Until this moment, I never understood how hard it was to lose something you never had...

Last day, I asked my students to complete an assessment sheet about my job and to ask some questions. I wrote the questions in three languages: English, Catalan and Spanish, because I was aware that they had problems to understand it. Moreover, the size of the letter was bigger in English, because I want the students to read first in English. In addition, I complete the sheet with some funny pictures and with a nice quote. The favourite activity for the majority of the students was the first one in which they had to guess the name of the countries from their flags and put them in the map. I was very happy, because I worked very hard to prepare the materials for this activity and I can say that it was worthy! The game that the students liked most was the one that we played with the ball, it was a very good decision! Moreover, all of them told me that they learnt a lot and they asked me for coming back to see them and they thanked me for helping them to do so nice activities. So cute!

I asked them to write a mark for me as well and I couldn’t believe it when the majority of them write a 9 or a 10 for me!

I prepared a surprise for them as well… I had a power point with some text and photos about them to thank them for their good behaviour, interest and motivation and, specially, for making me happy. They all really love it!

ICT activity

I used the ICT activity that we created in the classroom during this lesson. The activity consisted of a treasure hunt about the different countries from where my students are. They had to find the answer for the questions that I wrote and they had some problems to understand the texts and to find the answers due to their low level of English. On the other hand, they were very motivated and liked this activity.

My third lesson or how to write a letter

I was very happy and proud of my job, because another objective of my unit was how to write a letter and put into practice what they learnt about hobby, free time, etc. Núria told me that they already knew how to write a letter, because they wrote letters with foreign students last year, but they had already forgotten… I thought that if I put the letters into an envelope it could be more interesting for them and it was what I did. I gave them a envelope with a piece of paper inside it where I have written some questions to give them ideas about what they must write. Moreover, I design a model of a letter in order that they know the structure of it. It worked well, because they were very motivated and made an effort to complete the task, but I realized that they had a lo of problems to understand the instructions, although I explained the task with a power point presentation, in a oral way and with the model of the letter as well. In my opinion, I think that these kind problems are due to the low level of general knowledge that they have, because anybody taught them of basics things that they should already know and now it would waste a lot of time.

I was very worried about these problems and this is the reason why I decided to help them learning how to use a dictionary and they were very happy with my project and I think that the sticks really were helpful for them.

Thank you very much guys for the nice things that you wrote in your letters!! :)

1st ESO

I can’t believe the difference between the children of 1^st ESO and the ones of 2^nd ESO! The first ones are very childish and it is more difficult to cope with them, while the students of 2^nd of ESO are more motivated and more adults, I could say. Núria tried to play a memory game to study the parts of the body, but it was quite impossible, because the children spoke very loud and the classroom was a completely mess!

It is a pity, because they are very lucky of having a teacher like Núria, but they don’t let her to do her job.

Tutoría

I looked forward to take part in a “Tutoría”, because when I heard this word, I thought about what we did during this hour when I was in the school and I realized that the teacher used it to correct exams and they didn’t do anything with the students, although it was supposed to help the students, listen to their problems and so forth and so on.

In this case, the “Tutoría” was with the students of 2^nd of ESO and Núria used this hour to change the places were they seated and to talk about the “Crèdit Cooperatiu”.

I was surprised, because anybody wanted to be seated with a boy, because he doesn’t let them work. Núria explained them that he had serious problems at home and they had to help him, because he needed them and friends are for good and bad times. This was one of the times that the teacher should do more than her job; we have to realize that we must educate our children as well. You are a good model, Núria.

On the other hand, Núria explained them everything about the “Crèdit Cooperatiu”. Never heard about this?

This is one project of my high school that they do during the last week of the first term and each year is dedicated to one topic, this time is “The languages in the world”. During these days, they don’t have normal lessons and they work in this project, each group prepare different activities about languages and the Tower of Babel’s myth like taking photographs of different alphabets around the district, building a tower of Babel, drawing the tower, a concert, etc.

Cristina's lesson

This was the first time that I was in the classroom of one my mates: Cristina. She taught in 1^st ESO and the core of her unit was similar to mine. I realized that the activities that she did were very similar to the ones that I did as well.

