoring to happen, it is required a positive attitude towards each other so
that the mentoring relationship happens in terms of knowledge and competence.

Considering what is stated by Quast (2011) when she assured in forbes.com that “in a
reverse mentoring relationship, both parties act in the capacity of a mentor as well as a
mentee; so they must both ‘genuinely want to learn from and share with the other’.” It is
important to highlight that in reverse mentoring, the willingness to learn is relevant for
the relationship to take place as it was observed in this study when the in-service teachers
mentioned that the pre-service teacher’s materials and methodology was engaging and
made students participate actively. In a similar study was found that opportunities for
growth can be enhanced through positive emotions which are fostered by the explicit
support of one another’s learning (Spreitzer, 2006). It is also important to highlight that
knowledge is assimilated better when there is a good relationship between mentor and
mentee for which a trust and rapport in reverse mentoring is essential (Dutton & Heaphy,
2003). Then, the mutual support contributes to develop self-awareness, trust and learning
(Argyris, 1994). The fact that reverse mentoring took place can be analyzed taking into
account that in-service teachers wrote in their journals that the pre-service teacher applied
innovative strategies to teach vocabulary as well as the way they referred to the pre-
service teacher in the feedback session.

53
The intergenerational gap between senior and junior employees tends to be narrowed
when reverse mentoring takes place (Harvey & Buckley, 2002; Hewlett et al., 2009;
Meister & Willyerd, 2010). For senior mentees, this structure represents challenges as
they have to give up some control of the learning process and have an open attitude in
order to learn from their mentor (Murphy, 2012). This is shown when in-service teachers
admit that they keep updated thanks to the pre-service teachers as they have new
methodologies that are unknown for them. When positive aspects are identified on each
other in a reverse mentoring relationship, they can identify with each other and decide
what to model for future behavior (Dutton & Heaphy, 2003; Lankau & Scandura, 2002;
Murphy, 2012). This is observed when one of the in-service teacher assures that they were
thinking about what the pre-service had done before in order to apply it in their own
English class. When senior mentees recognize that younger mentors offer new insights,
ways to develop ideas and to solve problems, the intergenerational gap is narrowed as
well as cross-generational communication is enhanced (Murphy 2012). This is observed
when the in-service teachers mentioned that pre-service teachers had new methodologies
that work better with students. Findings in this study showed that the intergenerational
gap is narrowed when the in-service and pre-service teachers work together and recognize
each other as a guidance in order to obtain insights and perspectives about what is new
for them; pre-service teacher obtained classroom management advice while the in-service
teachers obtained new vocabulary teaching strategies.

In conclusion, the attitudes the in-service teachers had about the practicum, allowed
reverse mentoring to take place, which contributed to narrow the intergenerational gap
between in-service teachers and the pre-service teacher. They were able to work
cooperatively as they had a positive attitude towards each other. In addition, in-service
teachers were updated in terms of vocabulary strategies. Following this idea, reverse
mentoring took place thanks to the attitude teachers had towards each other so that they
were able to learn from each other and to be open to new ideas and perspectives improving
their professional teaching practices.

54
 6. CONCLUSION

This section provides the conclusions, limitations and suggestions of the present
research study. This study was carried out with the purpose of exploring reverse
mentoring between two in-service teachers and a pre-service teacher when teaching
vocabulary to 4th and 5th graders in order to understand the way in which the process takes
place during the practicum. For this purpose, two research questions were addressed:

- To what extent does reverse mentoring influence the in-service teachers’

vocabulary teaching skills?
- What are the in-service teachers’ attitudes towards the practicum?

The findings showed that reverse mentoring took place while improving in-
service teachers’ vocabulary teaching skills when teaching vocabulary in primary levels.
Moreover, it is important to mention that the pre-service teacher acquired knowledge from
the in-service teachers regarding classroom management as well as learning to listen to
students before scolding them. In reverse mentoring, the young person acts a mentor and
the senior one acts as the mentee. In the current study, the pre-service teacher plays the
role of an indirect mentor and the in-service teachers are like ¨pseudo¨ mentees in which
the in-service teachers acquired knowledge from the pre-service teacher in terms of
vocabulary teaching strategies, methodology and materials. Furthermore, findings
showed that reverse mentoring took place benefiting both parties while narrowing the
intergenerational gap.

This study is concern about the fact that there are not professional English teachers
in primary levels. This issue is evidenced when we observed that in-service teachers are
not usually trained to teach English and they are not very proficient in the language. The
analysis of the data collected from interviews, observations, field notes, journals, lesson
plans and a feedback session demonstrated that the in-service teachers in primary levels
were willing to learn new vocabulary teaching strategies as they recognized teaching as
a dynamic and evolving process. At the very beginning, the in-service teachers’ only
strategy to teach vocabulary was translation, but after having contact with the pre-service
teacher, new vocabulary teaching strategies were used.

55
 Reverse mentoring took place due to the positive attitude the in-service teachers
showed from the beginning to the end of the practicum narrowing the intergenerational
gap. In addition, the in-service teachers developed new materials, increased their use of
L2 and widened the range of activities to address the different students’ learning styles.

To conclude, these outcomes showed that the relationship between the in-service
and pre-service teachers influenced the way in-service teachers taught vocabulary items
by using different strategies, materials and activities while narrowing the
intergenerational gap keeping an open attitude towards the pre-service teacher’s
methodology. This demonstrated that reverse mentoring truly took place.

During the development of this research, the following limitations were faced:

- Time was the main constraint in this study; to carry out this research, we had
to take into account the practicum calendar in order to start this study, and
also, each in-service were in contact with the pre-service teacher only one hour
per week. At the beginning of this study, this research was going to be carried
out with one in-service teacher but due to the lack of English hours at the
school, we had to select two participants, which led to the gathering of a lot of
data, adding extra work for the correspondent analysis.
- As the pre-service teacher does not have enough experience in the field,
classroom management became a constraint because the in-service teacher
had to help sometimes with the discipline.

On the other hand, this research suggests:

- Research projects based on reverse mentoring should be carried out during

one semester in order to be able to analyze the influence it has without rushing.
- The creation of a reverse mentoring program at the University in which
students of the English teaching program help in-service teachers in primary
levels develop different strategies by conscious guidance.
- More research studies on reverse mentoring in the English teaching field
should be done, for which we suggest the following ideas: the influence
attitudes have on reverse mentoring, in-service teacher’s materials design after
reverse mentoring, in-service teacher’s instructions after reverse mentoring,
reverse mentoring in the use of the L2, In-service teachers’ attitudes towards
reverse mentoring, among others.

56
 As a final contribution, this research fills the gap in literature in the English
teaching field about reverse mentoring. It also promotes further studies about the
influence reverse mentoring has on the professional growth of its participants. Moreover,
it leads to the creation and implementation of a reverse mentoring program in public
institutions in which the practicum is carried out in order to support the bilingualism
program of the Ministry of Education.

57
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APPENDIXES

68
 Appendix 1

In-service teachers’ interview

4th grade (In-service teacher I)

Turns Participant Translation into English

1 Interviewer Eh, profe, usted… ¿Hace cuánto Ehhh… teacher how long have
trabaja en este colegio? you been working in this school?

2 In-service teacher emmmm, en el Marceliano Polo Emmmm… at Marceliano Polo

estoy trabajando desde el 2014. school, I have been working
since 2014
3 Interviewer ¿Ha enseñado usted inglés antes? Have you taught English before?
4 In-service teacher Sí, señor, en todas las instituciones Yes, sir, in all institutions where
donde he trabajado me han I have worked I have had to teach
asignado esa área. English

5 Interviewer ¿Y cómo ha sido esa experiencia? How was that experience?

6 In-service teacher Pues… para mí, maravillosa Wel, for me it has been
porque siempre me ha gustado wonderful because I like teaching
trabajarla… eh… y comparto con English…. Ehhh and I share with
otros profesores que son los que other teachers that are the ones
me van guiando cómo debo who guide and teach me how I
trabajar. should work.
7 Interviewer Ah. Ah.
8 In-service teacher Yo no soy licenciada en inglés. I am not a professional English
teacher.
9 Interviewer Ah, y ¿hay algo que se le dificulte Ah and… is there something
cuando enseña inglés? difficult for you at the moment of
teaching English?
10 In-service teacher Bueno, actualmente, que los niños Well, actually students have the
como… como que… como que idea that you cannot working

69
 vienen con el concepto de que uno with them in 100%, you always
no les puede estar trabajando como have to making reviews about
al 100%, siempre tiene que ir what they previously learnt, we
es…es haciéndoles un repaso de are always receiving a new group
qué traen ellos de los otros años, of students each year. If I
siempre estamos recibiendo un received a group of… for
nuevo grupo que si fuese que uno example, 3rd grade and I taught it
recibiese un grupo en, por ejemplo, until students were in 5th I would
en tercero y uno lo llevara hasta know how to work with them.
5to, ya uno sabía cómo trabajarle a
los estudiantes.

