The document summarizes María Isabel Knye's observations from her practicum teaching primary school students. Some key details: - She observed a 5th grade English class where neither the teacher nor students spoke Spanish, using only English the whole time. - The class involved revising vocabulary, completing a written activity, summarizing paragraphs, and reading from a book together. - Knye taught two lessons, one on food vocabulary and another on "food miles." Students engaged with hands-on activities and worked in groups for both. - She reflected on needing clearer instructions and allowing more time for tasks. However, students seemed to enjoy the interactive nature of the lessons.

1. TALLER DE PRÁCTICA DOCENTE 2016
Trainee’s Name: Knye, María Isabel
Practicum level: Second - Primary
Group: 5th
Grade
Date: June 28th, 2016
Observation 1 (120’)
On that day, I lined up along with the students and next to their teacher and I climbed up the
stairs to their classroom with them. Once we got there, I waited outside till the teacher went
in and the kids were sitting down and then she invited me into the classroom. They already
knew who I was since they were commenting it as we were going up the stairs to the
classroom. They are used to seeing me around the school since, at times, I visit the
different classrooms to observe classes.
As soon as I got into the classroom and said good afternoon, they all answered “Good
afternoon Miss Marisa.” And as I expected, when I asked them “How are you today?” They
answered “Fine, thank you and you?” it was a perfect chorus.
Then I just took a seat and watched how the class developed. Let me tell you that the
teacher didn’t say a single work in Spanish and neither did the kids during the whole class.
There are 25 students in the class and generally, none of them are absent. Even though I
tried I couldn’t learn their names. In my groups, at the beginning of the year, I generally
devote most of my first class to learn every student’s name. I do it as a kind of memory
game. I start by repeating the name of the first two students and then I go on adding two
more and so on till I know all of their names. Then I leave the classroom for a minute and
ask the students to change places to see if I can recall their names although they have
changed places. Of course I can’t do this during the practicum because I would be using up
a lot of time of the lesson.
Going back to what I observed, the students behaved really well the whole class and I
noticed what a hard-working group they were, and also how participative they are. Their use
of the L2 is amazing, of course they make some mistakes, but they use English at all times.
The teacher started with an oral revision of the vocabulary they had been working on the
previous class and after that they completed a short written activity in which they used the
vocabulary. This exercise was completed individually and then checked on the board so that
all of the students had the correct answers. What I did notice is that this activity took almost
40’ and it was just the warm-up, but they needed the vocabulary to move on to the next
activity which was summarizing some very short paragraphs. The first one was done on the
board with the information given by the students which was written by the teacher as simple
keywords. After that, different students gave different alternative sentences to put the
information in a single sentence to summarize the paragraph. The other two paragraphs’
summaries were done in pairs and after they had finished all of the students were given the
opportunity to read their sentences.
By the time the students had completed these two activities, there were just 40’ left and the
teacher moved on to “Literature”. The children are reading a book called “The daydreamer”
by Ian McEwan. Incredibly but true, the kids are really engaged with the story (It is not an
abridged version). After having recapped what they had read so far, the teacher asked for a
volunteer to read the first paragraph after where they had finished the previous class and
after that they were assigned 20’ to do silent reading of the next three pages.
Comentario [1]: What a wonderful
context!
Comentario [2]: Lovely!

2. When time was over, the teacher asked the students a few questions about what they had
read and how the characters felt. Finally she assigned a written activity which was to write a
“Pledge of Allegiance” starting like this:
“I solemnly swear that I will…
Once students got to work the teacher moved around, always available and ready to help
students.
Although the bell rang, they still checked orally and shared their work.
It was an amazing experience.
If I had to choose an image to describe my feelings with regard to this experience, it would
be this one:
Trainee’s name: Knye, María Isabel
Practicum level: Primary
Group: 5th
Grade
Date: 30th
June, 2016
Lesson number: 1 (one) - (45’)
Section 1: Describing the lesson as it unfolds.
3. How did students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How
did they react to the lesson?
Students reacted very positively to my teaching, activities and the material as well. They
enjoyed the change since there were plenty of different activities, such as unscrambling
words and then matching them to definitions given by me, the hands-on activity in which they
handled food items to identify, from the “food label”, word that was introduced in the lesson,
where each of them came from and then to locate the countries in a world map that I

3. projected on the Smartboard, all of the kids were willing to participate at all times and in
every type of activity . The children were also surprised by the worksheet I gave them in
order to do a listening activity to work on the informational text being handled. They are not
used to this, they generally copy everything from the board because that is the school’s
policy since the more they write, the better their spelling and use of structures become.
I think it was a successful class, however, the listening activities took too long, because the
recording was quite long as well (4’) which ended up being time wasting for two activities.
All the same, I could say that students really enjoyed them.
Section 2: Making sense of the lesson through relevant lived experiences
8. Describe a moment that was important for the students during the lesson. Describe
it and say why it was important.
I would say that the most important moment for the students during the lesson was when I
gave out the food items so that they could say where the food comes from by studying the
food labels. Students were eager to get their food item and be the first in finding the
information required. They were able to find the information by handling the items and this is
a great way to learn.
You will be able to see it more clearly when you watch the video.
Section 3: Interpreting the lesson in words and images
Comentario [3]: It´s good to know
this.
Comentario [4]: Why do you think it
was time-wasting?
Comentario [5]: It could have been a
bad choice of words, I should have said
time-consuming instead.
Comentario [6]: Right! Manipulating
authentic materials is motivating!

