ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICE

OBSERVATION STAGE

Task 1: The School and Learning Environment

Name of student: Carla Andrea Ramírez López.

Name of School: Escuela Particular N°3 Santa Ana.
Number of students: 623 students.
Date: April, 21st of 2010 Class: 4° Grade of Elementary “A”

1. The school:

The “Escuela Particular N°3 Santa Ana” is located at Santo Domingo Street #104,
Valparaíso. The school is inserted on the patrimonial area of the Valparaíso city. It is
surrounded by a huge number of small stores and old houses. It is near of a Supermarket,
of the Echaurren Square, and in front of a beautiful church named “La Matriz”.
The area that surrounds this school is not one of the best in the city because it is very
close to the use of drugs and alcohol; however the people (teachers and parents) are
trying to change this situation, in order to give children a better place and a better
education.
The Santa Ana School is organized as follows:
The school has a huge number of students. It has 2 courses per year, from kinder garden
to 8th grade of elementary. This school does not have secondary courses only primary
courses. The final number of students is 623 children.

The school has a powerful life philosophy because all their thoughts are based on the
Catholic religion. They pretend to form an educational community Mariana – Vicentina;
through the same way they want to help poor children in order to give them all the
abilities and resources to face the next future.
Their philosophy is reflected on one of their principal’s objectives of the Educational
Project:
"Servir a la vida ayudando a formar personas integralmente, según Jesucristo en una
opción preferencial por los pobres y de reconciliación de la verdad dentro de un
contexto comunitario inserto en la sociedad que se quiere hacer más justa y fraterna,
según el pensamiento de San Vicente de Paul".

The educational policies of the school are closely related to their strong philosophy. For
example this is one topic of their school’s mission which is clearly related with the
Catholicism.

a) Formar personas según Jesucristo en una opción preferencial por los más
necesitados del entorno escolar, de acuerdo a las enseñanzas de nuestros
fundadores, de tal modo que en el proceso enseñanza-aprendizaje lograr
personas católicas, solidarias, sencillas, alegres, creativas, participativas,
responsables, con razonamiento crítico que vivan su Fe y la proyecten hacia los
demás participando en la construcción de una sociedad más humana y más
justa.

However they also have educational interests just like other schools, for example they
pretend to create a school where the children will learn and achieve meaningful learning,
and where the education will influence the intellectual, social and moral development of all
the students.

The school has their own behavior’s policies. They created this regulation years ago, and it
is for all the members of the school; students, parents, teachers, managers, etc; nevertheless,
it is modified every year. There are special rules for every member of the school. For
example, these are some topics that the students have to follow and comply inside of the
school:

a) The students have the compromise of take care all the objects of the school and their
own classmates.
b) Avoid any kind of violence inside the games.
c) They have the responsibility of studying every day and get good grades in order to
approve all the subjects.
d) They must wear all the uniform as the regulation says, etc.

The regulation does not explain only the behavior’s policies, but also explains the rights
that people have inside of the school. For example:
 a) Be treated with respect by all the members of the school community.
b) Participate in all the school activities and workshop that the school offers.
c) Be attended quickly in case of illness or accident.
d) Be heard and attended by all the members of the school; teachers, managers,
assistants, etc.

This is a brief summary of all the points of the “rules of coexistence” of the Santa Ana
school.

1) The principal objective of the Center.

2) Rights and obligations of the family, parent or representative.
3) Rights and obligations of the student.
4) Personal Presentation (boys and girls).
5) Physical education uniform.
6) Prohibitions.
7) General observations.
8) Procedure for applying sanctions, etc.