11 Interviewer ¿Alguna vez ha hecho un curso Have you ever been a course for
para aprender o enseñar inglés? learning or teaching English?

12 In-service teacher Estoy haciendo un curso con I am, through internet, it is called
ADBA, por internet. ABA.
13 Interviewer Ok, ¿está haciendo un curso de Ok. Are you in an English
inglés? course?
14 In-service teacher Si, lo inicié hace poquito. Yes, I started it recently.
15 Interviewer Ah, ¿es su primer curso? Ah… is it your first course?
16 In-service teacher Sí, mi primer curso. Yes, my first course.
17 Interviewer ¿Y qué tal? And how is it?
18 In-service teacher Pues chévere. It is cool
19 Interviewer ¿Cómo ha sido el aprendizaje? How have the learning process
been?
20 In-service teacher Pues como es práctico, allí le Useful, there are exercises that I
colocan a uno ejercicios y me have to do and at the same time I
sirven pa’ acá pa’ ponerlos en can put into practice them here in
práctica de una vez en el colegio. the school.
21 Interviewer Ah, y ¿le gusta el inglés? Ah … do you like English?
22 In-service teacher Sí, me fascina. Yes, it fascinates me

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23 Interviewer Ah, y ¿alguna vez ha tenido un Ah, and have you ever had a
practicante? practitioner?
24 In-service teacher Sí, el año pasado tuve la Yes, I had the opportunity last
oportunidad con estudiantes que year with some students who
vinieron de la jornada de la came from the morning time with
mañana en un proyecto que tienen a project that school has, and I
aquí en el colegio y otra estudiante had a student who was in an
que estaba haciendo un curso en la English course from the
universidad de córdoba. university of Cordoba.

25 Interviewer ¿Cómo fue el proceso? How was that process?

26 In-service teacher Pues el grupo era diferente, a los Well, the group of students was
niños… los niños recibieron los different… the students were
practicantes con mucho respeto, interested and respectful with the
con mucho interés. practitioners.
27 Interviewer Ok, y ¿qué le pareció la Ok. What do you think about the
metodología que ellos utilizaban? methodology they used?

28 In-service teacher Pues utilizaban muchas láminas, Well, they used many flashcards,
canciones, y a los niños eso les songs. These wakes the students’
despierta el interés. interest up.

29 Interviewer Y en las clases de inglés que da What abilities do you teach in the
acá, ¿Qué habilidades incluye? lessons?

30 In-service teacher Bueno… competencia lectora y Well, Reading and writing.

escritora.

31 Interviewer ¿Cómo le gusta enseñar lectura? How do you like to teach

Reading?

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32 In-service teacher Con textos, traduciendo, With texts, translating, to
traduciendo nuevas palabras, translate new words and putting
dándole aplicación a esas nuevas into practice that words.
palabras.

33 Interviewer ¿Le gustaría aprender otras Do you like to learn new Reading
estrategias de lectura aparte de las strategies?
que utiliza?
34 In-service teacher Sí claro. Yes, of course.

35 Interviewer Y respecto al vocabulario, aparte And, what about vocabulary?

de la estrategia de traducir, ¿qué Which other strategy do you use
otra utiliza? diferent from translating?
36 In-service teacher Sí, solo traducción. Yes, only translating
37 Interviewer ¿Le gustaría aprender otras Do you like to learn new ones?
nuevas?
38 In-service teacher ¡Por supuesto! Of course!
39 Interviewer Y… ¿Cómo sería una clase ideal And… how would be an ideal
de inglés para usted? English class for you?
40 In-service teacher ¿Una clase ideal de inglés para mí? An ideal English class for me?
Mmm… en donde no se hable… Mmm… where Spanish is not
no se hable español, sino en donde spoken and the students were
ya los niños se vayan familiarized and all was…. Eh…
familiarizando y todo sea… eh call the attention of students
que… captar la atención de los seeing the advances and setbacks
niños viendo los avances y los they have. Do not speak in
retrocesos que ellos tengan. No Spanish but in English.
hablarles en español sino en inglés.
41 Interviewer Acerca de la lectura, ¿considera About Reading... how do you
usted que sus estudiantes consider your students develop
desarrollan la lectura en inglés? Reading in English?
42 In-service teacher Bueno, en ese aspecto los niños Well, in that aspect students have
tienen dificultades cuando se les da difficulties when teaching

72
 porque tienen que utilizar Reading because they have to use
diccionarios, que tienen que… dictionaries that …. So they say
entonces dice “No, no vamos a “no, we are not going to work, it
trabajar a eso, me da pereza is boring to translate”. If they
traducir”, o si lo hacen, lo hace un work, only few students work
pequeño grupo y el otro se copia. and the rest of them make a copy.
43 Interviewer Y en cuanto a vocabulario, ¿Cómo About vocabulary … how do see
los ve usted? students?
44 In-service teacher Pues estamos reforzando desde la Well, I am reinforcing from the
primera temática hasta los first topic until the one we are
contenidos que vamos viendo, working, I always try to integrate
siempre tratamos de integrarles el the last topic with the next one.
último contenido con el primero. We always greet, for example,
Siempre saludamos, por ejemplo, we greet in English, we are
saludamos en inglés, estamos remembering the colors, articles,
recordando los colores, los classroom objects and … the
artículos, los objetos del salón… numbers. I want to write them
Y… eh… los números, poniendo with students … in each place, in
en práctica los números, quiero each… I want students to identify
escribirlos con ellos… en cada and integrate them in other
lugar y en cada… que ellos vayan subject like arts, they find a sign,
identificándolos e integrándolos for example, if they go to 4th
con el área de artística, que grade, they go to the bathroom,
encuentren una señalización, por library, everything associated to
ejemplo, van al grado cuarto, van the English school project.
al baño, van a la biblioteca, todo
vaya asociado al proyecto que hay
en el colegio de inglés.

45 Interviewer Ah bueno, muchas gracias, profe. Ok, good. Thank you so much
teacher
46 In-service teacher Bueno. Ok

73
 Appendix 1.1

In-service teacher interview

5th grade (In-service teacher II)

Turns Participants Translation into English

1 Interviewer Objective: to get information
about the experience the
inservice teacher had teaching
English and how she has learnt
it
2 Interviewer Ehhh… profe ¿hace cuánto Ehhh.. Teacher. How long
tiempo trabaja usted en el have you been working here,
colegio? in this school?
3 In-service teacher Hace como 10 años ya. Aquí en 10 years ago. Here in
el Marceliano. Marceliano school.
4 Interviewer ¿Ha enseñado usted inglés antes? Have you ever taught English
before?
5 In-service teacher Siempre, me ha tocado dar las Always, I have had to teach
clases de inglés. English.
6 Interviewer ¿Y qué tal le va? And… how are you doing?
7 In-service teacher Pues bien, porque yo me Well, good because I worry for
preocupo por saber lo que no sé. learning what I do not know,
Y consulto en libros, consulto en and I search for in books, on
internet y en enciclopedias, y eso internet and in encyclopedias,
para darles las clases bien a los and ... for giving good lessons
estudiantes. to students.
8 Interviewer ¿Qué es lo que más se le dificulta What is difficult for you at the
al momento de dar la clase de moment of teaching English?
inglés?
9 In-service teacher La pronunciación The pronunciation.

74
10 Interviewer ¿Alguna vez ha hecho un curso Have you ever been in a course
para aprender inglés o for learning or teaching
enseñarlo? English?
11 In-service teacher No, nunca. No, never.
12 Interviewer ¿Pero le gustaría hacer alguna But, would you like to be in?
vez algún curso?
13 In-service teacher Yo sé que no voy a aprenderlo Yes, I would like but jajaja… I
porque no sé, el inglés me parece know I will not learn English
difícil, pero, si me gustaría because I do not know. I think
(risas)… English is difficult.
14 Interviewer ¡Pero si el inglés es súper fácil! But, English is pretty easy.
15 Interviewer ¿Alguna vez ha tenido Have you ever had practitioner
practicantes en las clases de in English classes?
inglés?
16 In-service teacher Si, pelaos de aquí del colegio que Yes, students from this school
da servicio social. who come to do social service.
17 Interviewer ¿Y qué tal ha sido esa How was that experience?
experiencia?
18 In-service teacher Si, buena. Son pelaos que Yes, good! They are students
manejan bastante el inglés. Lo who know English, the
escogen allá. Las profesoras los teachers chose them. Students
escogen y ellos manejan bien el know a lot about vocabulary,
vocabulario, toda la parte English grammar part as well.
gramatical también del inglés y Everything.
todo.
19 Interviewer ¿Qué opina usted de tener What do you think of having a
practicantes? O sea, le ve como pre-service teacher? I mean,
algo que le beneficia o… do you see it as an advantage
or…
20 In-service teacher Una ayuda! Claro una ayuda, A help! Of course a help in my
sobre todo para mi que no case I do not English
manejo esta área.