Firstly, she did a warm-up activity: the Chinese whistle. She stood in the middle of the classroom that was organized in an U-shape and she told the first child one part of the city like bakery or town hall and he or she had to whisper to the classmate who was seated next to them until the first one who was the responsible for choosing the photo that went with the word and that were on the teacher’s table. It was very funny, the children were very motivated and they loved the game.

The main activity of Cristina’s lesson was developed in groups that Cristina organized by giving them different pieces of papers in different colours and the children had to find the students who had the same colour. In each group there were a time keeper, a presenter, a recorder and a material manager and Cristina gave a map of a town and several cards with the name of parts of the city and they had to put them in the map to tell other students how to go from the city centre to another point. It was very interesting, but maybe the activity was a little difficult for them.

I liked this experience and I think that she did a good job! Congratulations to Cristina!

Evaluation

I took part in the evaluation of 4^th ESO and I was very surprised and disappointed, because there were really few students who passed all the subjects, but the rest of them failed more than three!

All the teachers of 4^th ESO were in this meeting and the tutor spoke one by one about each student and about the whole group and the other teachers were allowed to make comments. Moreover, one of the teachers was the responsible for writing a report about that all of them had to sign at the end of the meeting.

On the other hand, they talked about the different posibilities that the students have to finish the ESO or to start working.

I felt that things are really complicated and we have to do some thing to change this situation!

I love this children!

One of the objectives of my lesson was to learn how to describe an image, the vocabulary related to hobbies and free time and the use of the present continuous. I decided to introduce all these objectives in a nice and funny activity. I prepared a power point with photos and videos about different activities and they worked again in groups. They liked this activity, because the power point was very funny and they kept the eyes looking at the blackboard. Moreover, I had decided to do this activity as a game as well, so each group had to decide what they were doing in the photo and write in the blackboard to check that they know how to write it correctly.

Firstly, the volunteers gave them their license again, while I prepared the projector and the computer. Moreover, I told them to write each sentence in their notebooks, because I thought it would help them to learn the vocabulary and the grammar structure. The students behaved very well, the classroom was very funny and when we have finished, we played another little game to win some extra points. I told one student an activity, she had to represent it and the members of her group had to guess what activity was. It was very happy and they were very motivated.

I have forgotten to say, that we played again a warm-up activity with the realia that I used. They loved this game, although at the beginning they had some problems to understand how to do it. I wrote on the blackboard three statements: say a number, say a country and say a colour. I threw the ball and asked the students to say a colour and they had to do the same.

My first lesson

3,2,1…! My teaching experience started and the decisive day came!

I would like to say, as you surely know, teachers must work very hard. There are many people who think that our job is the perfect one or that we live as kings or queens, because we have a lot of holidays, free time, a supposed good salary… but I checked what I have already experienced before, to be a teacher is like to be a cook, we have to work a lot to prepare our meals and the time to enjoy the pleasure of eating them is very short.

The core of my unit is the multiculturality and I am very happy, because this is the main reason why I decided to do my practicum in this high school. I am really interesting in this topic and this is why I would like to become a teacher as well, I am more interesting in educating as in teaching and I could experience this side of our job in this school, where you become more involved with your students and you have to act as a mother and help them with their personal problems. Moreover, this experience is more rewarding, because when you arrive at home, you realize how lucky you are, because you have a kitchen, drinking water, a family… This reward doesn’t have any price.

After deciding the core of my unit, my brain was full of nice ideas and activities, but the first problem was how to develop them and how to keep the students motivated.

My first decision was to create a kind of “driving license points” to put into practice in the classroom. Everybody had their own classroom license with ten points and their photo and I explained them that if they don’t respect my rules, they lose their points.

Moreover, I decided that if I wanted the students to participate and I had to create something to motivate them, so I created two volunteers cards and four cards for the responsible of the groups.

And the decisive day came! I started teaching to my classroom and I was quite nervous, because I didn’t know how the children could react, but after the first twenty minutes of my lesson, this feeling was over and I was really comfortable with them. I would like to say that I wasted a lot of time preparing many materials and games, but it was worthy!

