General reflection about the Practicum IV
At the very beginning of this Practicum IV I set some initial expectations, now, after finishing it, I go back to these firsts thoughts in order to see if I have achieved them.
Live the school day
One of the main expectations was to live the school day. So, to experiment the daily life that takes places on the school.
I had completely achieved that. I really felt like one member more of the school staff, being very well welcomed and being treated as an equal since the first day.
I think that doing the Practicum in an intensive way was crucial to have this experience and to feel more this team sensation. Being closer with what will be my future life, because I went to the school every single day, instead of going there only once a week. I think that it was also a key, for the rest of the staff and for the children to see me as one more of the school, and not only as a guest that sometimes go there. This way, I think that I could know more how everything works, knowing more the children and establishing a bond. And doesn’t let the things get cold with being some days out of the school.
It has also allowed me to experience the school in Catalonia, last year I did the internship in Richmond, so it was my first complete experience in a Catalan school.
So in this case, I can tick this expectation, because it’s more that accomplished.
Learn resources
I really consider that along the degree I learnt a lot of resources to use during my lessons, when teaching. Digital or not digital resources, but very useful tools. During my stay at the school I have l discovered new ones, that I consider really useful for my job. But, above all, I strongly believe that the UAB seminars where a great source of knowledge discovering even more interesting resources every day, as for example Genial.ly, Kaleidos, the beans technic, etc.
Learn methodologies and technics
Through this weeks at the school I have been in contact with different teachers and therefore with different ways of work and teach, this allowed me to learn different methodologies and technics.
One clear example of methodologies could be EntusiasMAT, that is based on the multiple intelligences, doing games and activities to show the content in different ways. EntusiasMAT teaches in a dynamic way, using a lot the support of the games.
Another one would be what they called “Treball Globalitzat”, which is based on the importance of the conversation and children’s interests. The school started working this way on science. The teacher does conversations with his/her pupils, and from it, draw the conclusions of what they are interested to know, and so, which topic they are going to research and learn from.
Tools for the classroom management and control children’s behaviour
During these weeks at the school I have learnt different strategies for the classroom management, from all the different teachers with whom I have been, and consequently to control children’s behaviour. Some of these tools are related to attract pupils’ attention; being phrases or gestures. To give some examples, I could see:
In year 2: the teacher shuts up and looks at them seriously, when children realise that, they say “S’està esperant… I enfadant” or sometimes is the teacher who says “M’estic esperant” and the children continue “I enfadant”, and then they start to be in silence.
Another one is the teacher saying “em toco el cap (and she touches her head) em toco el nas (and she touches her nose)” and so on, with the children having to do the same. This way they stop doing what they were doing and start paying attention to her.
In the other years I also saw some strategies to keep children’s attention, when they are doing too much noise or when they want to attract their attention. Some examples are counting down from 5 to 0, having to be in silence when they get to 0, or the teacher raising her hand and saying nothing and the students having to do the same.
So, the expectation was achieved, I have learnt some useful strategies, but I really need to improve them, to put them into practice and feel more secure when doing so.
Timing
My expectation related to the timing was to see how the teachers organise themselves in order to plan the lessons and manage the times, with the final outcome to learn to do so.
So this expectation can be divided into two.
First I will talk about the part linked to the teachers. In both cases I saw lot of flexibility with the times, but more in year 2, maybe because I was with the tutor, so she has more opportunities to change things.
Examples of Year 2: at the beginning of the school day the teacher told me the planning of the day, and she always said “and if we have time…” so she always had something reserved just in case that they had tiime, she also changes the schedule in order to fit her interests and also to finish the activities, going along some if she sees that children are engaged. Another common thing is to have prepared or though activities for the fast finishers or letting them do works to finish.
Examples of English: I saw that the English teachers has the times more planned, (it can be because it’s only a subject so it’s easier to see the planning session by session, or maybe because the way to manage a class of Y2 students is different from managing a class of Y5 or Y6). So, I have seen this timing more structured, but not always goes as planned, because of children’s paces or needs, and also because of children’s behaviour, depending on how many times the class has to be stopped.