75
21 Interviewer Ok. ¿Y que piensa de la Ok. what do you think about
metodología que los practicantes the methodology the pre-
utilizan? service teacher uses?
22 In-service teacher Buena, buena porque es muy Good, good because is
active… ehhh… utilizan active… ehh… they use
bastante material didáctico y dynamic materials and take
explotan bastante la advantage of students’
participación de los niños. participation.
23 Interviewer Ehmm… también ¿De qué Eh… also, in which way the
manera ha influido la enseñanza in-service teaching has
de ellos sobre la suya? influenced on you?
24 In-service teacher Bueno, porque uno aprende cada Good, because we learn every
día de todo el mundo hasta de los day from everyone, from
mismos estudiantes, uno aprende students. We learn a lot, and
mucho. Mira que en el salón hay Look, in the classroom there
niños que saben bastante inglés y are students who know
lo pronuncian bien y entonces English y they pronounce it
uno se ayuda de todos ellos y acá good, we find a help from all
de los muchachos que vienen a of them even from the students
hacer las prácticas y de las who come to do their practices
profesoras, pues yo me… and from teachers. Well, I …
primero que todo me quedo firstly, I got fool listening that
como bobita escuchando como wonderful lessons, and
dan esas clases tan bonitas y secondly, I would like to take
segundo pues me gustaría tomar what they use in order to teach
lo bueno que ellos hacen para yo in other subjects I have.
también darlo en las otras áreas
que imparto.
25 Interviewer ¿Y en las clases de inglés que And in the English class you
usted da que habilidades teach, which abilities do you
incluye? include?
26 In-service teacher Ehhh… o sea, mmmm escucha, Ehhh… I mean mmmm…
escuchar, hablar, oír, ¿Escuchar listening, speaking.

76
 es lo mismo que oír no? No, no
es lo mismo, pero tiene que ver.
¿O hablar, escuchar y speaking
cómo es?
27 Interviewer ¿Y en cuanto a vocabulario como And, what about vocabulary,
le gustaría enseñarlo? how would you like to teach it?
28 In-service teacher Pues así como lo di hoy, la clase Well, just like I dii today.
de hoy fue, pues explotando los Today’s class was .. well..
pre-saberes de los estudiantes y putting into practice the
con motivaciones, con students’ background
canciones, con juegos. knowledge and with
motivation, with songs and
games.
29 Interviewer ¿Y la lectura? And about Reading?
30 In-service teacher Ehh… La lectura pues… a través Ehhh…. Reading… throuhg
de textos, lectura de textos. texts, Reading with texts.
31 Interviewer ¿Con que frecuencia utiliza los What frequency do you use the
textos durante las clases? texts during lessons?
32 In-service teacher Bueno casi siempre, casi siempre Almost always… almost
estamos utilizando textos para always, I use texts in order that
que ellos lo lean y de ahí de they read and according to
acuerdo a ese texto, sea una what they read, could be a
gráfica, sea un texto escrito, ya. graphic or a written text.
33 Interviewer ¿De dónde saca los textos? Where do you get the texts?
34 In-service teacher De libros de inglés, como yo From English books, as I have
tengo un colegio, y a veces por a school, and I sometimes get
internet también. them from internet.
35 Interviewer Ah ok. ¿Y usted que estrategias Ah ok. Which vocabulary
conoce para enseñar strategies do you know?
vocabulario?
36 In-service teacher O sea, la estrategia esa, primero I mean… that strategy... first
los pre-saberes de los students’ background
estudiantes, después knowledge, then write the

77
 escribírselos, se los anoto en el words on the board, next I
tablero, les presento flashcards, present them in flashcards,
se los… lo repiten conmigo, students repeat the
repiten ellos solos, ehh… lo pronunciation, they repeat
repiten individualmente, repiten with me, then alone ehh…
en grupo, por pareja y así repeat individually, in pairs
sucesivamente. and so on.
37 Interviewer ¿Y con la lectura? And about Reading?
38 In-service teacher La lectura pues, haciendo lectura Reading… making students
en voz alta, se hace lectura Reading aloud, mental
mental, se hace lectura reading, continuum reading;
continuada también; inicia uno, one student starts another
continua el otro; y así continue and so on.
sucesivamente.
39 Interviewer Aparte de esas estrategias que Different form that Reading
usted utiliza en lectura, ¿Le strategies, would you like to
gustaría aprender nuevas learn others?
estrategias?
40 In-service teacher ¡Claro que sí! Claro. Entre más Of course! The more you learn
uno aprenda mejor porque la idea is better because the idea is
es que los niños aprendan students learn
41 Interviewer ¿Y en vocabulario? And about vocabulary?
42 In-service teacher ¡tambien! Porque el vocabulario As well! Because without
es la base, si un niño no maneja vocabulary you cannot do
el vocabulario no puede nada, no anything in English.
puede hacer nada en el inglés. Lo Vocabulary is important.
más importante es el
vocabulario.
43 Interviewer ¿Y qué le gustaría por ejemplo And, what would you like to
modificar en la enseñanza de modify on vocabulary
vocabulario? ¿Qué le gustaría teaching? What would you
cambiar, que fuera diferente? like to change?

78
44 In-service teacher Si, de pronto que fuera cómo mas Yes, maybe more interaction, I
interactiva, mas no sé, más más do not know, more dynamic
dinámica y que se amplia, amplia with no limitations to some
que no se limite a ciertas palabras words but students get all that
sino que ellos manejen todo ese vocabulary.
vocabulario.
45 Interviewer ¿Y cómo sería unja clase de What would be a ideal clase
inglés ideal para usted? for you?

46 In-service teacher Bueno dinámica, muy Well, dynamic, very

motivadora. Primero, motivar al motivated. First, a class that
estudiante bastante con el tema motivates students with the
que se va a dar y después hacerlo topic and them make it in a
de una forma dinámica para que dynamic way in order that
el estudiante se sienta atraído por students feel attracted for
lo que va a aprender y que el learning, and the teacher give
maestro pues le de participación participation, students practice
al estudiante, que el estudiante what they learn and their
practique lo que aprende y attention.
sobretodo también la atención de
ellos.
47 Interviewer Ah bueno. Ahhh ok

48 Interviewer ¿Considera usted que los Do you consider your students

estudiantes desarrollan la develop the Reading skill?
habilidad de lectura?
49 In-service teacher Sí, pero deben desarrollarla más. Yes, but they should develop it
Falta más. more
50 Interviewer Bueno profe eso es todo. Muchas Ok teacher, that’s all. Thank
gracias. Chao you so much.

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 Appendix 2

Observation #1

March 30th, 2016

Grade: 4th

First in-service teacher class

The English class started at 1:45 pm in fourth grade. The teacher began the class writing
on the board the word "star" and she asked the students if they knew what the word meant.
No student answered then, the teacher told students that they could see them (referring to
the word "star") at night and immediately students said in Spanish that it was a star. The
teacher continued her class writing other words on the board (sun, moon, mountain, cloud,
flower, rock, ocean, tree, water and sea). Besides writing the word star, the teacher draw
its corresponding picture in order that the students could understand the meaning of the
word in Spanish. With the other words, she wrote on the board its translation into Spanish.
Then the teacher told the students to write on the board the color of the sun but in English
and they had to write simple sentences. Students at first did not understand so, the teacher
wrote on the board the following example: "The sun is yellow."

Having explained the activity, the teacher said that if someone wanted to be a volunteer
to do the sentences on the board. A student volunteered and began writing the sentence
with the help of the teacher. Other students participated too and wrote on the board and
when they did not know a word or they were wrong, their classmates told them that it was
not correct and they told the correct answer. When the students finished the activity, the
teacher started another activity. The teacher started to write six sentences in English and
the students had to write them on their notebooks and write the translation of each
sentence in Spanish. The sentences were:

1. The sun is yellow. __________________________

2. The tree is green. __________________________
3. The mountain is green. _____________________
4. The cloud is white. _________________________

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 5. The sea is blue. ___________________________
6. The flowers are red. ________________________

When students wrote the sentences on their notebooks and some of them said the
translations of the sentences aloud to everybody, the teacher wrote on the board a short
text that was written in this way:“Mary is in fourth grade. She has pens, pencils, collors,
a bag blue, shoes black, a book of match, a dictionary, siccsors, marker, ruler, eraser and
sharpener. Mary has eight years old.” The teacher said that it was the homework and they
had to practice at home reading it. In that moment, the teacher came to the back of the
classroom and asked to the observers if what she had written was correct and the observers
said that there were some mistakes. Immediately, the teacher went to the board and made
the corrections to the short text and the class finished

81
 Appendix 2.1

Checklist

Objetivo: Obtener información acerca de la manera en que el in-service teacher

desarrolla la enseñanza de vocabulario en la clase de inglés.

In-service teacher I

Grado: 4to

Institución: Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo

Questions Yes No Comments

Is there a time for X Yes, at the beginning of the class.
teaching vocabulary in
the English class? When?

Does the teacher use X

strategies to teach The in-service teacher I uses translation
vocabulary? Which ones? and elicitation as vocabulary teaching
strategies.