2. The classroom

The school has special classrooms for every grade. Some classrooms are in the first floor,
in the second, and others in the third floor. The classrooms are wide and clear, they have
normal equipment and the distribution inside of the room depends completely on the
number of students that the grade has. Every room has big windows, and good artificial
illumination, and for the same reason the rooms have good ventilation. The children are
distributed in 3 columns and each column has 2 lines of students, the board is located in
the middle of the front wall in order to be seen by all the children in the classroom. Every
child has their own seat; however he/she must share and do some of their activities and
workshops with his/her close classmate.
The 4th grade’s classroom has the following equipment: a whiteboard, two bookshelves, a
bulletin board, a timetable, a clock, an interactive board, a speaker, a sanctuary, a rubbish
bin, a broom, individual seats and racks for each student, a calendar, books and
dictionaries, etc. The only difference between the 4 th grade’s classroom and the 5th grades
classrooms is that these two rooms do not have interactive boards.

3. The activities & resources

a) Make notes on the kind of activities used, the nature of student involvement,
balance of student doing things and teacher doing things

The children do a wide variety of activities. Some activities are the following: they do
listening, readings, matching’s exercises, fillings the blanks, completing, writings,
drawings, etc. They use and do much of the activities of the English’s book; however they
also do activities created by the teacher. When they are doing the exercises, some
students do it quickly by their own; however the other students have concentration and
motivation’s problems with the theme of the class.
When the teacher presents the activities in front of the class, she explains orally the
exercise for everyone, and then she asks for doubts, in order to clarify the information
given. After this, the teacher checks the work of the students, and tries to pay more
attention to those students who do not understand too much the second language in
comparison with the rest of the course.
The balance between the teacher and the student doing things, it’s different because the
teacher tries to let the students work on their own, but she interferes and helps when she
realizes that the students are completely lost; giving them in that particular situation the
correct feedback.

b) Describe the resources used and the materials available within the school. How are
the resources used in the classroom?

The resources that the teacher has used in the classroom are the student’s book, the
board, the CD player, the interactive board, material created by the teacher, etc.
However, the school has more materials and resources available; for example, it has
computers, a data show, and books in English, etc.
The resources has been used in the classroom on different ways, for example, the teacher
has used the CD player for listening activities, and for teach special songs. The interactive
board is for teach through a new way, a form that is more motivating and catchy for the
students, and the English book has been used for group and individual works, for
exchange information, etc.

Task 2: Student´s learning

1. The learners

In some occasions I could see that the students are not completely motivated with the
theme of the class because they are doing everything except what the teacher says. I think
that this situation it’s because the topic of the class is presented in a way that the students
do not like.
The number of students inside the classroom is huge (in the three courses), for this reason
when a group of students is doing something else, they affect in the entire class. So, in
that situation they have the power of decide if the want to participate and learn what the
teacher is teaching or completely ignore the subject. It’s in this part of the class when the
teacher has changed the modality of teaching and has recovered the attention of the
children. However, in some occasions this is more complicated than in other ones because
the students are trying to make the teacher do all the work for them.

2. Behaviour during classroom activities

When the teacher presents orally the activity in front of the class, she also asks for doubts,
in order to make students participate. When they finish the activity, she reviews the
answers and writes them on the board to see if all the children understood correctly the
topic. When the activity is a matching, a completing or a filling the blanks, she writes
examples on the board, and then she copies the same exercise and lets children answer it
by their own in front of everyone. She usually chooses the students who apparently do
not understand very well, or those who are doing something apart of the class. With this
action she could have the control over the children.
The teacher is always trying to create attractive activities for the children, but she says
that is a bit difficult finds them for all the topics.
I could see that in the 5th grade “A” is a boy with special needs. He is a hyperactive boy and
he has to take a medicine every day in order to control his problem.

3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in the classroom.

Each student has his/her own learning style, some of them work on team, and other ones
prefer to work alone. One group write everything; what the teacher says and also what
the words means; but the other group prefer only watch and do the exercises. I could see
a wide variety of learning styles, and a wide variety of levels of English too. Most of the
students have real problems with English because some of them do not understand
almost anything; nevertheless a small group of children have a high level of knowledge,
and this was very impressive to me because they do almost everything by their own. They
do not ask for anything; explanation, clarification, etc. They understand all the activities
and they do it very quickly without help.