ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICE

OBSERVATION STAGE

Name of student: Pamela Véliz Celedón

Name of School: Paul Harris
Date: September 8th
Class: Kinder “A”, “B” and 8th A
Number of students: Kindergarten 50, 8th 34

The school
Paul Harris School is a public
elementary and middle school
located in Forestal, Viña del
Mar. It was founded on April
9th, 1965 and since then it has
been concerned about the
teaching and education of the
vulnerable families from that
area.

The mission of Paul Harris School

is to educate children and make
them skillful for solving problems
and difficulties in their future
lives. The school gives its
students values and principles
such as responsibility, honesty,
integrity, perseverance, tolerance
and solidarity.

The school’s vision is to be

recognized as an innovative
school which is academically and emotionally committed to its students.
This commitment allows the children of Paul Harris School to achieve the
aims, principles and values proposed by the school.

Currently the school has a staff of 30 people (teachers and assistants)

working on the school.

The amount of students is 447

from kindergarten to 8th grade,
Paul Harris School’s facilities
include: - 18 classrooms, - 1
special education classroom, -
school cafeteria, - showers, -
computer lab (with 21
computers), - semi-olympic
swimming pool, - principal’s
office, - teachers’ office, -
library, - bathrooms, and
special bathrooms for
kindergarten - covered playground.
The classroom
In the classroom you can observe
the respect among students and
also toward the teacher.

Students’ engagement in the

English class is not a hundred
percent, but they do work on their
learning activities, and listen to
the teacher while he is explaining
the subject to them.

The classroom is big enough for the

students and teacher’s comfort. It
has just one door and a whole wall
full of windows which helps to light
and air the room. In case you do not
want too much light, you can close
the curtains.

Students are seating in pairs, and

there is 1 large table for 2 students
and a chair for each one. The
distribution in the classroom is on three rows.

On the walls you can find a

world map, the week schedule,
and some ornaments according
to our independence day

There are two kinds of shelves

inside the classroom for
students. There is also a
whiteboard and a chalkboard at
the front of the class, an eraser,
thrash can, broom, and dustpan.
The classroom

The atmosphere in the

kindergarten’s classroom is a
little noisy. They are talking,
jumping, singing, playing and
fighting most of the time.

Their engagement in the

English class is almost a
hundred percent, you can tell
that they really like it and they
enjoy the classes.

The classroom is big and

they have all their
materials on it. The room
is full of colors, posters,
school supplies, a radio
and shelves, which is very
helpful because you have
easy access to everything
you need.
The activities and
resources

a) The activities used in the class were basically taken from the
students’ book. The kinds of exercises you can find in the 8th grade
book are: - readings with specific questions about the text, -
matching, - filling in the paragraph, - vocabulary, etc.
The teacher tries to promote autonomous learning in the students.
He encourages them to participate in the activities making sure
that everybody is working on their own or with the person seating
next to each one. If they have questions, he gives them some
clues so they can find the right answer. This strategy helps the
students to think and solve their problems in the best possible
way, which is not useful only in English but also in their lives.

b) The school has a wide variety of resources to be used in the

learning process. The most common resources used by the
teacher are: - data projector, to show the activities, - dictionaries,
given to the students to look for the words they do not know and
to increase their vocabulary as well, - radio and CD player used
only when it is required in any activity and of course the students’
book.

Students learning
 1. The Learners
Paul Harris School students are not as motivated as they should be,
there are some students that do not even care whether they get good
marks or not. They expect the teacher to explain the instructions over
and over again or to give them the answers, because it is easier for
them to say “I don’t understand a word” than to try to do what the
activity says. I guess that this behavior is because they come from
vulnerable families and they do not have too many expectations about
their futures.

2. Behavior during classroom activities

The teacher is always trying to encourage his students to participate in
the class. For instance, if they are reading a text, he reads it out loud
more than once and then he asks them some relevant information about
what he just read so the students say what they think about it, what
they understood about the text and at the same time they participate in
the activity. The only bad thing about this is that not all the time they
are eager to learn or participate so they just do not make any effort to
do so.

3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in

the classroom
In general, the level of English in 8th grade is lower than in other schools
at the same grade, although there are some students that are at a
higher level of vocabulary, grammar, structures and pronunciation in
comparison to their classmates so, for the same reason, they learn
faster than the rest of the class.