Does the teacher use X

materials to teach Just the board.
vocabulary? What kind?

Are the vocabulary items X

taught used during the The in-service teacher I related the
class? vocabulary items with a previous topic
(the colors) in order to write sentences.

82
Does the teacher X Everything in the class is translated.
translate?

Does the teacher use the X The in-service teacher I only uses the L2
second language when mentioning the vocabulary item.
(English) to teach Explanations, feedback are in L1.
vocabulary?
Do students enjoy the X
way the teacher teaches Students seemed to be happy during the
vocabulary? class.

Do students interact with X

the material used by the Students went to the board and wrote
teacher to teach some sentences.
vocabulary?

Does the teacher take into X

account the learning Students watched some drawings and
styles when teaching wrote some words on the board.
vocabulary? How?

What kind of activities X

does the teacher use to
enhance students’ In-service teacher I used controlled
vocabulary learning? activities. For instance, asked students to
go to the board and write some
sentences.

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 Appendix 2.2

Observation #2

March 30th, 2016

Grade: 5th

First in-service teacher class

When the teacher arrived in the classroom, the teacher greeted students and organized
them in rows. After that, the teacher asked them about how was their Easter week. The
teacher decided to start the class with a song about animals and what they usually do; this
song was sang in Spanish. All students followed the teacher singing and clapping. Then
the teacher asked the practitioner to sing the song in English and to represent it through
actions in order that students could understand what he was singing.

Through that song, the teacher introduced the topic that was “animals”. The teacher wrote
on the board “the animals” and asked students which animals were mentioned in the song
and wrote them in English while the teacher was writing the teacher asked to the
practitioner if the spelling of the word was good or wrong. Next, the teacher read and
pronounced each word in order that students could listen the pronunciation, following this
she asked students to do it while she pointed out the Word. After this, students went to
the board and wrote other animals they have already known. The teacher asked the
students to translate into Spanish the words while she was pointing out them. Then the
teacher asked them to write down in their notebooks what was on the board as “activity
in class” and its instructions were written in Spanish “copia el vocabulario relacionado
con los animales en Inglés y escribe al lado su nombre en español”. After students wrote
the information, the teacher wrote “homework” and the instruction was written in Spanish
as well “recorta y pega laminas de animales y escribe al lado su nombre en ingles”.

At the end of the class, the teacher made a summary of what was taught. The instructions
even explanations were given in the native language, which is Spanish. The teacher also
stayed in one place instead of walking around the classroom in order to check if students
were paying attention and working. There was individual work during the class.

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 Appendix 2.3

Checklist

Objetivo: Obtener información acerca de la manera en que el in-service teacher

desarrolla la enseñanza de vocabulario en la clase de inglés.

In-service teacher II

Grado: 5to

Institución: Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo

Questions Yes No Comments

Is there a time for X
teaching vocabulary in The class started when the in-service
the English class? When? teacher II sang a song in L1 and then
wrote on the board the animals
mentioned in the song.

Does the teacher use X

strategies to teach In-service teacher used translation as
vocabulary? Which ones? their only vocabulary teaching strategy.

Does the teacher use X

materials to teach The in-service teacher II used the
vocabulary? What kind? blackboard and a song.

Are the vocabulary items X The vocabulary items were use during
taught used during the the class.
class?

85
Does the teacher X
translate? Yes, the in-service teacher II translated

Does the teacher use the

second language Yes, the in-service teacher II uses L2
(English) to teach only to mention the vocabulary items
vocabulary? taught during the class.

Do students enjoy the X

way the teacher teaches Students were engaged with the song and
vocabulary? enjoyed it.

Do students interact with X

the material used by the Yes, they do. Students wrote some words
teacher to teach on the board.
vocabulary?

Does the teacher take into X

account the learning The in-service teacher II sang a song
styles when teaching (auditory learners) and then asked
vocabulary? How? students to go to the board and write
some animals (visual learners)
What kind of activities X
does the teacher use to Writing on the board: students had to
enhance students’ write some animals on the board and
vocabulary learning? then repeat it name.

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 Appendix 3

Observation #3

March 6th, 2016

Grade: 4th

First pre-service teacher class.

The pre- service teacher started the class with a reading called “Fat King, thin dog” which
was written in a cardboard with some pictures. Then the pre-service teacher read the text
while miming it. The pre-service asked students about what was the story about and
students participated a lot. Then students took a short test about the reading and most of
them asked about the meaning of the questions in Spanish.

After that, the pre-service teacher introduced the vocabulary items by showing some
flashcards about family members with their correspondent writing and some pictures of
a family (The Simpson family). Moreover, the pre-service teacher asked some students
to go to the board to match the family member with its correct written form. Before, they
practiced the pronunciation in a whole group activity. Besides, the pre-service teacher
made some explanations such as “the mother of Homer is Bart’s grandmother”.

Then the pre-teacher practiced pronunciation again with the students. After that, the pre-
service teacher assigned homework in which students had to cut and paste their family
members in a piece of paper.

NOTE:

It is important to mention that the in-service teacher approached to the observer before
class finished and gave the suggestion of assigning a homework according to the topic
that was family members. At the end of the lesson, the in-service teacher was excited with
everything the pre-service teacher did and how managed the class.

87
 Appendix 3.1

Observation #4

March 6th, 2016

Grade: 5th

First pre-service teacher class.

The pre-service teacher asked students if they knew the meaning of the words of the title
of a reading that was written on the board. Then the pre-service teacher read the text and
explained the reading to the students if they had any doubt. Furthermore, the pre-service
teacher gave students a reading test and explained them the questions.

The pre-service teacher presented some vocabulary related to family members using some
flashcards, which contained the written part of the family members. In addition, the pre-
service teacher brought to the class a poster about the Simpson´ family tree. Before the
pre-service teacher showed and explained to the students the family members, the pre-
service teacher asked some volunteers in order to go to the board and match the correct
family member picture (The Simpsons family) with its correct writing. Moreover, the pre-
service teacher along with the students practiced the family members in English taking
into account the relationship.

NOTE:

It is important to mention that the in-service teacher spent the whole class checking some
exams but at the end of the class, she told to the pre-service that the class was amazing
and beautiful and that she liked it a lot.

88
 Appendix 4

Observation #5

March 20th, 2016

Grade: 4th

Second pre-service teacher’ class.

The class started with the pre-service teacher asking all the students to sing Happy
Birthday to a classmate in English. Then the pre-service teacher explained students that
they were going to do an activity individually. Students were not behaving well so the
pre-service teacher told them that they were going to write “planas” if they did not behave
better.

The pre-service teacher had to change some students from their seats in order for them to
concentrate and not bother other students. The pre-service teacher asked students to seat
properly because they were going to do a test (the test lasted 20 minutes). After that, the
pre-service teacher started to explain a reading included in the test with some pictures and
students had to match them. When students finished the test, the pre-service teacher
pointed some flashcards of some family members and students had to say the kinship
between them.

NOTE:

It is important to mention some aspects of the in-service teacher throughout the class:

1. The in-service teacher seemed interest with the activities.

2. The in-service teacher helped students to do the activities.
3. The in-service teacher told students that the activities were easy.
4. The in-service teacher helped with discipline.
5. The in-service teacher was writing on the journal all the time. The in-service
teacher was paying attention to all the pre-service teacher did.

89
 Appendix 4.1

Observation #6

March 20th, 2016

Grade: 5th

Second pre-service teacher’ class.

The pre- service teacher started the class by making students to recall some information
about previous class. The pre- service teacher pasted some flashcards on the board and
asked students some questions such as “who is this?” and students answered: “father”.
Then the pre-service teacher continued asking until students mentioned all the family
members. Moreover, students were asked to complete a reading comprehension question
of a test of the Simpson family. The pre-service teacher had to explain the reading
questions while associating the reading with the pictures (flashcards) that were pasted on
the board.

Students did not understand a question in English but they asked it in Spanish in order to
clarify their doubt. Students associated the pictures while reading.

The following activity consisted that the teacher had to point out two pictures of some
relatives of the Simpson family and students had to say the kinship they had. Students
had to say the two words in English. All the students wanted to participate, so the teacher
called one student to the board in order to associate some pictures and say the kinship
between the family members with the help of the classmates.

90
 Appendix 5

Observation #7

April 27th, 2016

Grade: 4th

Third pre-service teacher’ class.

The pre-service teacher started the class by playing a game. The pre-service teacher
showed some objects of the “magic suitcase” and students had to say in English the object.
Several things were taken out and students were very engaged with the activity as they
participated a lot.

Some copies were given to the students. The pre-service teacher did a brain gym for the
students to be quiet. They were misbehaving. The pre-service teacher started to read and
asked some students to continue the reading.

The pre-service teacher pointed out some objects of the classroom in order for the students
to understand what the pre-service teacher was talking about (Realia vocabulary strategy).
The pre- service teacher explained the activity that students were going to do next. The
in-service teacher helped with the discipline of the classroom as students were
misbehaving again.