Firstly, I introduced myself again and I told them what we were going to do during my lesson. I was quite afraid, because their level of English is very low and they have problems to understand oral English, but I solved this disadvantage by writing on the blackboard my expectations and my procedures. These students are quite conflictive, because the have a lot of personal problems and they are not really interesting in learning English, so I had to make a greater effort to motivate them.

During the first lesson we worked in groups that I had organised before according to their nationalities, because the main activity of this lesson consisted of guessing the situation and the name of different countries from their flags, so I wanted to have someone from different countries in each group. While they were sitting in their groups, the two volunteers helped me to give them their classroom license points and I prepared the computer to start with the activity. I felt so proud of my job when they saw their licenses! They were shocked and very happy, because it was innovative and they appreciated my job.

I arranged my lesson in three parts: the presentation, a warm-up activity and the main one. This time the warm-up activity consisted of introducing themselves and I motivated them with a realia: a nice and soft ball. I was very happy, because they loved this activity and they wanted to keep doing it!

Afterwards, we started with the main activity. I gave a map for each group and the flags of the countries that I projected in the blackboard. As I said before, the activity consisted of guessing to which county belonged the flag that I projected and to situate the flag and the country in their maps. They really enjoyed this activity and I felt very happy as well.

Self-assessment

On 4th of December I came early to the high school, because I wanted to have everything ready for my lesson and I was quite nervous… The first hour I attended the English Songs’ lesson again and this day Núria assessed them. They had to give her their dossiers with all the hand-outs that they had, but some of them didn’t have them or they were very untidy. I am very obssessive about presentations and I think that they have to be in a perfect way, because I believe that it helps students to learn and to memorize.

On the other hand, they had to complete a self-assessment and Núria wrote the following questions in the blackboard:

• Què t’ha semblat aquest crédit? T’ha servit pra aprendre ?
• Quines activitats t’han agradt més ?
• Quines activitats t’han agradat menys ?
• Amb quines activitats has après més ?
• Amb quines activitats has après menys ?
• Canviarias alguna cosa del crédit?
• Pensant en el teu esforç quina nota creus que et mereixes?

Na, und?

Memory game

This day I was again with my students and I was quite afraid of them, because we were three teachers in the classroom and Núria tried to explain them the present continuous, but they spoke the whole lesson to each other and it was a mess. After doing some exercises, we played a memory game with some sports to introduce the present continuous and this vocabulary in a funny way. However, they didn’t stop shouting and one teacher came to tell Núria that there was too much noise and her students couldn’t concetrate on doing their exam. Núria told the students that it was very embarrasing, but they didn’t really care. After this disgusting experience, I had to teach my own lessons…

Claustro

This was my first experience with all the teachers of the high school and I have to say that in this kind of centre every decision takes a lot of time. The first topic of the meeting was the suggestion of one teacher to participate in the Comenius Project. This is a project of the European Union which seeks to develop understanding of and between various European cultures through exchanges and co-operation between schools in different countries. The problem was that the students should stay in the house of the families and some of the students of my high school do not live in a house in good conditions and some of the teachers think that it is not fair. Another teacher suggests staying in a hostel, but it may not be allowed. In my opinion I feel quite disappointed, because it is very sad that my students could not enjoy this great opportunity… C’est la vie…

The second point of the meeting was the “Cooperative credit” a project run by the school in the last days of the first term. Every year there is a topic about which the students must work and present projects and at the end they show them in the school. Some of the teachers disagree with it, because they think that the effort that must make to develop the project do not worth it. The language is the topic of this year and the students suggest different works like taking photographs around the district or a radio programme.

The other topics of the meetings were the usual ones: the absenteeism, the project to promote reading or the assessments.

My first project

I sometimes think that it would be better not to have so nice ideas... because I have to work hard to develop them!

One of the things that I have learned during my practicum is that the students of the ESO do not know how to use a dictionary and I think that this must be changed...


The main problem that I observe in this high school is that children do not know many things that they must have already known for years, but nobody has taught them before and nobody has time to teach them now... I decided to teach them how to use a dictionary, so I had to think how to make things easier for them. I remembered what one of my teachers taught us when I was in the high school and it worked very well, we sticked some pieces of paper in each page where a letter beginns and if we wanted to look up a word, we only have to search for this letter. This was what I also made with my students, because it helps them to memorize the alphabet and to save time.