The second part is related to my personal experience. I planned all my TU dividing the activities into sessions setting also a time, that hardly ever was accomplished. I could usually do all the activities wanted but with different lengths. Sometimes, particularly on the sessions were we made the final product, some activities couldn’t be finished and had to be continued on the following session. The great handicap of my timing were the lessons used to prepare the English day and the sessions that we lost due to festivities and outings. Because of that I started implementing later than expected, being this also a source of knowledge, being aware of the problems that I can find myself at the future; being also aware of the timing problems that specialists have, losing lots of sessions, and spending lot of time without seeing the pupils’ of some classes, and having to do lots of recaps in order to refresh the contents after some sessions lost.
I consider that this expectation is achieved, because I could experience the timing and learn from that, even that it not always goes as wished, because it will be an everyday aspect of my job, having to solve the difficulties that can appear. I have seen for myself how to manage the difficulties and overcome them.
Improve personal aspects
Another expectation was to improve different personal aspects such as the confidence and security, the time control, the improvisation and adaptation to unexpected things, the communication skills and having innovative ideas.
About the confidence and security I have to say that I felt more comfortable while the lessons were going through, noticing a big difference comparing the last session to the first one. But I need to gain more confidence and be like this since the first moment.
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The time control as I said before, I have learnt and practised to overcome the difficulties that can appear, I should improve the time control or plan different the sessions in order to not have to do lots of changes later.
Related to this, the improvisation and adaptation, which I think that I have learnt both, having to change some of the sessions and adding activities or doing more repetition to fill the time, so improvising in the same class; so without previous planning, but, I can also anticipate that and have some activities prepared just in case that I need them for the end of the session.
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Having innovative ideas, I think that the term innovative is a little bit subjective, I have planned my lessons without using book, so in a way it is innovative because it was not book-based, but I think that they were not really incredible or exceptional, so I don’t know if they can be considered innovative. But at least, I have seen during these weeks how activities can be planned without a book support (in the case of English) even having it, in year 2, it is more used to do exercises, but I could also see how to the sessions are planned without book (as in the case of Investiguem).
I feel completely capable and prepared to plan lessons and teaching units without a book support and using my own ideas.
Improving my communication skills is related to the confidence and security. When I said that I need to improve these skills I referred to the need of finding a good way to explain the things, and to make the explanations and the contents more close or to find different ways to explain the things, rephrasing them, and achieving with this a better comprehension. Having good speeches is linked with the confidence and security, because if you are comfortable with the situation and you feel secure, you will be calmer and therefore think clearer, having a good posture helping the speech.
The communication skills also comprehend having the right tone of voice and a good pronunciation.
I have learnt a lot and therefore improved, but I really think that I need to continue improving in this aspect and also with my level of English and the pronunciation, in order to feel more secure and implement better lessons.
It was not one of my initial expectations, but I would like to highlight, that not only implementing, but also being in the year 6B class during the English and arts and crafts lessons, allowed me to be with a boy with several autism, learning a lot from him and from the situation, learning how to manage some situations, and being able to stablish a close relation with him.
After doing this practicum, do you feel competent to become a teacher?
I think that this Practicum IV, based on the role of the tutor and also on implementing through CLIL methodology has been really important and essential to my formation as a future teacher, being one of the last steps to achieve so, providing me a lot of knowledge and educational tools, as well as lots of opportunities of putting into practice the knowledge acquired during the four years of the degree.
During these weeks I had the luck of combining the practices as a teacher with the practices using CLIL, in two completely different years as are Year 2 and Year 6, gaining with this lot of experience and seeing from first-hand how the different years work, and the changes of teaching methodologies and classroom management that are used.
