Knowing the School, Knowing other Ways

My tutor has thought I have already acquired a good notion of the dynamics of her classes through the observation and participation so far, so we have thought it was time to start widening my vision of what teaching in a Department of Languages and in a Secondary School means. We have arranged to attend a couple of classes with one of my tutor’s colleagues: one Batxillerat class and a Comenius Project Class, in which IES Bernat el Ferrer is involved in.
The Batxillerat class had a quite turbulent start: once more, the unpredictable. At this point, I am starting to think this plays a very important role in a Secondary School teacher’s daily life. She was not able to find the exams of this group, which she had just corrected. Already in the department, she was looking for them here and there with no luck. When the bell rang, I could see she was very worried and stressed along the corridors on our way to class. So, I couldn´t help trying to be positive and cheer her up by saying they were most probably in her car or even maybe at home, 24 exams are not so easily lost. I have even suggested her I could take care of the class while she was going to check if the exams were in her car. And fortunately, they were there. She is a young teacher, she is only 28 years old. The difference of age with her students is only around 10 years and this has been especially remarkable when I come to analyze the difference between the dynamic of her class and my tutor’s. The climate is different. If both are friendly, my tutor generates a tridimensional role: as a teacher, as a friend and as a mother. Her colleague’s class lacks of the protection role I have been able to observe all through my tutor’s sessions. Discipline and motivation are, therefore, handled in a different way. This teacher was somehow not so imperative with her orders, so when she made a call for silence, the class was noisy again in less than a couple of minutes. She was probably not imperative enough, from where I consider we need to be serious and especially firmly imperative when we want the students to follow our rules. On the other, it might be because Batxillerat students are older or because of the small difference in age, but I have not noticed any call for encouragement throughout this class. It seems as if the students knew, or were supposed to know, what the objective of being there is and what is expected from them. After this class, anyway, my main conclusion is each teacher creates with his/her students a different dynamic, a different climate. The objectives of this class dynamism and management might be the same. But the means are definitively different. Unfortunately, the unexpected had a remarkable influence on the development of this class from the beginning to the end. But we all have the right to have a bad day.
Total turnover when I have attended to Comenius Project class with the same teacher. She already more relaxed and the development of the class has clearly profited from this. Comenius Project is an educational exchange programme she has organized and applied by herself with the support of the other members of the department. She has let me know the whole process of organizing, applying and having it accepted with its corresponding economical aid has not been easy at all. This project started in “e-twining”. Four schools from different parts of the world, including IES Bernat el Ferrer, had been in touch for a long time through “face to face”. But as organizing and exchange programme through this system was not free, she suggested the other schools applying for a government subsidy to make this project real. She even had to study a special course to become a project coordinator… In this Comenius Bilateral Partnership Project are involved IES Bernat el Ferrer and Freiherr von Stein Schule in Necharsteinach near Heidelberg in Germany. The teacher selected the best 20 students of last year’s 3rd of ESO to carry it out. The dynamic of the whole class is working in groups in order to elaborate a complete guide of Barcelona. They are a total of six gr of 3 or 4 student, working a different topic each. Attending to this class has been a very enriching experience. Each group has explained me what topic they were preparing for their German counterparts: gastronomy, bars & restaurants, on one hand. Religion, bank holidays, celebrations and festivities, another one. Organizing the trip, required documents and how to arrive to Barcelona, the third. Transportation and sports, the next one. Architecture and touristic attractions. And finally, Economy and politics in Catalonia. I have tried to cooperate with them as much as possible too, with vocabulary requests and even suggesting them how to search and find the information they required. The event will take place in March. These students will visit their colleagues in Germany and make an exposition of their project. Then, in 2010, it will be their German counterparts who will come to Spain to present their project. I have had the chance to have a look at the website they are preparing for them too, where the teachers, the students and their parents are able to interact. So, this project, not only expose the students more time to the English language, but this exposure involves research in English, creativity and developing their communication skills: designing and expressing their ideas in writing and communicating with other people in real life too.
Once back to the department, I have been very pleased to stay with the members of the Departments of Languages for more than half an hour without any other objective than communication. They are very friendly and nice. The main topic of conversation has been the forthcoming strike and they were mostly discussing if they would go on strike or not and why. I have arranged to assist to three other classes for next week: Arts and Crafts in ESO and a computer class in Professional Education courses, which are in English in IES Bernat el Ferrer. Furthermore, to the Newcomers Class. This way, I will be able to learn more, not only from the different teaching strategies of other teachers, but about the structure, the curriculum and educational project of a Secondary School. My tutor, on the other hand, has told me the students in group B2 adore me… So, apart of my classes with group D2, she has suggested I’d better teach group B2 for some sessions too! I have obviously welcomed this suggestion, so I can clearly envisage what I will come across in practicum next week!