Most of the students need the teacher to work, explaining more than
once what they have to do, how they have to do it, etc. because they
need more time for understanding and because it is easier for them to
let the teacher do everything. Another thing that happens in the class is
that the students get easily distracted and they need someone right
next to them or else they start talking or drawing or doing things that do
not belong to the class.

TEAM TEACHING STAGE

Name of student: Pamela Véliz Celedón

Name of School: Paul Harris School

Date: September 8th 2010

Class: 8th grade

Collaboration activities

1. - What kind of activity did you perform the first time

you were asked for help? How long did it take?
The teacher asked me to read out loud a text that it was in the students’
book. We read it twice in order to help them understand what the text
was about. This activity took approximately 10 minutes, and then we
discussed the questions about the text we read.
2. - What were the students doing before you started
helping out?
They were finishing another activity about the same topic (different kind
of festivals in the world). Some of them were talking whereas others
were drawing or playing.

3. - How did the students react? Describe the

atmosphere of the room and the levels of engagement
in the room.
They were listening to us carefully and looked at me surprised, saying
“can she read in English? Wow”. I guess that when you are at school and
someone that you do not know comes and starts working with you it is
kind of new and attractive in some way. That is why they were quiet
and working on the activities.

4. - What other assignments were asked you to do?

How often?
It was not like “hey, please do this or that” the teacher made me part of
the class asking me questions about the activities we were doing, for
example “miss, what do you think about that? Is that correct or not?
what’s your opinion about it?”

It was for that reason that I could participate in the class, helping the
students and the teacher, because he gave me the space and the
opportunity to do it.

5. - were you asked to prepare any kind of special

audio visual material learning material for the
students? Where they used? How effective were they?
Yes I was. I prepared a worksheet about the adjective in the superlative
form. This worksheet included two texts, questions about it, completing
some sentences, finding the adjectives in the text and transforming then
into their superlative form. We used it in the class, we checked it and
clarified the most common doubts about some adjectives.

Lesson Planning
1. - How did you get the information for planning the
lesson for your students?
I asked to some other students of the class (practicum), because I did
not remember how to do one. Then I looked some information on the
internet, the format, ideas, Bloom’s taxonomy, etc. I also saw some
lesson plans from students who took the class last year.

2. - Did your guide teacher give you any suggestions

for planning?
He corrected it, also he gave me some feedback about the activities and
which activities belonged to which stage.

3. - How long did it take to you to prepare learning

material for your first lesson?
I guess that more than two hours, I was very confused, I did not know if
what I was doing was right or not. I did more than 3 lesson plans before
being satisfied with my work.

TEAM TEACHING STAGE

Name of student: Pamela Véliz Celedón

Name of School: Paul Harris School

Date: September 8th 2010

Class: Kindergarten
Collaboration activities

1. - What kind of activity did you perform the first time

you were asked for help? How long did it take?
The teacher asked me to pronounce the basic colors (red, blue, green,
yellow) and the numbers from 1 to 10. It took approximately 20 minutes
because then the children taught me the “colors’ song” and we were
singing and practicing the colors.

2. - What were the students doing before you started

helping out?
They were coloring and practicing the numbers with the teacher. Most of
them were working but there were some kids that needed more
attention and they often distracted the rest of the kids in the classroom.

3. - How did the students react? Describe the

atmosphere of the room and the levels of engagement
in the room.
They were happy as always, I did not notice any change in their
behavior. They became a little more motivated because I was dancing
and singing along with them.

4. - What other assignments were asked you to do?

How often?
The teacher did not have to ask me, I really like kids so I just joined the
class and tried to help them.

5. - Were you asked to prepare any kind of special

audio visual material learning material for the
students? Where they used? How effective were they?
No, the teacher did not ask me but I prepared a worksheet about colors,
numbers and some vocabulary. We used them and they had a lot of fun.

Lesson Planning
1. - How did you get the information for planning the
lesson for your students?
I did the same in both lesson plans. I asked to some other students of
the class (practicum) and I looked for some information on the internet,
ideas, and Bloom’s taxonomy as well.

2. - Did your guide teacher give you any suggestions

for planning?
The teachers gave me all the responsibility but I told them what I would
like to do and they gave me their opinions.

3. - How long did it take to you to prepare learning

material for your first lesson?
The time I took to prepare the classes was similar for both kindergarten
and 8th grade, more than two hours. For this class I guess it was a little
harder because they do not know how to write so I could not give them a
worksheet. I needed songs, games, etc, activities that involved the use
of voice and body movement only.