Anna

This was the third day that Anna was the teacher and it worked very good. The core of the unit was again the song ‘My Umbrella’, because they had to finish the exercises that she had prepared. The students had to work in groups organised by Núria, but I was quite surprised, because one girl went to tell her that she didn’t want to work with a boy. I thought that these incidents never happen nowadays…, but I sometimes forget how I was like when I was a teenager...

Key problems

I would like to show you one of the main problems of this high school, the students don't understand the meaning of the statemens. The students of 1st of ESO had to do an exercise to fill in the blanks with a, an, or some and one student thought that "or some" was one of the option, she didn't recognize "or" as a connector.



I was very surprised and worried about this kind of problems and I don't really know the reason of them, maybe they are caused because of the low level of Spanish, or because they don't understand what they read, but we must try to help them!

Working to prepare the exam

This time I was with the youngest students of the school, the group pf 1^st ESO. They are very nice and cute and in this classroom anybody is from Spain, it’s an interesting mixture of countries and cultures, from Georgia to Pakistan!

The students must work with their dossiers, because they have an exam next week and they were very disappointed, because they weren’t allowed to go to the computer room. We tried to help them and to explain their doubts, although I have still problems with Catalan, because they had to translate some sentences… However, I feel happier, because I can understand almost everything!

Anna's lesson

I was the responsible for recording Anna’s lesson and she did it very well once more. This time there were more students in the classroom, but she managed the lesson with a lot of patience and enthusiasm. They continued working with the same song, Umbrella, but at the end of the lesson the students were tired of it and they wanted to listen to another song. Their capacity of concentration is really low! Moreover, they have difficulties to understand metaphors and the double meaning of a text and we had to explain what about was the song.

The song talks about a girl who tells a boy that she is going to protect him and to take care of him and we, the teachers, were very surprised, because one girl said that it is very strange and that the boy is the one who is supposed to do this. Núria replied her that she couldn’t be so male chauvinist! It was very interesting…

Riding out the storm

On the 20^th November I was with Núria, Àngels and my classmate, Marçal with the students of my group, 2^nd of ESO, and they are quite problematic, because most of them don’t want to work and they talk during the whole lesson or when they think that the teachers don’t see them, they touch other students or joke with them. Moreover, this group is quite large and it is very difficult to keep all of them under control It is very stressful!

This day the students were told that they didn’t go to the computer room, because they have an exam of the second unit next week and they had to finish their dossiers, but most of them had a lot of mistakes, although the exercises had already been corrected.

We tried to help them and to explain everything once again, but I don’t really know if they are interested at all.

I usually think that maybe it could be better to start from the very beginning again, because in this way they could really learn and understand everything, because if you don’t know the basics, you will have difficulties to understand the following topics.

Teacher Anna

Today my post is dedicated to my classmate, Anna. On the 20^th November, she taught the students of 4^th ESO for the first time and she did it very well! Congratulations to her! I also was there and I hope that she felt comfortable with my presenceJ. This lesson is focused on learning English through songs and the level of the students is very low and they have still difficulties to speak Spanish or Catalan.

Before the lesson, Anna prepared a survey to know the favourite artists and songs of the students and she asked for three volunteers to help her during the lesson and to choose the activities that they were more interested in. Finally, they decided together to work with the song Umbrella by Rihanna.

The important day arrived and Anna did it wonderful! During the whole lesson I recorded Anna and it was very interesting to see the students through the lens of the camcorder. The video clip of the song that is hosted in Youtube was projected in the wall and the students must order the different fragments of the song and hang them out on the wall, while they were watching it. Afterwards, they had to do some exercises related to the song like one to fill in the blanks, another to link different sentences, etc. Everybody was very motivated and at the end of the lesson they wanted to listen to the song again, although the bell had rung. Good job, Anna!

Keeping my eyes open...

Once again I was with my students and it was quite normal. This lesson was focused on grammar and the students had to do exercises online about present simple. I’m very happy to check that things have changed and that we are taking advantages of new technologies, because children can waste less time if they practice grammar in the computer. Moreover, it’s more attractive for them and they could do it at home by their own.

