Vanesa Schneider reflects on her teaching practicum experience at the primary level. She found planning lessons and using visual aids helped children learn vocabulary. While the children were engaged, she realized she needs to speak more English to improve their comprehension. Going forward, she will focus more on oral language, speak English slower when explaining, and plan fewer activities to allow more practice time. She believes the experience was invaluable for improving her teaching skills.

1. Reflective Report - Vanesa Milagros Schneider
Práctica Docente II
Stages of the reflective cycle
This is the report of my reflection over the period of my teaching practicum in
Primary Level.
CONCRETE EXPERIENCE - What did I do?
To begin with, the main aim of my practicum was to go through the experience
of teaching children and learn directly from them. Although I have been
working at primary level for almost four years, I strongly believe that I learnt
more during these six lessons than in all the previous four years. I think so
because once I started planning the practicum lessons, I was able to put into
practice and make sense of the theory I studied in Didactics for Primary Level
during this year. For example, I learnt how to plan lessons. I have to confess
that it was always a difficult task for me until I studied all the approaches and I
understood the differences between them. During the practicum period, I
planned lessons based on the Presentation Practice and Production (PPP)
approach. In addition, I designed activities which integrated all skills. I
experimented with the activities and materials I designed and I observed the
reactions of the children as they received them. In this way, as children enjoyed
games, I continued making use of this resource during all the practicum period
and included one or two games in each lesson. Moreover, I also used a lot of
visual aids and I realized that this really helped them to remember vocabulary.
For example, I understood that I had to leave in the classroom visual aids
related to different classroom language they constantly needed, namely days of
the week and weather types, among others.

2. REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION - How did I do it?
I tried to provide children with meaningful and engaging activities. Before
starting to plan my lessons I thought of a topic to work on, and as I knew that
these children love animals, I taught them different aspects of the language
through this topic. During the lessons, children were motivated and eager to
learn. In this sense, I think that my lessons were fruitful. However, I know that
one of my main weaknesses is the insufficient use of the target language most
of the time. Although I tried to speak English as much as possible, I found it
difficult, mainly when I had to explain procedures since I felt that children
didn’t understand me and, as a consequence, I resorted to L1. However, at the
end of the experience they were more familiar with the language and improved
their comprehension skills. From the feedback of the videos I know that they
still need to work on their oral skill. In this sense, this is another weak point in
my practicum and an aspect I want to improve in the future. On the whole, I felt
satisfied with how the children reacted to the lessons. I believe that my
strength during the practicum was that I was able to catch children´s attention
and motivate them to learn more. Furthermore, the activities and materials I
designed were a good choice since my students loved them.
ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALISATION - What can I do differently?
After finishing my practicum and receiving the feedback, I can say that I have, at
least, two weak areas: speaking English in my lessons most of the time and
improving children´s oral skill. In this sense, I should implement other
strategies to improve these aspects. For example, from now on, I will be more
focused on speaking the language than on doing all the activities I had planned.
As the practicum implies an extra feeling of anxiety, I was worried about time
management, so I spoke Spanish not only to make sure that they understood
me and did the activity correctly, but also to avoid wasting time. As a
consequence, I didn´t realize that exposing the children to the English language
was more important than completing all the activities. In this way, I think that
there are many things I can do differently. (I name them in the following cycle
since they are part of the plan I should implement.)

3. Another thing that I can do differently concerns the number of activities I plan. I
think I should plan fewer activities in order to have more time to help students
develop their oral skill carefully. In this sense, I will be more relaxed regarding
time management. In this sense, I can plan some extra activity in case it is
necessary.
ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION - What plan should I implement?
I think that I should implement a plan to work on and overcome my weak
points. In this sense, related to speaking English I will use different strategies:
when I feel that students don´t understand me, I will speak more slowly, say the
same using other words or expressions, mime what I say and point to visual
aids. I will do this as many times as necessary in order to resort to L1 only
when it is an extreme necessity.
As regards the development of children’s oral skill I will prepare more activities
for them to improve this skill. I will focus on their pronunciation and fluency,
too. To do this, I will encourage them to repeat after me and then, I will ask
them to use the language as much as they can.
All in all, I believe this was an invaluable experience and I relished it. I know I
have a lot to learn and to improve. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with my
performance and with the way I developed the practice, mainly because the
children benefited from the lessons and they really enjoyed them. I will take
into account all the feedback I received in order to improve my teaching
practices and be the best teacher I can be. Comentario [A1]: Congrats on your
achievements!
You are a committed teacher, for sure!