Valentina completed her teaching practicum at her former primary school, Normal School N°256 in Villegas, Argentina. She worked with 5th grade students under the guidance of mentor teacher Juliana Badillo. Due to the pandemic, Valentina had to conduct her lessons remotely via computer which presented challenges in interacting with students, but the students remained engaged. Valentina designed activities focused on the local neighborhood context using tools like literature, drawings, and cartoons to make learning enjoyable. Her most successful lessons incorporated student projects and adapting materials to be relevant to places in Argentina. While the remote practicum was different, Valentina believes she has improved her teaching skills and stance, and is grateful for the support received.

1. It has been a pretty rough year for all of us, but we handled the difficulties
of our practicum with my pedagogical partner Valentina Ferreyra. We did our
practicum at Normal School N°256 that has been recently named as “Clemente
Andrada”, located in Villegas 256 between San Martin’s Avenue and 9 of July
Street. That was the school where I made my primary education. It was like
revisiting old memories I had about the place. I had the pleasure of greeting
some of my old teachers and they were pleased to know that I am studying to
become a teacher.
We had to make our practicum in 5th grade and our mentor teacher was
Juliana Badillo. All of them were highly supportive and warm, even when I had to
see them through my computer. Students were incredibly respectful and curious
when we started presenting our activities. Despite some of them having
difficulties understanding some concepts, they were eager to ask us for help and
even if they struggled, they finished their activities. In my case, it was challenging
to create a bond with them as I couldn’t interact as
much as I would like to when I had to give the activities
through my computer because the school’s internet
connection was quite unstable. Hence, I felt like
Sheldon Copper’s computer robot from time to time,
but it was nice to see them at least. Some of them
remember me when I was able to do my observation
at the beginning of the second quarter of the year.
Regarding our mentor teacher, Juliana, she left
us the room open to create our own activities. She

2. provided us with some extra material that we may choose to use or not,
depending on what we needed. However, we managed to equilibrate the
textbook’s content with our own activities that were meant to foster interaction
between students and teacher-students. Most of the exercises we designed
aimed to provide them with learning spaces that are closer to their immediate
context. In this sense, we also heightened the use of drawing as a pedagogical
tool, literature with the short story “Places in my Neighbourhood” and cartoons to
make their learning process an enjoyable experience. Despite taking a lot of time
to design these activities, we enjoyed the process, as I felt that we first put our
pupils’ learning strategies as an essential feature of our teaching process. In my
case, I love doing this kind of stuff as it would be the way that I would like to
approach a new language; I am like a more visual learner. So, during my
practicum, I spent many hours on the computer and I believe that at the moment,
I am subscribed to two hundred pages to download images and I learnt a lot using
Photoshop to design the activities.

3. Our most successful lessons were the ones we presented the projects
about the “Magic Bag” and “Draw Your Neighbourhood”. Using the short story
“Places in My Neighbourhood,” we were able to introduce grammar and
vocabulary by using literature as a pedagogical tool. We adapted some of the
short story images with places that exist in Argentina and some local places from
Santa Rosa, for example, the police station or the picture of our firefighters in
front of the fire station. One of the students read along with Vale while she was
showing the photos through the canon.

4. When they had to draw their neighbourhood, it was fun to see some of
their productions.
Although I could not experience my practicum in the standard way, I
believe that I have a better teacher stance than in previous years. I can now
design didactic activities by using what I like the most: games and cartoons.
Moreover, I reflect upon how I thought teaching a foreign language was, which is
always so focused on texts and grammar, and now I am able to look for other
methods such as literature, CLIL, movies, games and visuals. These pedagogical
tools will help my students consider what they are learning in a much clearer light
and foster their motivation and creativity. There are tons of aspects that I have to
improve, for instance, in my first face to face experience with I realized that I
should use more the whiteboard, improve some of my explanations, but more
importantly to build my teacher stance in a way that students feel happy to be
with and that no matter how difficult it is for them they know that I am there to help
them.

5. My final reflection about the subject is that I enjoyed using my knowledge
of PowerPoint and Photoshop design to prepare the presentation about Animals.
It took me a while to prepare the memory game then, but it was worth it. I feel
that the theory helps me understand what aspect of learning a foreign language
we have to consider and how our students’ cognitive process works when they
have to face new vocabulary or how to activate schemes, for example. Motivation
and fatality are also two concepts that I will engrave to my “pedagogical heart”.
We have to make our pupils feel that we value them and that no mistake can
make them inferior to others. Finally, I appreciate the opportunity to do my
practicum in the way that I did. I want to highlight how supportive the teachers
and my pedagogical partner were with me.