The document summarizes the observations and practice teaching journals of Nadia Asencio from her teaching practicum. It includes 5 journal entries that describe her observations of English classes at Castex School and her experience teaching English classes there. The journals discuss the students, activities, approaches, and lessons from each class, as well as Nadia's reflections on her teaching and areas for improvement.

1. Observations Journals
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 1
Class number: 1 (Observations)
Place: Castex School
Unit: Means of transport.
Level: Intermediate.
Date: 09/09/2014
I could observe that this particular group is very nice and a small one,
they are only 13 students from 5th
and 4th
year. Moreover, each student has a
computer on their desks but not all of them work properly. However, it is a very
useful resource to work with.
The teacher spoke English almost all the time and the students spoke
English and Spanish to communicate. Moreover, they do not have a certain
routine (I think a routine to write the date on the board; ask for any news),
first the teacher greets them and tells them what they are going to do.
In addition, the teacher did not include any context at all, she asked them
to open their books to start working with a new unit. She told them which
activities they had to complete and the time that they had in order to finish
them. While the students were working some of them asked the teacher some
doubts in Spanish and the teacher answered them in English.
After that students worked with a text; the teacher asked different
students to read it aloud while she corrected pronunciation. Then, she asked

2. some questions (orally) in order to check comprehension. Although, there were
not any before or while reading activities included. Then, the class worked with
an after reading activity in their books (Target Pet-Richmond).
In conclusion, students worked silently in a silence way and I could not
observe any behaviour problem. Though, I think it was a boring class where
students were asked to only complete activities from the book and nothing else.
I believe that, in a group with these characteristics, a teacher may work with
different approaches or methodologies including more challenging and
interesting exercises for students to enjoy the subject.
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 2
Class number: 2 (Observations)
Place: Castex School
Unit: Means of transport.
Level: Intermediate.
Date: 12/09/2014
On Thursdays and Fridays the classes start at 8:00 o’clock, supposedly
they have to begin at 7:45 but students line up to greet each other (All the
secondary students line up and the Head teacher greets them) and to share
some news.
Once in the classroom, students showed themselves tired, quiet and
sleepy. I believe that an activity that includes some movement or music could be
a nice resource for them to “wake them up” and to start the class with more
energy. Moreover, like the last class, the teacher greeted students and told
them what exercises they had have to complete in their books. Students

3. worked work in silence almost all the class and they were allowed to use an on-
line dictionary if they needed it them.
In addition, they worked the entire class with 4 activities from the book,
and in the last exercise asked students had to write a text about a long trip
their longer trip. First, the teacher asked them some questions related to this
orally and they shared their personal experiences. Then, she asked them to
start writing the text and to present it the following class as homework. I could
notice that almost all students worked in their computers in order to complete
the task. This is a new way to work for me, since I always worked with books
and copybooks. It will be a nice and fruitful experience for my career.
I want to explore working with ICT during my practicum so I can have the
feedback and/or advises from my tutor since I know that this will help me in
the near future.
Practicum Journals
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 1
Class number: 1 (Practice)
Place: Castex School.
Unit: In the rainforest.
Level: Intermediate.
Date: 25/09/2014
Even though, I knew how the students usually worked and that they were
very nice and calm I was very nervous to be in charge of the class.
First, we did an ice breaker activity to get to know each other. I stuck a line of
masking tape on the floor and I said some sentences and if they were agreed
with me they had to stand up on the line, then they said some sentences as well.

4. Sentences about our likes/dislikes, for example: I love pop music, I like school,
among others. It was nice! And I think that I had planned the activity this way
because I thought students should would find it motivating if they were allowed
to move more since they showed they needed to do so the movement.
For this class I prepared several pair work activities and we worked with
the book based on in a PPP approach (I decided to work with this approach since
I am familiar with it and I believed that it was the proper one to introduce a
new unit: In the forest. I wanted to introduce the topic with a. One of the
activities included consisted in students looking for some words around the
classroom while they music was on and when I stopped the CD they had to be
stay still like statues, and they enjoyed it this! And Then they asked me to play
music while they were completing other exercises from the book and I thought
this was a nice idea, so they listened to some music while they were completing
the task in silence.
I enjoyed this class and I think that so did the students did it too, since they
actively participated and they collaborated with one another a lot.
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 2
Class number: 2 (Practice)
Place: Castex School.
Unit: In the rainforest.
Level: Intermediate.
Date: 26/09/2014

5. I could notice that every day the bell rings at 7:45, so and that the class
usually starts at 8:00 o’clock so I could not complete the entire planning. So,
Due to this I realised that I had to should plan fewer activities for the next
classes.
For this class I have planned several exercises to introduce a topic: “Biomes in
the world” with a CLIL approach. I was quite nervous since I have never taught
with this kind of approach, but I think that it is an excellent opportunity to do
it and to learn and improve in my work. Moreover, I like this approach and I find
it quite interesting. I think that students liked it too, since for them it was not
difficult for them to understand the vocabulary or the content because it were
familiar for them.
However, I believe that I should improve a very important aspect of my classes;
I have to include more strategies or and I can not to forget to check students’
understanding of the different tasks. I do not know why I do not apply this like
a routine in my classes.
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 3
Class number: 3 (Practice)
Place: Castex School.
Unit: In the rainforest (Biomes - Climate)
Level: Pre - Intermediate.
Date: 02/10/2014
For the beginning of this class I have planned a group activity which
allowed students to review the concepts and information presented the last
class. Since we have not completed all the activities that were planned for the
previous class, I decided to add one as a warming up. I think that it was a good