I have discovered another strategy, although I’m sure that it isn’t new. If you say that you can’t speak Spanish, the students would make an effort to speak to you in English and they could get used to speak it. However, you have to listen to things that you don’t really want to, but I believe that it would be only for the first time.

I keep my eyes open…

Aula d'acollida

This was a very good experience and I would like to thank the teacher of Technology, because he was the one responsible for this lesson this time and he explained to me very how this kind of lesson works.

Aula d'acollida is a kind of lesson to help children, who have just arrived in Spain, to help them to adapt themselves ot our country. In this lesson, students are from different ages and courses, they worked a low level on the different subjects, and they pay special attention to vocabulary topics. During the year, when the children have already a certain level of Spanish and Catalan they incorporate into their group. They are assessed about language aspects and in the courses that they attend.

This time there were 25 children in the computer room and they had to share the computers and this fact complicated more that the children worked. The students were from China, Pakistan, Filipinas, Poland etc. and they were among 12 and 17 years old. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher explained with a projector which website they had to use. Firstly, I thought that it was very useful and it would help them to know exactly what they must do, but it was like every day, the children needed help and we had to tell them again the objective of the task. The main problem of these students are their difficulties to understand the language, but they helped other students who are from the same countries or who speak the same language, they do as translators.

I took advantage of being there and the teacher explained me many topics in which I was very interesting. The first of them was the abseentism in this high school. At the first hour, one teacher is responsible for checking in each classroom who is absent and afterwards someone of the staff phones the family to let them know it. Moreover, this high school is trying that the students are punctual, so the ones who arrive late are not allowed to come in the classroom and they stay with a teacher.

I realized that the main problem of children is at home, but this does not happen only in the case of students who have an immigrant background, even if we could notice it every day with families from our country. We can read in the newspapers that parents go to school and hit the teacher or even the student self. Nowadays, there are many parents who don't believe the teachers or don't want to believe them and they don't help them to bring up their children.

How can this problem be solved?

Overbooking

On the 12nd November it was quite stressful, because we were three students of the CAP in the classroom. This time the teacher started checking that all the students had done their dossiers and in case that they had not, Núria wrote a negative note in their agendas and when they had already three, they had a negative mark as well. I noticed that while she was checking this, the majority of the students had not any task to do, so they talked to each other and the classroom was quite uncomfortable. However, some students were filling the dossiers at this moment. Moreover, I realized that the more time the teacher needs to do something, the louder the students talk.

Afterwards, the lesson started as usually and the topic of this lesson was a dialogue. The teacher asked some students to read different parts of the text and she repeated the words that they did not pronounce properly. The following task was to answer some questions about the dialogue, but this time the whole classroom did it together and the students seemed to be very motivated and they raised their hands when they knew the answer. Moreover, the lesson was interrupted many times and the teacher had to ask for silence.

I would like to say some interesting aspects that I have observed. Núria spoke in English when she had to talk to everyone in the classroom, but when she talked to an individual student she spoke in Catalan. From my point of view, it could help the students not to believe or respect the teacher, because if they could get things easier, they would try to get it every time and not to make an effort to understand English.

On the other hand, I have still some problems to know how to explain a word without translating it, because the children have a low level, they have some difficulties to understand English, and we need more time to say something.

Any suggestion?

The other side of the coin

This lesson was quite different, because the children talked from the very beginning of the lesson and they were not interested at all in English.

The first procedure of the lesson was to write the date on the blackboard and Núria ask for the students’ help to do this. I think that is a good procedure to learn it.

This lesson was also focused on a gramar topic: the plural. Firstly, the teacher read aloud the theory that was written in Catalan and afterwards, the students had to do some exercises.

On the other hand, I would like to reflect about the language that is used in the classroom. I think that the best for the children is that the teacher speaks in English from beginning until the end of the lesson, but I’m not really sure if the students are able to understand the grammar if it is explained in English. Maybe we would need more time to explain it, but if we do it every day I think that children could get used of it and it would have been worth.