At the beginning I found this a little bit overwhelming, because it was spending one day on one place and the next day in another place, thinking that it would be more difficult to have relation with the pupils. But, when I get used to that I thought that I was lucky, because it allowed me to experience different things at the same time, and therefore to have more learning opportunities. I also didn’t have difficulties when creating a bond with the children, I knew students from the different years being more enriching because it was normal to go through the school and found children greeting you, feeling more welcome and feeling as one more of the school community.
After having the chance, during this time, to be in year 2, 5 and 6, and implementing my CLIL teaching unit in Year 6 at arts and crafts, I feel competent and prepared to become a teacher by next year. Of course, there are plenty of things that I have and that I need to improve. But I really think that I will improve a lot with the experience and that is a believe issue, I mean that I think that for me it will be very helpful to see myself in front of a class, being the only authority, and having all the responsibility of the decisions, so I don’t have to rely on anyone or feel the pressure of what other teachers think about me, having to worry about their opinions. So I consider that I will improve when I will realise and believe that I’m a teacher, feeling more secure.
In conclusion, as I said on the comparison between the expectations and what I have achieved, there are things that I have improved and things that I still need to learn. I think that one of my main points and capacities is that I am an observer person. I pay a lot of attention on what is going on, on the class, looking at children’s behaviour and the relations that they stablish between them. I think that I really got to know them, and this is very important, because it’s essential to know the children that you have in the class in order to perceive their interests and needs, and be able to help them.
I also think that I am a good listener and that I give children confidence, that I listen to them and they know that they can count on me.
In the particular case of that practicum I really think that I got to know them, and that they trust me, because sometimes they come to me to explain their problems or worries. Maybe it is also influenced by the age gap, because they see me more close to them than some teachers, due to the age, the affection that I give to them and also because I still being a student like them.
As said previously, there are many things to improve, such as the posture and gestures, being an essential thing to make the explanations affordable and help its comprehension; classroom management, I would need to implement more tools in order to control better children’s behaviour; and the confidence, believing more in myself and my capacities and qualities as a teacher.
As said in advanced, the school internship has been really useful, providing lot of knowledge and tools. But, not only the school, also the teachers. I am very lucky with the two teachers that I have had, learning a lot from them.
From Maria, the year 2 teacher, I have learnt how to manage a class with younger learners, I could observed another way to do the explanations, in a more slowly way, peacefully, talking softly, and emanating a lot of love and kindness, towards her pupils. She teaches from the heart.
From Mònica, the English and CLIL teacher, I have learn a lot, she is a teacher with lot of experience, knowledge and tools.
She gave me lots of suggestions and recommendations, not only about the English specialization, but also about being tutor (she has been tutor for some years).
I’m really lucky to have had these two incredible teachers, because I could see the main point of younger and older primary students’ education. Maria has worked always with young students and Mònica with older, so they have lot of experience in each age field. Both of them have provided me lot of knowledge and resources, contributing very positively to my formation as teacher.
I found the UAB seminars really interesting and useful to complete our formation, and the knowledge that we were acquiring at the school practices. Having a useful follow-up of our teaching units in order to improve the sequences and take the most of them. The seminars also were an incredible source of resources and ideas, going out of the class always with new tools, digital or not, and plenty of different ways to use them. Being only four at class was an excellent situation, so everyone has space to be heard and expose her TU, so we could have more attention, and know the TU that the others were doing in order to learn from them, having ideas for the future, and having the opportunity to help each other to improve. So, I think that it’s very useful and enriching to be a small group on a Practicum seminar.
Having into account this time at the school I think that I would grade myself with a 7. I have a very quickly adaptation to the school, being as one more of the team since the very first moment. I tried to participate and help as much as possible. I think that given the topic and the aspects that I had to follow on my TU, the sequence and the idea were good, and the activities were dynamic and engaging for the children. But, as I said, when implementing I realise some mistakes that I have to solve and improve, so due to the plenty of things that I still need to learn I will grade myself with a 7.