Observation task and...

During this first week we were supposed to do observation task in the classroom.... but it wasn’t that easy!!

This year our tutor teaches 4th of ESO, 1st of Batxillerat and Cicles formatius. Though she had let us choose the group we want to monitor, this first week we’ve been observing the tree groups.

Our first experience was with Cicles formatius and I must admit that after the first hour I was a bit scared because even though the group was split, they were only about 10 students, they took at least 15 minutes to “be quiet”. They spoke and made a lot of noise for the whole class. What I’ve noticed is that their level was really low, and the teacher had to speak in Catalan/Spanish most of the time. It was very difficult to get their attention. The first thing that shocked me was what a student told her just at the beginning of the class: “profe, pero si ya sabes que no te entiendo!” Wow!

The next group was 1st of Batxillerat, and fortunately, the situation was very different. Though it’s a very large group (39 students), they behaved and, in general, their level of English is not bad. They are reluctant to speak in English, but the teacher can do it most of the time and they understand her quite well. What I also noticed is that when she wanted to be sure that students understood her, she repeated what she had said in Catalan. I think that this is a good group to work with, but the problem is that it’s such a big group. My practicum mate, Aaron, is going to monitor this one because of the schedule of the Didactics class at the University.

On Tuesday, we had class with 4th of ESO. That day we had another teacher in the classroom, Kieth, a Scottish student that helps English teachers with conversation tasks one hour a week for each group. I think it’s very interesting for the students, so they have the opportunity to listen to a native English speaker. He read a text and they had to do some exercises related to it. This group is not as big as the 1st of Batxillerat (26 students), so I think it could be easier to implement some activities with them.

On Wednesday, our third day, we were supposed to start participating in the 1st of Batxillerat class but I think we did a step forward. The group was split, so some of them had to work with Kieth and the rest remained with Mercè. The problem was that Kieth didn’t arrived, so Mercè asked us to do the class with these eleven students. Wow!! We had to read aloud a text that we haven’t previously read and then they had to answer some questions related to it that obviously we haven’t answered ourselves. I felt a bit nervous when I started reading, but I must say that it was a great experience. They behaved, they listened and worked in silence and the class developed without problems. A great third day of practicum!