The pre-service teacher explained the activity again by giving an example or modeling
the activity. The pre-service teacher went to students´ seats and explained the activity
carefully to the ones who needed help.

The pre-service teacher collected the activity and sang “La Lechuza” in order to calm
students. The pre-service teacher started the following activity in which students had to
see some pictures in a poster and then they had to say what picture was while the teacher
wrote it on the board. Most of students were not paying attention. The pre-service teacher
used realia vocabulary strategy again. Some students seemed to understand but others
were reluctant to participate.

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 Appendix 5.1

Observation #8

April 27th, 2016

Grade: 5th

Third pre-service teacher’ class.

The pre-service teacher started the class by showing some objects of the “magic suitcase”
and students had to say in English the object that the pre-service teacher was showing to
them. Students participated actively during this activity, as they already knew some
objects in L2.

Then the pre-service teacher gave students some copies and started reading aloud. After
that, the pre-service teacher asked some students to continue reading. While students were
reading, some classmates were misbehaving and the pre-service teacher had to stop the
class for a momento in order that the classroom could be quiet.

Moreover, the pre-service teacher pointed out some objects of the classroom in order for
the students to understand what the pre-service teacher was talking about (Realia
vocabulary strategy). The pre- service teacher explained the activity that students were
going to do next. The pre-service teacher explained the activity again by giving an
example or modeling the activity. When a student had any doubt, the pre-service teacher
explained to the student carefully and using the L2.

The pre-service teacher started the following activity in which students had to see some
pictures in a poster and then they had to say what picture was while the teacher wrote it
on the board. The pre-service teacher used realia vocabulary strategy again. Some
students seemed to understand but others were reluctant to participate as they mentioned
they were shy to participate in the class.

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 Appendix 6

Observation #9

May 4th, 2016

Grade: 4th

Fourth pre-service teacher’ class.

The pre-service teacher wrote some commands on the board such as: stand up, sit down,
raise your hand, be quiet, erase the board, close the door, open your notebook, get in
pairs, Can I go to the bathroom? Then the pre-service teacher asked students if they knew
what the commands were and set an example. One of the students kicked the teacher and
the in-service teacher scolded him.

The students practiced the commands along with the pre-service teacher while doing the
action (with movement) When a student did not understand, the pre-service teacher asked
another student to do the action or explained.

Then the pre-service teacher set examples to explain when to say, “Can I go to the
bathroom?” The pre-service teacher used students as models to act out the commands.

Moreover, the pre-service teacher asked students to get in pairs to do a worksheet that
included a reading with the vocabulary taught during the class. The in-service teacher
scolded some students as they were misbehaving. The pre-service teacher read the tittle
of the text and asked students if they knew what it was about. Some students participated
but they were interrupted by others classmates that were very noisy. The in-service
teacher scolded them again and the pre-service teacher waited until students had a good
attitude to continue with the class. The pre-service teacher continued reading the title and
the text. Then the pre-service teacher showed students what was happening in the reading
with their help. When the pre-service teacher finished reading, the pre-service teacher
asked students what the reading was about and if students had doubts, the pre-service
teacher explained them again. At the end of the class, the pre-service teacher collected
the worksheet.

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 Appendix 6.1

Observation #10

May 4th, 2016

Grade: 5th

Fourth pre-service teacher’ class.

The pre-service teacher wrote some commands on the board such as: stand up, sit down,
raise your hand, be quiet, erase the board, close the door, open your notebook, get in
pairs, Can I go to the bathroom? Then the pre-service teacher asked students to write
them down on their notebooks while the in-service teacher arrived to the classroom (the
in-service teacher arrived 25 minutes later) and when noticed that the topic of the class
was commands, the in-service teacher told to the pre-service teacher that it would have
been better to teach vocabulary in the present class. The pre-service teacher used the
commands and did the actions while the in-service teacher was translating them into L1.
Then students practiced by following the orders given by the pre-service teacher. The in-
service teacher was paying attention (for a while) and then started to read a document.

Additionally, the pre-service teacher asked students to get in pairs and assigned a reading
comprehension text. It took a while for students to get in pairs. Before, the pre-service
teacher asked students about what they thought the reading was about. In addition, the
pre-service teacher started reading while asking students to continue reading aloud. The
in-service teacher helped to control the discipline. The pre-service teacher explained the
activity but the in-service teacher got out of the classroom and started talking to another
teacher. When the pre-service teacher was reading, some students did the actions in the
strategy.

The in-service teacher looked at the strategies written on the board and analyzed the
commands. Then the pre-service teacher read the questions on the worksheet and the class
finished.

94
 Appendix 7

Observation #12

May 11th, 2016

Grade: 4th

Second in-service teacher’ class

The in-service teacher began the class explaining that students were going to say what the
class was going to be about according to some flashcards that the in-service teacher
showed. The in-service teacher showed the flashcards and the students answered in
Spanish that the class was going to be about the body parts since on the board was also
stuck a cardboard with a picture of the body parts. After, they started to answer in English,
as they knew how the word was written in English due to the cardboard. In addition, the
in-service teacher reminded students a song in Spanish that they already knew but they
did not sing the song in English because the in-service did not know some parts of the
song in the L2. Then, the in-service teacher asked some students to help to stick the
flashcards on the board and told to the whole class that they had repeat every part of the
body while they were touching the body part pronounced by her. Moreover, the in-service
teacher asked a volunteer to show the body parts that the student had learned. Before,
they practiced again while the in-service teacher was saying:

“Head -> * head touched *

Nose -> * nose touched *

Mouth -> mouth * played *”

The in-service teacher continued in the same way with all parts of the body following the
flashcards and the cardboard making an emphasis on pronunciation. At end of the class,
the in-service teacher assigned students a homework in which they had to draw the body
parts they had learned in class. Also, they had to practice pronunciation and writing of
them.

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 Appendix 7.1

Checklist

Objetivo: Obtener información acerca de la manera en que el in-service teacher

desarrolla la enseñanza de vocabulario en la clase de inglés.

In-service teacher I

Grado: 4to

Institución: Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo

Questions Yes No Comments

Is there a time for X Yes, at the beginning and throughout of
teaching vocabulary in the class.
the English class? When?

Does the teacher use X

strategies to teach The in-service teacher I used imagery,
vocabulary? Which ones? realia and TPR as their vocabulary
teaching strategies.

Does the teacher use X

materials to teach Yes, the in-service teacher I used
vocabulary? What kind? flashcards and a poster.

Are the vocabulary items X

taught used during the Yes, the vocabulary items are used
class? during the class in different activities.

96
Does the teacher X Yes. The in-service teacher I translated
translate? when providing feedback to students as
well as, when explaining to them.

Does the teacher use the X The in-service teacher I only uses the L2
second language when mentioning the vocabulary item.
(English) to teach Explanations, feedback are in L1.
vocabulary?
Do students enjoy the X
way the teacher teaches Students seemed to be happy during the
vocabulary? class.

Do students interact with X

the material used by the Students interacted with the materials as
teacher to teach they pointed out the flashcards and
vocabulary? materials while saying the correspondent
part of the body.

Does the teacher take into X

account the learning Students watched a poster and some
styles when teaching flashcards which contained images and
vocabulary? How? its written part. Also, students were
asked to stand up and point out in their
body some body parts mentioned by the
in-service teacher I.

What kind of activities X

does the teacher use to In-service teacher I used drills,
enhance students’ elicitation and matching.
vocabulary learning?

97
 Appendix 7.2

Observation #12

May 11th, 2016

Grade: 5th

Second in-service teacher’ class

The in-service teacher began the class greeting in Spanish and said a prayer. After the
prayer, the in-service teacher asked the students to stand up, this was said in English.
Then the in-service teacher told the students that they were going to sing a song about the
body parts and that while they were singing, they had to touch the body part that the
teacher showed and mentioned. "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" then in-service teacher
said "then say to the parts of the face" "Hair and eyes and ears and mouth and nose". The
in-service teacher increased the speed of the song for students to repeat and pointing out
to their body faster. Before the in-service teacher asked them to sing the song with
different moods: happy, sad and crying. Before, the in-service teacher asked students if
they liked or not the song and what they had mention in it. Students answered that they
sang the body parts. In addition, the in-service teacher stuck on the board some flashcards
with the body parts and in front of them, the in-service teacher wrote its writing in English
but not in the same order of the flashcards. Then the in-service teacher asked students
what were in the flashcards and students answered in Spanish that they were the part of
the body and the teacher told them to reply in English. Then, the in-service teacher asked
some students to go to the board and join the image of the body part with its correspondent
writing in English. When the student linked the image with its writing, the in-service
teacher practiced the pronunciation with the whole class. When the in-service teacher
wanted to give instructions, the in-service teacher tried to use the L2, even if mistakes
were made. When all students finished joining the pictures along with its writing, the in-
service teacher asked another student to read all the words and clapped at the end. Then,
the in-service teacher asked students to stand up in English and to touch the body part the
in-service teacher was mentioning. When they finished this activity, the in-service teacher
handed students a worksheet in which they had to point out the parts of the body they
were learning in the class (the boys got a picture of a boy and the girls of a girl), the
instruction for this activity was in Spanish. After the activity mentioned before, the in-
service teacher asked the students to tell the parts of the head that were in the flashcards

98
and then the extremities. Then, the in-service teacher asked for a volunteer and the student
had to touch the part of the body the teacher was saying. When students did not
understand, the in-service teacher translated, then changed that strategy and chose to point
out the body part that was being said. In the same way, the in-service teacher said that a
girl and a boy had to go to the in front of the class to participate and made a kind of
competition, which the boys won. To end the class, the in-service teacher asked the
students to copy the new vocabulary, translate it in their house, and stick together some
pictures. In addition, students had to consult other body parts in English that were
unknown to them and draw them.

