1. MDD 1
“CONTEXTUALIZACIÓN DE LA ENSEÑANZA”
Name: Angel Sandoval Villarroel
Course: Práctica Profesional
Teacher: Theresa St. John
2014, Concepción.

2. School description
The ‘American Junior College’ (AJC) is a primary and elementary subsidized
school located in Lagunillas, Coronel. This institution was founded in 2003, which
main goal is to provide basic tools to students to reach a proper development in
society emphasizing the English language, humanities, arts and science.
This school has as a mission to provide equity, quality and integrity with a
high focus on the English language. To form persons with solid knowledge and
values, which allow them success at university and their lives; to be able to work in
groups, adapt themselves to information and society changes; to be self-confident,
enterprising and loyal to their principles and beliefs.
The vision of this institution is to form individuals capable of getting on
perfectly in a globalized world; to be conscious about the environment and its care;
capable of taking right decisions; to face problems with sights set high with
efficiency, efficacy and relevance; to form persons who are a contribution to society
with useful tools to reach their goals and dreams.
Concerning the infrastructure of the school, it is a one-story building that has
a squared shape conformed by four large isles with a yard in the middle. The
‘American Junior College’ has 34 classrooms including a computer lab, a science
lab and a library that students can use whenever they want and every class has
between 30 to 35 students separated in letters ‘A’ and ‘B’ in all the levels.
Regarding the teaching staff, there are 31 teachers plus 4 teachers who are in
charge of the administrative part of the school.

3. As it was mentioned before, this school has a special emphasis in the
English language, being this one of its main supports to expand students’
development. For this reason, there is an English project called ‘Proyecto de ingles
intensivo’ that goes from first grade (primary) to fourth grade (elementary). The
main goal of this project is to increase English hours during the academic year and
hence, improve the English level by part of the students following the standards of
the ‘Common European Framework’. However, the school does not apply any
certificated test to measure students’ level of English.
In relation to English as a subject, every semester there is an assessed
activity called “Concert” that involves all elementary students, in which every class
has to perform a special act (dance, choir, catwalk, etc.) related to English culture.
This activity was planned in order to motivate students to use the target language
and get involved in the English culture and at the same time, reinforce students’
talents by doing things they like.
Classroom description
The classroom in which the teaching-learning process is developed is
organized in three rows of two desks each one and two isles where the teacher
can walk and monitor to students. In the front of the room, there is a piece of
furniture under the whiteboard that contains books of different subjects, while the
teacher’s desk is located on the side of the windows that leads to the central yard.
At the back, there is a wall chart and there are no pictures or any other decoration

4. on the walls. Regarding to technologic resources, the room is only implemented
with a data that is screwed on the ceiling, which image is reflected on the
whiteboard.
Characteristics of the class
The 2nd medio ‘A’ is a group of 30 students, 12 boys and 18 girls who are
between 14 and 15 years old. From these students, ten of them have been
studying since first grade (primary) at AJC, whereas the other twenty, correspond
to students who arrived in 2014 from other schools, in which they have stated that
they come with a weak base in English. Due to this, the teacher imparts her
classes in English and Spanish (50-50) to make “new” students understand what
she says.
Actually, according to the class book, all students live near the school or
somewhere else in Coronel. Besides, none of the learners have special needs in
their learning development or have a different ethnicity.
Based on the observations made in the classroom, there are many groups
within the whole group of students. The behavior of the group of boys tends to be
very messy and violent sometimes, and the majority of them do nothing related to
English activities or tasks that the teacher asks them to do. On the contrary, there
is a group of girls who are very talkative during class; however, they always do the
work. Another characteristic is that almost all the students use their cell phones to
be on Facebook, play online games or sending messages during class that totally

5. disconnect them from what the teacher is saying provoking laughter and hence, the
distraction of the ones that are following the class.
Concerning to habits, it is worthy to mention a particular routine that all
teachers do before starting their classes. All students must go out of the classroom
to form a queue and then enter one by one to the room. Once all students are
inside, the teacher greets them. Generally, the teacher takes around ten minutes to
connect her notebook to the data, deliver the worksheets and make sitting changes
to keep students calmed and quiet. After that, the teacher gives the instructions of
the activities that appear in the worksheet and asks them to do the exercises.
Analysis of context factors
Based on the information gathered and the observations made, the fact that
the school does not provide English course books is a disadvantage not only for
students, but also for teachers, especially at the beginning of the year, because
they have to be permanently asking students to photocopy it. Furthermore, for
some students could be difficult to see and recognize some pictures in the black
and white version of the book.
Regarding to the infrastructure, the school is located in an area away from
the highway and the traffic almost does not exist around the building, which makes
a silent and quiet environment in the classroom. About the room, it does not have
enough air circulation and during the afternoon it gets very hot inside provoking
permanent complains and protests by part of the students and hence, the task

6. tends to be more complex for the teacher under these bad conditions. Another
physical disadvantage is the lack of decoration in the classroom. Probably, having
more colorful pictures, words or phrases in English on the walls could have a
positive effect on students’ attitude towards the subject and therefore, more
motivating during the learning process.
When it comes to the teaching part, there is a situation that is hard to
manage. The fact that old students are faster to work in the activities and finish
earlier, provokes the distraction of the students that come from other schools
hence, they end up copying the answers.
A positive point is that all students live in the same town; therefore, it makes
them to be inserted in the same socio-cultural context, so the teacher can base her
lessons taking advantage of it. Another benefit is the “Concert” at the end of every
semester. The initiative of this kind of activity is vital to motivate and make students
to use and get involve with the English language in any way.
Nevertheless, there is still a huge challenge that is to expand the knowledge
of the English language in all students simultaneously. The level of familiarity with
the target language is very disperse and varies significantly among students.
Reflection
From the information gathered in the AJC, objective judgments can be made
from the numbers. On the contrary, the data obtained from the observation tends to
be influenced by personal opinions that influence positively or negatively some of
the judgments. However, both visions overlap in one point that is that the teacher

7. labor goes beyond the teaching in the classroom. It is important to obtain the most
quantity of information at the moment of planning the lessons as in this case, it was
essential to know students’ interests, personalities, background, context and their
characteristics as a group to plan effective classes that impacts not only to a
certain number of students, but also to those who are demotivated and require
more authentic materials to reach them.