Reward and motivation

On the 8^th November I went to the school after long time and I was with the students of 1^st ESO in the computer room. I was with my classmate and two teachers and I noticed that when students go to this room, the classroom is a mess at the beginning, because they don’t know what they have to do, they can’t find the website where they have to work… This lesson was dedicated to a grammar topic about the use of a/an/some. The students had to do some exercises online and afterwards, they had to write the answers down in a piece of paper. I realized that I feel more comfortable with them and I’m more able to explain them the questions that they have.

On the other hand, I noticed that some students have problems to translate sentences, because their level of English or Catalan is not very high and some of them feel a little bit embarrased for this reason. I tried to make light of this problem and helped them with the vocabulary.

The students were very motivated and Núria told us the reason of this at the end of the lesson. The children try to do all the exercises and finish very soon, because she rewards them with a sticker with the following statements: Fantastic! You are the best! or Good job!

A nice idea…

Second time with my own students

On the 30th October it was the second time that I was with the students to whom I am going to teach and this time I was able to participate more and I tried to help the students to do the exercises and I tried to speak in English the whole hour, but I had to speak very slow and I noticed that I had to try different ways to explain the same thing, because they had some difficulties to understand English. During this lesson they surfed on this website www.isabelperez.com/grammar.htm and they had to read a text and do the exercises about the present simple. I think that this website is very interesting, because the author had taken into account that the different colours make the text more attractive to the students and they waste less time if they type than if they write.

I felt more confident and I tried to do my best to help them, so I think that in this way I could make the most of my Practicum.

To say something stupid like I love you...

This time I was with another student of my group on the 30th October and we were seated with one student and we tried to help them to develop the activity. The song for this lesson was Something stupid and the first activity was the same as every day, the students listened to the song three times and they had to order the fragments. After that they had to do some grammar exercises related to the song, they had to find the opposite of some words, to look for the personal pronouns and the adjectives in the text. They had a lot of problems with the category of the words, because they don’t know which words were adjectives, verbs, etc. Moreover, they continued having difficulties to look for the words in the dictionary and they need a lot of time to do it.

English songs

I took part in this lesson again on the 25th October and I can say that I really like it, because it’s a different approach of teaching English and children are elder and more motivated. They were ten students in the classroom and this time the song was I will always love you from the film ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992). The methodology of this lesson was the same as the last time, the students listened to the song for the first time and they had to order the different fragments. After that, they had to look for the meaning of different words in the dictionary and they had a lot of problems to do it, and I had to help them, because some of them told me that a word didn’t appear in it, but it was because they didn’t know that the dictionary was a bilingual one and that it had two parts, but they looked into the Spanish part.

This time, 2nd of ESO (Group B)

At the beginning of this lesson on the 25th October I was quite afraid, because I didn’t know anything about them and this was my first "normal" lesson in the classroom. Moreover, I expected that my tutor would have told me something about what I had to do in the lessons, but she didn’t. In this group I could see the reality of this high school, because all the students come from different countries and there wasn’t any Spanish one. The children were in small groups of people from the same country as them.

The first problem that Núria had to solve was with a problematic student who doesn’t want to be in the high school and he arrived in the classroom and didn’t open his book neither take part in the group activity. Núria told him that he could go away if he didn’t want to be there and he left the classroom and he slammed the door, so Núria had to write a note for the principal of the school to try to solve the problem.

After this incident, we started the lesson and the first activity was a warm-up one. It was a kind of memory game who Núria has developed to adapt to different lessons, but this time it was about animals. We hung different cards with the letters in the blackboard and they had a picture or the name of an animal on the back and the children were in groups to play this game. They had to say two letters and try to find the correct name for the correct picture. It was very funny and the children were motivated and very active, they liked it so much, that they wanted to play it again, but this time they had to write sentences to describe these animals and at this moment I participated and helped them to understand the activity. My problem was that I didn’t know in which languages I had to answer them, because the teacher told them in Catalan or Spanish the meaning of the words and I was told that I had to speak in English.

Helping the students to discover the wonderful world of reading

Nowadays, the students are said not to read so much and it’s very important for this kind of children, because they have learning difficulties and their languages’ skills are not very high. The stuff of the high school has decided to reduce the lessons five minutes in order to have time to create a new lesson where students must read a book in the language they want.