99
 Appendix 7.3

Checklist

Objetivo: Obtener información acerca de la manera en que el in-service teacher

desarrolla la enseñanza de vocabulario en la clase de inglés.

In-service teacher II

Grado: 5to

Institución: Institución Educativa Marceliano Polo

Questions Yes No Comments

Is there a time for X
teaching vocabulary in Yes, there is. The in-service tacher II
the English class? When? introduced vocabulary at the beginning
of the class when the in-service teacher
II sang a song in the L2 while poiting out
their body parts.

Does the teacher use X

strategies to teach Yes. The in-service teacher II used
vocabulary? Which ones? imagery, realia and TPR as their
vocabulary teaching strategies.

Does the teacher use X

materials to teach The in-service teacher II used flashcards,
vocabulary? What kind? a song, a worksheet and the board as
their materials.

100
Are the vocabulary items X The vocabulary items were used during
taught used during the the whole class.
class?

Does the teacher X

translate? Yes, the in-service teacher II translated
and used the L1 when providing
feedback and explanations.

Does the teacher use the X

second language Yes, the in-service teacher II uses L2 to
(English) to teach teach the vocabulary items taught during
vocabulary? the class.

Do students enjoy the X

way the teacher teaches Students were engaged with the song and
vocabulary? they enjoyed it.

Do students interact with X

the material used by the Yes, they do. Students sang a song along
teacher to teach with the teacher, pointed their body
vocabulary? parts, watch some images and complete
a worksheet.

Does the teacher take into X The in-service teacher II sang a song
account the learning (auditory learners) and then asked
styles when teaching students to point out some parts of their
vocabulary? How? body that the in-service teacher II
mentioned (auditory and TPR learners).
Moreover, students watched some

101
 pictures of the parts of the body and
wrote in a worksheet the body parts too
(visual learners)

What kind of activities X

does the teacher use to Writing on a worksheet, listening and
enhance students’ singing a song, matching some pictures
vocabulary learning? with their correspondent writing and
pointing out their body parts.

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 Appendix 8

Feedback Session

In-service teacher I

May 11th, 2016

1 Reseacher ¿Cómo fue su experiencia con el practicante de inglés

que tuvo?
2 In-service teacher I Bueno, aprendí mucho de ustedes. Reconozco que
hicieron un excelente trabajo, que… aprendí cosas
nuevas, que trabajar con niños el inglés unas veces es
fácil otras veces es difícil. Ustedes lo hicieron de una
manera que mantuvieron a los chicos, siempre
entretenidos y dispuestos a aprender cada día de la
experiencia. Siempre tenían la expectativa con que
llegaran los profesores hoy.
3 Researcher ¿Cree usted que el practicante necesita mejorar algo?
4 Inservice teacher I Necesitan mejorar algo…
5 Researcher Si, en su enseñanza o algo que necesite aprender el
practicante, del o que usted sabe.
6 Inservice teacher I Yo estoy aprendiendo de ustedes más bien (giggles).
Bueno que les digo, repasando todas las clases que
dieron, (filler) no si es por lo difícil que es el grupo, un
poquito en el control de la disciplina. Como podrán
constatar a mí se me dificulta controlar el grupo.
Siempre hay que mantener como que (fillers) ese clima
de trabajo adecuado. Yo les reconozco para mí también
ha sido difícil (fillers) y para todos los profesores que
pasamos por este grupo nos resulta, en reuniones hemos
coincidido en que el grupo necesita bastante apoyo por
lo que tiene siempre la atención dispersa, sin embargo,
aclaro que ustedes lograron captar la atención de la
mayoría de los estudiantes, casis aislados de disciplina
no más.

103
7 Researcher Por lo que nos ha dicho usted encontró la práctica como
que útil para su desarrollo, pero en ¿qué aspectos fue útil
para su desarrollo profesional y como persona?
8 In-service teacher I Profesional… pues a nosotros acá en primaria nos
asignan x o y carga académica de pronto sin que nosotros
tengamos el perfil, entonces que hacemos nosotros,
tratamos de buscar esas ayudas (fillers) ustedes por
ejemplo nos enseñaron a nosotras que el inglés se puede
trabajar de diferentes maneras, de diferentes maneras y
lograr excelentes resultados. Para mi esta experiencia ha
sido de mucha utilidad, cuando estaba intentando
organizar mi clase los veía a ustedes con la una con la
otra y no me decidía con cual porque cada estrategia me
parecía como que tan buena y recordaba a la vez el
trabajo y el interés que habían mostrado los estudiantes
con ustedes.
9 Researcher Entonces la práctica fue útil en términos de materiales,
planeación, estrategia, actividades, metodología. Que
nos comentaría sobre los materiales como planear, las
estrategias, las metodologías, algo general.
10 Inservice teacher I Pues muchachos, ustedes están practicando, si así lo
hacen ahora que ustedes están practicando, yo no me
imagino cuando ustedes estén ya (…) cuando ustedes
sean unos expertos en la enseñanza del inglés, ustedes
manejan unas estrategias que para mí eran desconocidas
porque como les digo a veces nosotros acá en primaria
nos limitamos de pronto a enseñar vocabulario, nos
limitamos a una que otra práctica, pero ustedes nos han
dejado a nosotros una gran enseñanza y es que con el
inglés se pueden hacer maravillas en el aula.
11 Researcher ¿Qué aspectos o elementos de la enseñanza que utilizó
el practicante utilizara usted en su clase? De todo lo que

104
 usted vio, usted diga esto si lo voy a implementar porque
me pareció útil.
12 In-service teacher I El uso de las láminas. Miren que es un grupo, yo había
hablado con una psicóloga y me dijo “por qué no utilizas
esto?” y yo le dije, eso lo están haciendo los estudiantes
los practicantes de la universidad de córdoba que vienen
acá los miércoles y los muchachos les llega más el
mensaje con las láminas. Y de hecho en todas mis clases
estoy utilizando las láminas (giggles) así que aprendí
mucho de ustedes
13 Researcher ¿Piensa usted que es posible ganar experiencia o
conocimiento de una persona más joven que usted?
14 In-service teacher I Sí, claro sobre todo ustedes con esas estrategias tan
innovadoras que tienen.
15 Researcher Muchísimas gracias profe
16 Inservice teacher I Gracias a ustedes. Los voy a extrañar mucho.

105

Feedback Session
In-service teacher II
May 11th, 2016
Turn Speaker
1 Researcher
2 In-service teacher II
3 Researcher
4 In-service teacher II
5 Researcher
6 In-service teacher II
7 Researcher
8 In-service teacher II
Appendix 8.1
¿Cómo fue su experiencia con el practicante?
Excelente, excelente pues porque son unas
personas muy especiales dispuestas a cumplir con
el deber pues que tenían acá como practicantes en
el colegio y también de compartir sus aprendizajes
¿Qué aspectos necesita mejorar el practicante?
Que vio que necesitara mejorar
El dominio de grupo, es lo que más pues cuando
uno empieza le cuesta duro dominar el grupo
Y respecto a la práctica ¿siente que le ayudo en
algo o tuvo algún beneficio o si por el contrario fue
perjudicial? ¿Qué opina de la práctica?
Excelente, excelente pues la practicas son muy
buenas porque nosotros los educadores que
tenemos un tiempo de estar en nuestra carrera
estamos desactualizados y con ustedes uno se
actualiza de los últimos, pues avances que están
saliendo, las ultimas estrategias metodológicas,
todo lo nuevo que sale cada día.
¿Qué opina de la metodología, de los materiales y
las estrategias que utilizamos?
Excelente, excelente, muy bueno me pareció tanto
la que más me gusto fue la de la la la… el árbol
genealógico de la familia los Simpson porque son
cosas que… Son del entorno, los niños les impacta
esas cosas porque son las cosas con que ellos se
relacionan y ese día estaban felices con esa clase,
106
 aunque todas las clases que dieron fueron
chéveres, todos los materiales que usaron fueron
excelentes y pues eso me ayudo a mi bastante pues
para utilizarlo también en mis clases, no solamente
en la de inglés sino en todas.
9 Researcher Entonces ¿usted qué aspectos o elementos de la
metodología del practicante piensa usar en sus
clases?
10 In-service teacher II Los textos… los textos, la lectura de textos y la
laminas… y también el uso del tablero, ustedes
usaron el tablero también bastante.
11 Researcher ¿Piensa usted que es posible para un profesor con
bastante experiencia ganar experiencia de nosotros
los practicantes?
12 In-service teacher II Claro que si porque como te digo nosotros nos
vamos des actualizando y cosas nuevas que van
saliendo nosotros nos vamos quedamos atrás, en
cambio ustedes que están recién salido de la
universidad están enseñando nuevas cosas y nos
las comparte a nosotros.
13 Researcher Bueno muchas gracias
14 In.service teacher II Bueno