4. There’s nothing more rewarding than teaching, mostly, when you realize your students not
only enjoy your classes, but they also learn in a fun way. I’m almost sure, this group of
students will remember what they experienced during this class as one of those days in
which you don’t mind spending so many hours working and being at school. If I touched just
one of those lives, I’d be very satisfied and sure that I’m doing what I really enjoy doing.
One of the students told me “Miss, you are a very good teacher.” I was so happy to hear that
from a student. I love my job!!
Trainee’s name: Knye, María Isabel
Practicum level: Primary
Group: 5th
Grade
Date: 1st
July, 2016
Lesson number: 2 (two) - (120’)
Section 1: Describing the lesson as it unfolds.
5. What aspects of the lesson require change/improvement?
To my mind, it is obvious that I need to give more and clearer instructions so as to get
students organized and ready to work in a shorter time. It seems that although I model the
activity and show students what it is expected from them and that they can even explain
what they have to do, leaners are not really sure and they require individual instructions.
Another thing I must take into account when working with primary students is that they need
more time to complete the tasks than I think they need. Despite the fact that I acknowledge
my weakness as regards these matters, I am certain that the children have enjoyed the class
and the activities they completed.
Section 2: Making sense of the lesson through relevant lived experiences
8. Describe a moment that was important for the students during the lesson. Describe
it and say why it was important.
The students were very interested in learning about the food that is exported from different
countries and in locating them in the world map I provided them with for this purpose. I’m
sharing a couple of standstills from the video recording showing students working in groups
and helping each other. While they were working, I moved around and helped students on
demand.
Comentario [7]: So cute!
Comentario [8]: Yes, they generally
are :)
Comentario [9]: Maybe choosing
different learners to explain the
activities can be helpful.

5. At the end of the class, when we recapped what they had been working on, students were
able to realize how far food travels to get to our city, Comodoro Rivadavia. Besides, they
could relate the concept of “Food miles” to non-renewable resources and how to prevent
pollution to the environment and this waste of resources by buying locally and/or growing
their own food. Students also related what they learned to their own experience since many
of them have, at least, fruit trees or very small orchards in their gardens where, for instance,
tomatoes are grown.
Section 3: Interpreting the lesson in words and images
“An action is worth a thousand words” - “A picture is worth a thousand words”
Any of the previous well-known sayings will back up what I felt when the students got so
engaged in the activity of locating countries in the world map because none of what I could

6. have told them would have been so effective as finding out by themselves with the images
and someone to guide them. It also helped me to reduce my TTT and pass it to them. This
was a student centred class.
Trainee’s name: Knye, María Isabel
Practicum level: Primary
Group: 5th
Grade
Date: 5th
July, 2016
Lesson number: 2 (two) - (120’)
Section 1: Describing the lesson as it unfolds.
4. What aspects of the lesson do you consider successful?
It is difficult to decide, but I would say that watching the students work in groups while
spotting the pros and cons of “food miles” and completing the chart and making their posters
was one of the successful aspects of the lesson. I could notice that the students’ teacher
was a bit worried about the noise; however, working in groups implies students interacting so
a noisy class suggests they are at work. What’s more, students’ willingness to share their
work with their classmates makes it clear how excited they were about what they had come
up with.
Section 2: Making sense of the lesson through relevant lived experiences
8. Describe a moment that was important for the students during the lesson. Describe
it and say why it was important.
At times I find it very difficult to differentiate section one from section two since they are so
interrelated and one thing leads to the other one. So I would like to share three different
moments during the lesson that I think were important to the students.
This first picture shows students conferring in order to complete the chart with problems and
possible solutions regarding “Food miles”.
Comentario [10]: Target aimed!
Comentario [11]: Were they using L2
while being noisy?
Comentario [12]: Absolutely:)

7. This second one that shows one of the groups preparing their poster.

8. And this third picture which shows a group of four girls presenting their work to the rest of the
class.
Section 3: Interpreting the lesson in words and images
I would repeat the saying “One picture is worth more than a thousand words”.
Teaching primary school has been an incredible travel in time. It was 1993 when I started
teaching 4th
and 5th
graders and the moment when I realized what I would like to do from that
moment onwards, teaching is my passion. After so many years I feel that I’m getting to the
final line!!!
Thank you kids for all your great work!
Comentario [13]: Well done,
Marisa!!!

9. Comentario [14]: What a beautiful
picture! I am glad to know you had such
a wonderful experience this time.
Comentario [15]: Me too!!!!