Congratulations to the stuff!

Computer room

On the 13rd October I had the first contact with the students to whom I’m going to teach. They are the group A of 2nd of ESO. They were about 25 and I had the feeling that they were quite childish, although they were about 13 years old. However, we have to take in account that some of these children have problems in their families and some difficulties to learn.

This lesson took place in the computer room and I would like to say something that I find very interesting, every group go weekly to this room during one lesson and they do some exercises related to grammar and reading topics in a “virtual lesson”. I was very surprised, because every child has a computer for his or her own and it shows that things are changing nowadays, because when I went to the school we had to share the computers in pair or even in groups of three and it made more difficult to work.

The students work in the following website: http://www.iestarradell.org/moodle/, where they have to do some exercises online and after that they have to fill a piece of paper with the answers and hand in them to the teacher.

Now, I would like to talk about Núria’s methodology, because I think that it’s very interesting. Due to the financial problems of the families, a lot of them couldn’t afford to buy books or some material to their children, so Núria decided to photocopy each unit of a course book and give them to the students. When they finish the lesson, the students have to give in the exercise book in order to be allowed to do the exam. What about the royalties? The book is not sold anymore and the editorial allowed the high school to photocopy it, because of the financial situation of these students.

During this lesson I was with my classmate and two teachers, Núria and Àngels, in the computer room. They had to do a virtual lessons and it consisted of doing a reading and some grammar exercises. In my opinion, it is very positive that children can work with computers, because they learn to use them at the same time and they are more motivated. During this lesson I got in touch with my students, because they asked me some questions about the meaning of different words and I tried to explain them in English. However, I felt quite nervous, because I have doubts about the language that I had to use, because I can’t speak Catalan, so I decided that I tried to use English and Spanish as well, when they had problems to understand it.

Let's reflect about the first impressions...

I'm writing this blog almost one month later after beginning my practicum, so I'm using the notes that I wrote every day after arriving at home from the high school. I disagree with the methodology of this CAP course, because I think that it could be better if we have attended the lessons about theory aspects first and after that we would do our Practicum, because in this way we could put into practice what we have learned, but it couldn't be changed...

Firstly, I would like to reflect about my own beliefs. Oriol told us that many beliefs about school come from teachers' experience as students and what our teachers did, influence our teaching behaviours. This is one of the reasons why I would like to become a teacher, because I would like not to be as the bad teachers that I had and I would like to try to improve the teaching techniques. I agree with this statement and during this last year I have taken notes about what my teachers did, because I thought that it would be very useful for my own experience. I studied in a normal school, were almost every one came from Spain and they had a normal life, but now I feel a little bit envious, because I would like to be in a classroom like the ones in the Miquel Tarradell school, because I think that we could take advantage from everyone and we could understand better how the world is changing nowadays.

From my point of view, I think that there are a lot of differences all over the country, because I'm from Galicia and I believe that there the situation is changing slower and they need more time to adapt to this society. I'm very hopeful about the situation and I think that inmigration and integration could work in this world, but I think that the following generations of inmigrants are going to have it easier, because they have brought up in a different society than their parents or grandparents and they could understand better how to adapt and to integrate themselves in this world.

Now, let's talk about the first impressions of my experience in the high school. The first problem that the teacher has to solved is the name of the students. Teachers have to make a great effort to learn their names, because they are very different from the Spanish ones, but it is very important to know them. One of the most important problems is the high rate of absenteeism in the school, so the teacher has to check every day if the students are or not in the classroom. However, I don't really know what happens if the students don't come, but I would like to talk about this with my tutor. I was very surprised, because I have thought that this high school was not really a rich one, but my teacher checks the attendance with a PDA and it's very useful, because it's faster and less paper is wasted. On the other hand I have learned that it's very important to have some procedures and routines and maybe it could be better that the students have something to do while the teacher is checking the attendance, because it helps the students not to waste their time and to keep quiet.