6. decision since students had the opportunity to work in a cooperative way and
they used the language to communicate. Moreover, each group had a certain
biome and they had to complete a poster with its main characteristics, then we
displayed them in the classroom.
Furthermore, this class was also based on a CLIL approach. I think that this
approach provides offers several advantages to the learning process since
students are familiar with the content itself, which and I could notice this
during the class. Students showed themselves were familiar with the
information about climate.
However, I think that I should have included more activities involving movement
since classes are very early on Thursdays and Fridays and students are quite
sleepy, so they need to move! I only included one activity involving movement, in
which they have to communicate in order to match a specific climate zone with
the correct name.
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
MY JOURNAL 4
Class number: 4 (Practice)
Place: Castex School.
Unit: In the rainforest (Pollution)
Level: Pre - Intermediate.
Date: 03/10/2014
In general, I think that this was not a very good class, I made several
mistakes. It is true that I was very nervous a cause of several factors such as

7. the presence of my tutor, my short experience with teenage students and a new
school context. However, I believe that the class was not prepared enough and
it showed.
Moreover, after the class when I was speaking with my tutor about my
performance I could realize that I had lots of aspects to improve such as the
organization of the information on the blackboard, my confidence, my role in
the classroom, students’ role, grammatical aspects, among others. I felt awful
but then I started thinking in a more positive way and I realized that I am
learning, that I am also a student and that mistakes are part of my learning
process in order to become a better teacher. I tried to focus on understanding
why my class was not a successful one or why it was not a good one, and I
believe that it was because I was not enjoying this experience and
consequently, I was not enjoying my classes. Then, I realized that I had to
relax a little bit and be more natural in my classes because I was behaving in a
way that I never did, for example I always ask my students for help to handout
copies, clean the board and so on but during my practicum I had not been doing
so. I had not allowed students to be autonomous and I had made a lot of
mistakes.
In conclusion, after this class I felt that it was a critical moment and that I
had two options: to give up because I was so tired and discouraged or to keep
working, improve and keep learning. I had decided to enjoy what I have chosen,
to keep working and learning in order to improve and become a better teacher.
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.
Tercer periodo.
MY JOURNAL 5
Class number: 5 (Practice)

8. Place: Castex School.
Unit: In the rainforest (Human impact on the environment – natural disasters)
Level: Pre - Intermediate.
Date: 09/10/2014
In this class students were asked to work in groups in order to create a
PowerPoint presentation based on the human impact (pollution) in the
environment. They had to choose a certain kind of pollution and work with the
cause-effect relationship. Moreover, there were several interesting
presentations and, in general, students showed to be interested with the
activity. It was easy to include this type of exercise since in this school
students are used to work with computers.
This class was also focused on a communicative approach to give students
the opportunity to use the language to communicate (this was one of the
aspects that I had to improve). Moreover, students worked with authentic
material, a newspaper article, which was familiar to them since it was about
floods in our country, and obviously this has facilitated their understanding of
the information. In addition, students continued working with the cause-effect
relationship since this was not clear for them.
The class also included a game to match new vocabulary with pictures and
a picture dictation at the end of the class. First, the teacher dictated a certain
scene related to a natural disaster event for students to reflect on and to say
the correct name. Then, students were asked to work in pairs and dictate each
other different scenes. They enjoyed the exercise and they communicated
using the target language. This activity was very nice and the pictures too!!
Taller de Práctica Docente.
Asencio Nadia.

9. MY JOURNAL 6
Class number: 6 (Practice)
Place: Castex School.
Unit: Sports
Level: Pre - Intermediate.
Date: 10/10/2014
In this class I have introduced a new topic “Sports” with a communicative
approach and with a PPP procedure. I really enjoyed this class, I felt
comfortable and confident!!!
Moreover, my tutor was in the class and I have decided to be natural and act as
I usually do in my normal classes and to not let my nervous to take control of
me. Moreover, we started the class with a “brainstorming” activity about The
Olympics and then we played a race game which to work with the main
vocabulary, the students liked it and we had fun!
Then, we worked with the book and the activities were very familiar to the
students since they are used to working with it. We could complete almost all
the exercises and I think that the students worked in a pleasant atmosphere
was a great one! I believe that students felt more comfortable with me, with
the class and some of them spoke and participated a lot.
However, when it was time to introduce the grammar structure I omitted an
essential aspect! I did not tell them that we were working with
comparative/superlative adverbs! Huge mistake!
Another aspect that I need to take into account is to encourage students to
speak up, give them time to do so and to not correct them when they are
reading aloud or when they are speaking because these could affect them in a
negative way. I could realized about this after my tutor’s feedback.