Reflective

Writing
Carolina Romero Abarca
Teaching Practicum
English Pedagogy
2009
 Reflective writing Nº1: The Observation Stage
I. Introduction

• What do you think the cartoon provided below is illustrating? Why? Answer
briefly.
It is a married couple who are going to watch TV in a living room.
I can say that they are married because of their ages (they both look old). In fact,
the woman was not sitted comfortably on her armchar if the man was not her
husband, excepting he was an electrician but he does not look like an electrician
because he does not have any tool to work ; actually, he looks very relaxed since
he is smoking a pipe.

II. Reflective writing

• Taking into account the information you collected during the observation
stage,

1. Reflect on the importance of the initial observation period in final

practicum.

According to Allwright (1988), observation is a procedure that allows to register the

events of the classroom that can be analyzed later in a thoughtful way. So, initial
observation it is a good tool to improve the teacher’s development since it gives us
the opportunity to collect information about the class before starting teaching; for
example:
Observe the way the teacher uses to teach. This fact can be really helpful since we
can continue using the teacher’s way or we can change it (in the case it is not
effective). Moreover, we can do a survey about students’ opinions, likes, dreams,
etc., in order to make activities according to their interests.
We can observe students’ behaviour. So, when is our turn to teach, we can set our
own rules to improve the environment of the class.
We can observe students’ relationships in order to do group work, which it s a good
technique in order that all the students can participate in the class.

2. Refer to the observed issues in assigned school, and explain if these

issues caused a change on the expectations you had about this particular
period.
Before I started attending this school, I thought that this period was a waste of time.
I only wanted to start teaching. When I met the class, I thought that it was a disaster
since when the teacher was explaining a topic almost nobody was paying attention;
so, I would not have any chance to perform in a good way and I would get a bad
grade in my teaching practicum. However, the next two classes I could observe that
only few students were trouble makers and started attracting the attention of the
rest of the students. Afterwards, I analyzed this situation and I thought that the
solution for this problem was asking them some questions while I was explaining
something in order to a keep them concentrated on the topic .However, still it is
really complicated to keep them interested but at least I found out that this class is
not a complete mess.
Apart from that, I could observe the level of English of the students in order to make
my classes comprehensible; otherwise, I would have started teaching in a really
complicated way for them.
I think these two issues were the most relevant for me in order to change my
expectations about this period.

3. How did you feel? Provide one example you consider most relevant to
support your answer.

At first, I felt like a stranger in the classroom since the teacher never introduced me
to the students (he did it just a week before I started teaching). However, it was a
good experience since it made me feel more confident about my teaching
performance due to all the events that I could observe.

References:

Allwright, D. (1988) Observation in the language classroom. Londres-Nueva York:

Longman.
Cambra, M. (1992) Les observacions de classes al servei de la didàctica de la
llengua estrangera, Temps d’Educació. 8, 333-354.
 Reflective Writing : Team teaching Stage
Why teachers sometimes use Spanish to teach English?

I have asked some teachers this important question, and they answered me that they
sometimes speak Spanish because they wanna speed things up a little bit.
When students are exposed to a new language for first time, it it is really difficult to
understand without knowing anything about that language.

From my point of view, it is completely true. However in Chile 10th or 12th graders have
been exposed to English for many years and they continue using Spanish in the classes. It
happens because most of the students do not like English due to the fact that they think
that it is not useful. So teachers have make a great effort to motivate their students to learn
English in an interesting way obviously.

Another reason is that some teachers have very low expectations about their students.
They think that the students are going to fail because they are bad at science, maths, etc.
And, another important reason is that public schools have few hours for this subject (2, 3,
or 4 hours).
 Reflective Writing: Teaching Stage

Reflexion about Sandra's performance

What I observed in Sandra's class was:

In the introduction part, she greeted the students in English ; she asked about the date of
the class; and she asked about the absent students . I think this part was very good since
she used a lot of body gestures, she said all this part in English because it is a daily
routine, and she only asked about the people who were absent ; so, she saved a lot of
time due to the fact that she did not call the roll.
In the core of the class, she started asking about what they did last class. Then, the
students started checking their notes. I think this part took a lot of time because Sandra
waited many minutes until the students answered. Afterwards, the students were doing an
activity of the book in order to be prepared for the next step. Then, Sandra checked the
answers. In the while-stage, she taught the structure of “going to”; she showed some
flashcards to the students. The problem was that some students could not see the
flashcards because they were too small. In the following minutes the students were doing
some activities of the same book. The whole class lasted around 50 minutes.

Suggestions:
Sandra should use larger flashcards or body gestures to teach “going to”. However, if the
school has resources such as , a projector , computer , etc., she should use them.
Besides, she should not use the book the whole class since the students get bored easily;
she should try applying different types of activities; for instance, games because the
students are children. By the way, they are very quiet ; so, she should take advantages of
it.
When, we were watching the video of Sandra, some classmates said that her class was
very traditional. I could say that the class was traditional and it was very similar to my own
way of teaching; however, for me it is very complicated to do a class with a communicative
approach since in large classes it is not possible that all the students can speak; moreover,
we have to take in mind their level of English (in most of the cases, in large classes the
level of English is very low). For these reasons, sometimes it is necessary to teach
grammar to the students in order that they can associate what they are learning to their
own language.
 Final Reflexion

Before I started this process, I felt very worried about teaching because I had never taught
students from high school. I was really scared since many people had told me that in Liceo
Barón there were bad students. Then, the first day that I had to attend the future class
arrived. I met my guide teacher , who is a great person, and he told me a little bit about the
students. They were in first grade and all of them were around 15 or 16 years old, so they
were a little old. Afterwards, I knew that all of them were taking the first grade for second or
third time!! So, for me was a really challenge to plan activities for them in order that they
can feel motivated for learning.

In the observation and team teaching stages, I realized that just few students were
troublemakers. Once, I observed that while the teacher was explaining something , some
students were listening to music, laughing, etc., and the other students were paying
attention to the teacher. The problem was that the trouble students started attracting the
rest of the students' attention, so the class turned into a mess. For this reason, I decided to
make activities where all the students can participate in. I asked them to make groups of 4
or 5 people. These activities ,where I used work group, were very motivating for them
because I always prized them giving some points for the future evaluation.
I think in this process I tried to do different activities, I think that I could do almost
everything !!!!! However, sometimes I felt a little frustrated when I wanted to say something
in English and the students did not understand me, so I had to repeat it in Spanish. I think
that public schools do not have enough time to spend on English subject, just 4 or 3 hours!
Besides, we were on a strike, so we lost many classes. I suggest that for a future teaching
practice, I would be better to do it in a private school because it has more English hours
and it is not going to be on a strike!