Journals

1. Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Secondary school
Group: 1st C
Date: 16/10/2015
Lessonnumber: 1
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
The lesson planning was based on the Communicative approach, in order to develop their
communicative skills throughout activities that included writing, listening and speaking skills.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
This lesson was student-centered and the aim of each activity was to provide students with the
opportunity to use their previous knowledge about food, and include new knowledge from the
video and explanations. Furthermore, they developed their critical thinking skills analyzing the
information about healthy diet and giving their opinion. They were able to participate when they
wanted to and they did it actively. The lesson was delivered in English even though students do
not know a lot about this language, I used body language, examples and pictures in order to help
them to understand. While they developed the different activities, I walked among them, helping
with vocabulary and examples.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
When students saw the T.V. they were very happy. They participated actively during the entire
lesson (in English and in Spanish), they also helped their classmates when they needed help.
They were enthusiastic when completing the chart while they watched the video. Sometimes when
I asked them to be quiet I realized they were talking about food and their preferences. Everyone
was able to participate and students who usually do not participate shared their answers and
opinions.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
I believe that I chose useful material. Students worked a lot and they were very enthusiastic. I
decided that students work in pairs and that they can ask another couple if they needed and this
worked wonderfully. Some students were motivated by their mates to work and participate, too.
5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?
I will include more written activities to develop their writing skills. As I asked them to change
their usual place, they were a little overexcited. I do not know if I will ask them again to do that.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next lessons will be developed considering needs and preferences that I could observe.
Furthermore, I will ask them to work in pairs again or in groups.

2. As they participated a lot, I will design activities where they will be able to share their opinion
and develop their critical thinking skills.
7. Any comments or observations you would like to share may be added here.
I was not nervous because the group was very kind. I was surprised because every single student
participated and completed all the activities.
Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Secondary school
Group: 1st C
Date: 23/10/2015
Lessonnumber: 2
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
The lesson plan was designed on the Communicative approach, including different activities to
develop their speaking, reading and writing skills. The topic was performed following the
Presentation-Practice-Production method.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
This lesson was student-centered and each activity was useful to connect the students’ previous
knowledge with the new one presented by the lesson. Furthermore, they shared their beliefs
regarding healthy habits according to our culture; this allowed students to participate actively.
The lesson was delivered in English encouraging students to understand the topic and
instructions using body language, examples and the picture. While they developed the different
activities, I monitored if every student participated and worked collaboratively with their mates.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
Students participated actively using English and Spanish language because they were able to
share their previous knowledge about the lesson. The lesson was interesting and they worked
completing all the activities even they were not used to working with long texts.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
The chosen material was useful because they spent their time working and helping each other
with instructions and sharing their opinion. During this lesson they worked in pairs again and
this was satisfactory. The text we used for the last activity was a great choice because some
students wanted to read aloud and almost everyone was able to complete the activity.
5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?

3. I believe that I should improve the organization when students share their answer because they
all want to participate and read their production. Furthermore, they need more time to complete
the activities.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next lessons will be developed considering needs and preferences that I could observe.
As they participated a lot, I will design activities where they will be able to share their opinion
and develop their critical thinking skills (as in the previous lessons).
Finally, I will design the next lesson asking students to work in groups.
Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Secondary school
Group: 1st C
Date: 30/10/2015
Lessonnumber: 3
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
I designed the lesson plan based on the Communicative approach, developing their
communicative skills through the four macro skills.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
This lesson was student-centered and the aim of it was to provide students with a meaningful
context to learn about free time activities and use their previous knowledge, too. Students worked
in small groups in some activities in order to promote sharing interests and habits. When
students worked in pairs or in small groups and I was monitoring them, all the students were
motivated and they worked and completed all the activities, even the students who do not like
languages and they find English very difficult.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
Using the video was effective because they liked it and they understood it so it was useful to
motivate them to complete the rest of the activities. They were more motivated than the previous
lesson because they were more involved with free time activities than with food. The game was
fantastic; I was surprised of how much they know about each other.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
I consider that the most successful aspect was that each student worked and completed his
activities sharing with their classmates. Furthermore, students were able to complete activity 4
because they had practiced writing in the previous lessons.

4. 5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?
I will continue including activities to develop their writing skills. I would like to ask students to
write something a little longer.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next lessons will be developed considering needs and preferences that I could observe
Furthermore, I will ask them to work in pairs again or in groups. I also would like to include a
game because they love them and they worked very well.
Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Secondary school
Group: 1
st
C
Date: 13/11/2015
Lessonnumber: 4
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
I designed the lesson plan based on the Communicative approach, in order to develop their
writing and reading skills throughout activities about vacations.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
The lesson was student-centered and the aim of it was to develop the students’ communicative
skill and use their previous knowledge about different cities of Argentina. Students used
dictionaries when they found unknown words. Furthermore, working in groups helped them to
share their knowledge and develop the activities in an easy way. During the lesson, I walked
among the students correcting their texts and encouraging working in groups and allowing
everyone to participate.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
They all knew all the cities and they also knew information about them. They worked a lot but I
noticed two issues. On the one side, they had problems working in groups, some students
completed some activities quickly and they did not allow the other ones to participate. Anyway,
the rest of the group convinced them to re do the activity collaboratively. On the other side, they
did not like the topic as much as I thought even they completed all the activities.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
I believe that this lesson help them to practiced working in groups. They have improved a lot
their writing skills through these four lessons, too.

5. 5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?
This was our last lesson but I will include not only written activities when planning but speaking
and listening ones even if I want students to practice writing in order to motivate them.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next time I have the opportunity I will ask students to give me some feedback about the topics I
chose. I will also consider that working in groups needs a lot of guidance on the part of the
teacher in order for SS to be able to work properly.