107
 Appendix 9
First pre-service teacher’s class plan

LICENCIATURA EN EDUCACION BÁSICA CON ÉNFASIS

HUMANIDADES –INGLÉS

PLANNER (PLAN DE CLASES)

DOCENTE EN FORMACIÓN: Luis Mario Viaña Patrón
INSTITUCIÓN EDUCATIVA: Marceliano Polo
ASIGNATURA: Inglés GRADO: 4to - 5to
INTENSIDAD HORARIA SEMANAL: 1 hora.
FECHA DE CLASE: Abril 6/2016

I. TITULO DE LA UNIDAD:
II. STANDARDS:
 Asocio un dibujo con su descripción escrita.
 Identifico los nombres de los personajes y los eventos principales de un cuento
leído por el profesor y apoyado en imágenes, videos o cualquier tipo de material
visual.

III. COMPENTENCE: Pragmática y lingüística.

IV. AIMS:
- Reconocer los miembros de una familia.
- Identificar los personajes principales de un texto y la secuencia de eventos.

V. AIM INDICATORS:
 Los estudiantes identificaran los miembros de la familia simpson a través de un
poster y luego en una worksheet.
 Los estudiantes identificaran en una worksheet los personajes principales y
eventos del texto leído por el profesor Fat King Thin Dog.

VI. ACTIVITIES

 OPENING: El profesor mostrará un poster con una lectura y les preguntará acerca
de qué puede ser la lectura basada en las imágenes y el título. Luego, el profesor

108
 leerá la historia y ayudará a entenderla con mímicas. Luego, los estudiantes
resolverán un test de acuerdo a la lectura.
 DEVELOPMENT: El profesor comenzará la clase preguntando a los estudiantes
quien tiene hermanos y hermanas, y preguntas generales sobre sus familias.
Luego, les preguntará a otros estudiantes que dijeron sobre sus familias. Después
de esto, el profesor mostrará un árbol genealógico de los simpsons, y con ayuda
de los estudiantes irá pegando las palabras que corresponden a los miembros de
la familia según su posición en el árbol. El profesor practicará el vocabulario
aprendido con los estudiantes y les entregará una worksheet en la cual deberán
relacionar la imagen de la persona con su papel dentro de la familia.
 CLOSURE: El profesor practicara con los estudiantes nuevamente el
vocabulario aprendido y les hará preguntas en las que relacionen dos familiares,
por ejemplo, señalará a homero y a Lisa, entonces ellos dirán “Father and
daughter”.

VII. MATERIALS

 Marcadores.
 Poster
 Flashcards.
 Worksheet.

VIII. EVALUACIÓN

 Participation during the activities.

 Teacher will check the way students describe their family members.
 Pronunciation will be checked as well as accuracy.

IX. STRATEGIES
 VOCABULARIO
Imagery
 LECTURA
Making connections, scanning and making predictions.

109
 Appendix 9.1
Second pre-service teacher’s class plan

LICENCIATURA EN EDUCACION BÁSICA CON ÉNFASIS

HUMANIDADES –INGLÉS

PLANNER (PLAN DE CLASES)

DOCENTE EN FORMACIÓN: Luis Mario Viaña Patrón
INSTITUCIÓN EDUCATIVA: Marceliano Polo
ASIGNATURA: Inglés GRADO: 4to - 5to
INTENSIDAD HORARIA SEMANAL: 1 hora.
FECHA DE CLASE: Abril 6/2016

I. TITULO DE LA UNIDAD:
II. STANDARDS:
 Asocio un dibujo con su descripción escrita.
 Identifico los nombres de los personajes y los eventos principales de un
cuento leído por el profesor y apoyado en imágenes, videos o cualquier tipo
de material visual.

III. COMPENTENCE: Pragmática y lingüística.

IV. AIMS:
 Reconocer los miembros de una familia.
 Identificar los personajes principales de un texto y la secuencia de
eventos.

V. AIM INDICATORS:
 Los estudiantes identificaran los miembros de la familia simpson a través de
un poster y luego en una worksheet.
 Los estudiantes identificaran en una worksheet los personajes principales y
eventos del texto leído por el profesor Fat King Thin Dog.

VI. ACTIVITIES
 OPENING: El profesor mostrará un poster con una lectura y les preguntará acerca
de qué puede ser la lectura basada en las imágenes y el título. Luego, el profesor
leerá la historia y ayudará a entenderla con mímicas. Luego, los estudiantes
resolverán un test de acuerdo a la lectura.

110
 DEVELOPMENT: El profesor comenzará la clase preguntando a los estudiantes
quien tiene hermanos y hermanas, y preguntas generales sobre sus familias.
Luego, les preguntará a otros estudiantes que dijeron sobre sus familias.
Después de esto, el profesor mostrará un árbol genealógico de los simpsons, y con
ayuda de los estudiantes irá pegando las palabras que corresponden a los
miembros de la familia según su posición en el árbol. El profesor practicará el
vocabulario aprendido con los estudiantes y les entregará una worksheet en la cual
deberán relacionar la imagen de la persona con su papel dentro de la familia.
 CLOSURE: El profesor practicara con los estudiantes nuevamente el vocabulario
aprendido y les hará preguntas en las que relacionen dos familiares, por ejemplo,
señalará a homero y a Lisa, entonces ellos dirán “Father and daughter”.

VII. MATERIALS
 Marcadores.
 Poster
 Flashcards.
 Worksheet.

VIII. EVALUACIÓN
 Participation during the activities.
 Teacher will check the way students describe their family members.
 Pronunciation will be checked as well as accuracy.

X. STRATEGIES
 VOCABULARIO
SSTARS:
 LECTURA
Making connections, scanning, skimming and making predictions.

111
 Appendix 9.2
Third pre-service teacher’s class plan

LICENCIATURA EN EDUCACION BÁSICA CON ÉNFASIS

HUMANIDADES –INGLÉS

PLANNER (PLAN DE CLASES)

DOCENTE EN FORMACIÓN: Luis Mario Viaña Patrón
INSTITUCIÓN EDUCATIVA: Marceliano Polo
ASIGNATURA: Inglés GRADO: 4to- 5to
INTENSIDAD HORARIA SEMANAL: 1 hora.
FECHA DE CLASE: Abril 27/2016

I. TITULO DE LA UNIDAD:
II. STANDARDS:
 Asocio un dibujo con su descripción escrita.
 Identifico los nombres de los personajes y los eventos principales de un cuento
leído por el profesor y apoyado en imágenes, videos o cualquier tipo de
material visual.

III. COMPENTENCE: Pragmática y lingüística.

IV. AIMS:

 Reconocer los objetos en el salón de clases.

 Identificar los personajes principales de un texto y la secuencia de eventos.

V. AIMS INDICATORS
 Los estudiantes identificaran los objetos en el salón de clases y luego en una
worksheet.
 Los estudiantes identificaran en una lectura los objetos del salón de clases.

VI. ACTIVITIES
 OPENING: El profesor mostrará una “Magic suitcase” (Maleta mágica) de la
cual sacará objeto comunes en un salón de clases y les irá mostrando a los
estudiantes los objetos y preguntando quien tiene alguno similar.

112
  DEVELOPMENT: La clase comenzará con el profesor mostrando distintos
objetos de la maleta y pidiendo a los estudiantes que digan el color y para que lo
utilizan. Luego, el profesor entregará a los estudiantes una lectura en la cual se
describen los objetos en un salón de clases, la leerá en voz alta, y en el punto dos,
deberán seleccionar los objetos que aparecieron en el texto. Después los
estudiantes completaran una cartelera con los nombres de los objetos que en ella
aparecen. El profesor practicará el vocabulario aprendido con los estudiantes y
hará un juego en el cual el sacará un objeto al azar y el estudiante que primero
diga el nombre deberá buscar en su bolso cualquier objeto y preguntarle el nombre
a sus compañeros.
 CLOSURE: Cada estudiante sacará un objeto de su bolso y el profesor le pedirá a
los otros estudiantes que mencionen qué objeto sacó su compañero.

VII. MATERIALS
 Marcadores.
 Poster
 Worksheet.
VIII. EVALUACIÓN
 Participation during the activities.
 Pronunciation will be checked as well as accuracy.

IX. STRATEGIES:
 VOCABULARIO:
REALIA: Utiliza objetos del vocabulario reales a enseñar. Por ejemplo, muestra los
objetos que hay en el salón de clases y aprende sus nombres.

