2. Standard I: Contextualization of teaching
Standard: The trainee teacher gathers information about the institutional - organizational context of the classroom, the features of the group of students and its diversity, and uses it to plan and develop a contextualized teaching.
General features of the school
My professional practicum is taking place in Colegio Concepcion Chiguayante. This is a state subsidized school and it is located at Colon 180 in the city of Chiguayante. The school is coeducational and it has a total number of 1102 students. Each level has two courses (A and B) and the number of high school students varies between 40 and 45 students per class.
Task 1
Select and describe the characteristics of the institution and the class that you consider relevant to contextualize the planning of the unit that will be developed.
Among the relevant characteristics of the institution and the class that will allow me to contextualize the Unit Plan to be developed are the following:
Firstly, the school has a Proyecto Educativo Institucional (PEI) supported by the delivery of an integrated, humanist and secular quality of education inspired on the principles and values of the Freemasonry, in order to contribute to an excellence education as a Mission. The Proyecto Educativo Institucional also expects to strengthen the responsibility, autonomy, and critical thinking of the students, in order to give them the necessary tools to form part of the society in an active way. This provides the basis for guiding all the educational action (the selection of methodological approaches, materials, resources, activities, among others) since the PEI establishes the type of person the school wants to form, with which values, education and type of educational unit. Therefore, this will be the reference for the unit plan that will be developed further on. The Proyecto
3. Educativo Institucional also emphasizes the development of the English Language, the participation on different workshops such as, sports, arts, socials and artistic ones.
In terms of infrastructure, the school counts with two buildings in which the students are divided in according to their level. In one building we can find the students from kindergarten to elementary students, meanwhile in the other building the students belong to high school. The school has a library, which counts with a great number of English books and dictionaries for the whole class (45 students approximately). Moreover, another important part of the infrastructure that the school has and that can be important in the development of the English subject is the computer rooms or computer labs. Each computer lab counts with two computer rooms or labs (with 50 computers each), which can be used for practical assignments and tasks for the students, such as listening and reading exercises, PET or KET preparation, among others. Regarding to the classrooms, every one of them is equipped with audio-visual resources, such as data show and desktop computers. This will allow me the possibility to make use of didactic material, such as videos and power point presentations for the classes. In terms of printing possibilities, the school has a photocopier, so I can prepare material for the whole class and get the copies for them a couple of days later.
In the classrooms, the students are arranged in three rows, in the row of the middle the students are sitting in threes, meanwhile in the rows of the extremes the students are sitting in pairs.
Task 2
Select and describe the characteristics of the students of your class (individually and as a group), that constitute relevant factors for the classroom planifications that enable a quality learning.
The characteristics that constitute relevant factors for the classroom lesson plans are the following:
4. The course is my head teaching course and it is a 2nd grade of high school, the total number of the course is 40 students between 15 and 16 years old. 25 of them are women and the other 15 students are men. In the course there are 5 students exempted from the subject (NEE) and I will refer to them further on.
In the previous two weeks of observation in the school, I’ve noticed that most of the students in my class are very diverse in terms of interests, but very similar in terms of their learning styles because a great quantity of them are visual learners, (data collected from a survey applied to the students) this will help me to plan classes that can foster these skills on the students, as well as their necessities and abilities that I will be discovering as I make the classes.
In terms of cognitive performance, the class does not present as good results as the other class (2nd B) due to the 2nd grade “A” is formed by the students that do not present good results in the diagnostic test at the beginning of the academic year. Regarding to the students’ grades in the first test of this semester, it can be said that most of them failed it with grades under four, and just 12 students obtained grades above four. Nevertheless, the level of them is quite good, they are using the book “Solutions” intermediate by oxford which indicates a level of B1 and B2, furthermore, the students are able to understand the English language that is spoken by the in service teacher, and they are also able to answer her in English too. If we can take into account the “can do statements” from the Common European Framework it is coherent with the level of the book that they are using, due to according to the “can do” statements, students can understand the main points of clear and standard input on familiar matters encountered in school, work, leisure, etc. in a listening activity. Regarding to spoken production, students can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans, among other indicators. It is important to highlight that most of the activities that the students do during the class are activities and warm ups from the student’s book already mention (solutions intermediate) Apart from that, the in service teacher has foster their writing and speaking abilities by making them create and memorize a dialogue and then present it to the class on a given date, as part of a summative assessment.