In my opinon, I think that it could be very useful if the teacher writes in the blackboard at the very beginning of the lesson what they are going to do that day, because it helps the students to know what they are expected to do and due to the diversity of the classroom, the children who have a higher level could go through the next activity in case they finish sooner and don't get bored.

The first day

My first day in the school was on the 23rd October and the first students who I met were in 4th of ESO.

Everybody is afraid when they have to do something for the first time and my case wasn’t an exception. People tend to be nervous when they have to do something that they don’t really know, but after the first experience you start to feel more relaxed. I arrived at the high school very early and I came in the classroom with my tutor, Núria Laporta. The first impression was very good, because there weren’t a lot of students in the classroom, because this subject was an optional one. They were seated in pairs and it was like an image of the contemporary society, everyone comes from a different country: Pakistan, Spain, Morocco, etc.

Núria Laporta is an experienced teacher who have had to change her methodology for three years because of the new background of their students. She discovered that students are more motivated if they can learn English through songs and games and this was what she did.

This lesson was dedicated to Imagine , the John Lennon’s song. The first exercise that they had to do was to order in pairs the different fragment of the song while they were listening to the song. After that Núria gave them the lyrics and they had to fill some blanks with words that they had at the bottom of the page. And the last task was related to some grammar topics. I was very surprised, because when Núria asked about the questions, everyone answered her and they seemed to be very motivated and participated.

Núria had a present for the Arabic students, because she played the song once again, but this time it was a version with fragments in English, Hebrew and Arab. During the whole lesson, you can notice the immigrant background of the students due to the kind of questions they ask or the languages they speak.

My high school

I decided to do my Practicum in a high school called Miquel Taradell that is situated in the Raval district in Barcelona. Oriol and Mª José told us that this is a special school, because the 90% of the students are inmigrants or have an inmigrant background and it was what attracted to me, because I'm really interested in the new concept of society and everything that has to do with multicultural society. I lived in Germany and I realized that we could learn a lot and take advantage of this mixture of people. I thought that this experience could help me if I decided to go to Germany to teach Spanish or simply to work there and before doing that I would like to know how I could cope with it.

I sent an e-mail to my tutor, Núria Laporta, and we made an appointment to talk about everything related to my Practicum. I was a little bit upset, becasue I didn't really know how I could do my Practicum and attend my lessons in the University at the same time, but she did everything she could for us and I decided that the best way to do it would be to start as soon as possible...

Why?

Trying to find my way

Could you let down your hair
And be transparent for a while
Just a little while
See if your human after all
Honesty is a hard attribute to find
When we all want to seem like we've got it all figured out
I may be the first to say that I don't have a clue
I don't have all the answers
And god I pretend like I do just
Trying to find my way
Trying to find my way the best that I know how

Well I haven't memorized all the cute things to say
But I'm working on it
Maybe I'll master this art for today
I'd I qoute all the line off the top of my head
And you'd be
I dont understand all of these things Ive read
Im just trying to find my way
Trying to find my way
Trying to find my way the best that I know how

Well I havent drawn it or figured out quite yet
But even if it takes my whole life
To get to where I need to be
And if I should fall to the bottom of the end
I'll be one step back to you
I'm trying to find my way
Trying to find my way
Oh, I'm trying to find my way
Trying to find my way

Understand what you want...

From the very beginning...

The beginning is always a way full of doubts and fears, but at the moment that we set a foot in it, we have to forget everything and try to do our best - and that is what I'm going to do in this period. When we are afraid of something, we sometimes think about why we have decided to do it, but every effort has its reward and I only hope that I have something to teach someone, because I know that I have a plenty of knowledges to learn.

When I decided to do the CAP, I was in a mess, because I arrived in Barcelona two months ago to finish my degree here, because I really love this city and I wanted to live here whatever it takes, so I decided to turn my life upside-down and to take the most advantage of this city. Luckily, I didn't have to look for a flat, because I had already one with some friends of mine and it allowed me to waste more time to solve the bureaucratic problems. I was told that I had to do a lot of "Libre elección" credits and when I was thinking about which courses I could attend, I realized that I could do the CAP in order to get them. I had already thought about doing the CAP, because I had some experience as a teacher and it was really great and rewarding, but I thought that this was the right moment to do it.

... Let's go!!...