 LECTURA
Reading aloud: el profesor leerá en voz alta y le pedirá a un estudiante que lea.

Continuum Reading: el profesor le pedirá a los estudiantes que continúen la lectura a

partir de dónde quedó el compañero.

113
 Appendix 9.3
Third pre-service teacher’s class plan

LICENCIATURA EN EDUCACION BÁSICA CON ÉNFASIS

HUMANIDADES –INGLÉS

PLANNER (PLAN DE CLASES)

DOCENTE EN FORMACIÓN: Luis Mario Viaña Patrón
INSTITUCIÓN EDUCATIVA: Marceliano Polo
ASIGNATURA: Inglés GRADO: 4to y 5to
INTENSIDAD HORARIA SEMANAL: 1 hora.
FECHA DE CLASE: Abril 6/2016

I. TITULO DE LA UNIDAD:
II. STANDARDS:
 Identifico los nombres de los personajes y los eventos principales de un cuento
leído por el profesor y apoyado en imágenes, videos o cualquier tipo de material
visual.

III. COMPENTENCE: Pragmática y lingüística.

IV. AIMS:

 Reconocer los commands (acciones) dentro del salón de clases)

 Identificar la acción que debo realizar de acuerdo al command.

V. AIM INDICATORS:
 Los estudiantes reconocerán los commands por medio de la practica harán uso
de ellos cuando los necesiten.
 Los estudiantes realizaran las acciones de acuerdo al command que el profesor
especifique.

VI. ACTIVITIES
 OPENING: El profesor comenzará la clase mencionando los verbos y haciendo
las acciones “Sit down/Stand up/Raise your hand”. Los estudiantes imitaran las
acciones hechas por el profesor.

114
  DEVELOPMENT: El profesor mostrará un poster con una lectura y les preguntará
acerca de qué puede ser la lectura basada en las imágenes y el título. Luego, el
profesor leerá la historia y ayudará a entenderla con mímicas. Luego, los
estudiantes resolverán una actividad de acuerdo a la lectura. Para finalizar el
profesor les pedirá a los estudiantes que digan o que expresen de qué trató la
lectura. El profesor mencionará una acción y los estudiantes tendrán que
realizarla. El salón estará organizado en mesa redonda. Luego los estudiantes irán
turnándose para hacer una acción y los otros tendrán que hacerla.
 CLOSURE: El profesor practicara con los estudiantes nuevamente el vocabulario
aprendido y escribirá en el tablero los commands para que los estudiantes lo
hagan en cierto orden.

VII. MATERIALS

 Marcadores.
 Poster
 Flashcards.
 Worksheet.

VIII. EVALUACIÓN

 Participation during the activities.

 Teacher will check the way students describe their family members.
 Pronunciation will be checked as well as accuracy.

IX. STRATEGIES

 VOCABULARIO
TPR (TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE): enseñar verbos por medio de movimiento,
actuaciones y mímicas. Ejemplo: Sit down! (El estudiante se debe sentar).

 LECTURA
Making prediction: antes de la lectura, inferir a partir del título y de imágenes de que
habla la lectura.
Skimming: buscar lenguaje específico en el texto.
Scanning: al finalizar la lectura, resumir en palabras propias de que trata la lectura.

115
 Appendix 10

In-service and pre- service teachers’ journals

Objetivo:

- Conocer la percepción del in-service teacher de acuerdo a la forma en que el

practicante enseña vocabulario en la clase de inglés.
- Motivar la reflexión en la in-service teacher con respecto a sus propias técnicas
de enseñanza de vocabulario.

Preguntas:

1. Hoy aprendí…
2. En la clase me sentí…
3. Mi opinión de la clase de inglés impartida por el practicante es…
4. Las estrategias utilizadas por el practicante para enseñar vocabulario son…
- ¿Son nuevas para usted?
-¿Qué opina de los materiales que el practicante utilizó?

5. Las estrategias utilizadas por el practicante para enseñar lectura son…

- ¿Son nuevas para usted?
-¿Qué opina de los materiales que el practicante utilizó?

6. De las estrategias utilizadas por el practicante para enseñar vocabulario yo

utilizaría…
7. De las estrategias utilizadas por el practicante para enseñar lectura yo
utilizaría…
8. Observar al practicante me ha beneficiado en que…
9. ¿Cree usted que las nuevas estrategias serian de utilidad para su clase? ¿De qué
manera?

116
 Appendix 10.1

In-service teacher I journal.

First entry

117
 Appendix 10.2

In-service teacher I journal.

Second entry

118
 Appendix 10.3

In-service teacher I journal.

Third entry

119
 Appendix 10.4

In-service teacher II journal.

First entry

120
 Appendix 10.5

In-service teacher II journal.

Second entry

121
 Appendix 10.6

In-service teacher II journal.

Third entry

122
 Appendix 10.7

Pre-service teacher journal.

First entry

It has been a long time since I taught to primary students, so I was a little bit nervous
about today´s class but everything was god.

I started with 5th graders. Students behaved and they cooperated within the activities and
our project. But as the class was being developed I noticed that the in-service teacher was
not paying close attention during the activities and neither writing on her journal. I really
hopped she would have been more concentrated during my activities. At the end of the
class, she just told me that the class had been beautiful and that was all.

Then I continued with 4th graders and I was shocked because those students were very
difficult to manage. Even the in-service teacher had to interrupt the class to ask them to
behave and for a short time, they were quiet but they continued with the noise and the
misbehavior. After all, we could finish the activities and the in-service teacher was so
engaged within the activities. She was doing them with the students and she was reading
as well but on their own. At the end of the class she approached to me and told me that
the class was nice and suggested me that I had to plan something for those students who
had learning problems in order for me to include them within the whole class.

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 Appendix 10.8

Pre-service teacher journal.

Second entry

Today, I learnt that when you are going to scold a child, you have to do it immediately or
he may not know why you are scolding them, my tutor told me that I had to be a little bit
strict sometimes if I wanted my students to stop misbehaving. I also learnt that I need to
modulate my voice if I want all my students to listen to me. Sometimes it is a little bit
difficult, mainly when the classroom is noisy and so are the surroundings.

At the very beginning, I thought that my tutor was too strict with the students, but then I
realized that the group was difficult to handle. They misbehaved a lot, so my tutor was
right. My tutor told me that children enjoyed the class a lot. I was nervous but everything
went good. I think that spending five hours with more than 25 students must be really
stressful and tired. I think it would be a little bit difficult for me to get used to it.

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 Appendix 10.9

Pre-service teacher journal.

Third entry

Students will take any opportunity they have to misbehave at times, so you have to plan
carefully your classes so that they do not have time for misbehaving. My tutor told me
that my strategies were innovative, but that I still had to work on my classroom
management. I was told that I had to pay attention to all the students and try not to focus
only in one part of the classroom.

What I really liked about this class was that most of the students were eager to participate
when I was asking for classroom objects, so the class was good and I did not have many
problems. My tutor told me that a good strategy to keep students working was to walk
around the classroom while they were working, and ask them about what they are doing.
It was difficult, because I could not take a seat during the class.

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 Appendix 10.10

Pre-service teacher journal.

Fourth entry

I started the class in 4th grade by writing the commands on the board and asking the
students if they knew the meaning of them. While I was practicing the pronunciation of
those commands with the students, one of them kicked me because he did not want to do
the activities. The in-service teacher had to scold him. I was surprised because I did not
know that those students were capable of doing that, but I liked the fact that the in-service
teacher helped me. Even, at the end of the class, she approached to me and asked me what
I would do in a situation like that in a future. It made me think that I have to take into
account all students and made them feel like they belonged to a group of partners. That is
the first thing to be done because in that way I can avoid students to feel reluctant to the
classes. I should motivate them to do things and in that way, they would show disposition.
The class continued developing in a normal way until the in-service teacher had to scold
students again and I waited until students had a good attitude to continue with the class.
The In-service teacher was paying attention to what I was doing. She was writing and
taking some notes during the lesson. In some cases, she intervened to help with discipline
and to explain an activity, especially the reading one. She did not stay in the same place.
She walked around. At the end, she wrote down the strategies written on the board. In 5th
grade I taught the commands as well as in 4th grade. The students practiced by following
the orders given by me. The in-service teacher was paying attention for a while, but then
she started reading a document. I started the reading while I was asking students to
continue reading aloud. The in-service teacher helped to control the discipline when some
students were talking and misbehaving. Then I continued explaining the activity but the
in-service teacher got out of the classroom and started talking to another teacher. After
that the in-service teacher looked at the strategies written on the board and analyzed the
commands. In general, In-service teacher 2 was paying attention to the class. When the
reading activity started, I noticed that she read it quietly and translated the tittle when I
wrote it on the board. Then she stood up and walked around asking students to be quiet.
Finally, she walked to the board and read the strategies written on it also the vocabulary
about commands.

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 Appendix 11

In-service teacher I, pictures of the class.

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 Appendix 11.1

In-service teacher II, pictures of the class.

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