5. Regarding to the 5 students that are exempted from the class, all of them present dyslexia (NEED) due to, for them I will prepare special and easy material, in order to include them in the class and make them feel part of it.
Regarding to the information previously mentioned, I must mention that this information is completely valuable and relevant, due to it has helped me at the moment of planning my classes for the first unit that I will cover in the following weeks. I tried to consider my students’ necessities and interests to create engaging and motivating classes that foster a smooth/teaching-learning environment.
Task 3
Analyze the information collected in order to determine which factors from the context and the students will impact primarily in a design for a quality education for the students of the course.
The factors that I take as relevant at the moment of planning the lessons are the following:
The first aspect that I will take into account is the guidelines presented by the PEI of the school, due to it is very important for me to follow the Mission and the Vision of the establishment. It will provide me the necessary steps to follow in order to teach and give my students with crucial values that will help them to develop as individuals (such as to be humble, respectful, independent, cooperative and kind with one another). It is significant to include them in my unit plan and the lessons plan because in this way I am not only teaching them the academic information regarding the English subject, but also important values that correspond to the Objetivos Fundamentales Transversales (OFT) both of which are equally important.
Secondly, I will also take into consideration the learning resources provided by the school such as the projector and the computer labs. As it was mentioned before, every classroom in the school counts with a DATA and with a computer, it is very important to use it because all of the students have been working with it in order to project the book activities for them to practice. In my case, I intend to use the DATA show, also, to present
6. the target language, to make listening activities and to provide them with visual instructions about what they will have to produce using a ppt. I consider this very relevant, since most of the students (according to the interviewed) present a visual learning style so this will allow me to engage them with the topics and units to be covered. Also, to have a computer lab is a very big advantage since I can take them there to practice reading and listening activities, or use some webpages in order to ask them to create posters online so that they can have fun while learning English.
Another relevant factor to take into account at the moment of planning is to know the special needs of some students of the class, in order to plan classes and extra- material considering those students as well. This is very important since, as I mentioned in Task 2, by providing them with easier exercises and activities of their interests they could be motivated and learn English at their own pace without staying behind and disturbing other students’ learning. In this way I can monitor their learning and provide them with positive feedback as they work in the given activities.
Another important factor to mention is the routine that the students already have, in order to respect it and try to modify as least as possible making the students and the in service teacher feel comfortable.
Finally it is relevant to take into account the interest of the students, adapting the contents to things that they might find interesting, in order that they can feel motivated at the moment of working in the class and also in the process of learning.
7. Task 4
Reflect about the possibility to count with an adequate knowledge of the students in the context or your practice center.
Regarding to the DATA collected about the students, the sources from where I gathered information about my students are the following:
- The surveys that I applied to the students during the past weeks allowed me to know more about their interests and motivations regarding to the English language, and also regarding to their learning styles. I could write down some of the students’ interests and favorite activities. It is important for me to know the interests of all my students so that I can include them while carrying on my classes. For this, and as I have mentioned before I will make them answer a questionnaire during this week (since I did not have the chance to do it before).
- Another important factor that helped me to find out about the context of the schools and the students was the PEI of the school, which has a clear vision of what to expect of the teachers, and students.
- An interview with the in service teacher and other members of the school such as UTP teacher and the head of the school, allowed me to collect relevant information about the students and the school’s infrastructure.
- Regarding to the students with NEE, it was not able to talk with the phonoaudiology of the school, so I had to trust on the information written on their personal files.