Come into my World

This is already my third week of practicum and i have the impression things are developing faster than I had expected. The serious concierge of the school already greets me enthusiastically and with a smile on his face every day when I get in the school, many teachers and students say hello when we meet in the corridors and I have started to feel, somehow, integrated within the school. With the students in my groups is happening exactly the same thing and the best of all is that it is reciprocal. I can recognize the faces of most of the students in both groups and, despite being a total of 39 students all together, I have easily started to remember most of their names too. And I am glad I have, as I am participating little by little more actively in my tutor’s classes!
As I have mentioned in previous posts, the classes are divided into two groups once per week. My tutor has explained me this is compulsory when they are more than 25 students in one class and that, despite neither of them has more than 25 students, they decided at the beginning of the course to separate them anyway in order to be able to pay further attention to each particular student and their needs. This is especially required when they have to do interacting and speaking activities because, as my tutor has said to me, the new curriculum for foreign languages demands to focus more on these skills. As we had half of the students in group D2, my tutor has asked them to change the sitting arrangement in a semicircle. This is very important, she has said to me, as it provides a warmer and more appropriate environment to develop the speaking skills of the students. When she said to me this class would be about plastic surgery, the first thing I thought was this topic might be quite boring for the students. I thought that, if I had to prepare a class like this by my own at this at this stage, I would'nt know what sort of questions I would have to ask them or how I would manage to call their attention and interest throughout the whole class. Afer this class I have realized it is possible to keep the students' attention even when dealing with the most boring topics: if we are empathic with the students and try to get into the world within their heads, we could achieve it. Each student is a different and has different interests. It can be very difficult to reach and to respond to the interests of all the students, but if you make the effort of thinking as a teenager, to get into their world, you will surely have more chances to succeed. So, when we have asked the students if they would pay money to change parts of their body, their reaction has been unanimous: an emphatic "No". But when we have asked them if they wouldn´t in circumstances such as being an actor or an actress, after an accident or if they had low self-esteem, they have started to hesitate and some of their answers have changed. As it seems to be an important issue for teenagers, we have focused on self-esteem. We have related this it to their preferences of boys and girls and the models they mostly like to justify the increasing demand of plastic surgery at early ages. We have even spoken about the Spanish Health System and the operations it covers. It is always very useful to provide them with information of the world around them. And last, but not least, we have spoken about a very important issue for teenagers: the physical and phychological consequences of acne and its medical treatment. This has particularly called their attention. I was amazed to see how thet are able to construct sentences and express themselves. I did not expect they would have such a good level. To finalize the class, we have worked on a listening about plastic surgery in order to review the use of comparatives and superlatives. When my tutor has had a problem with the cd-player she has apologized and has made a laugh at herself about being so bad at technology. I have realized how important it is, despite being though and strict, to sometimes make them understand teachers are human beings too.
With group B2, as they are smaller in number, things are developing even faster than with group D2. This group has an excellent cohesion given the special expressive and social virtues of some of these students. This is very positive, though sometimes this makes it difficult to know how to make them calm down. My participation with them is becoming very peculiar: not only I am helping with their questions carrying out some grammar exercises and other writing activities, but I have started to be the official reader of the class too. This is helping them to realize how important it is the pronunciation and the intonation in a sentence, to copy themselves. Particularly for them, being so expressive. When my tutor gave back the results of the exams, and they saw they were not as good as they expected, one of the students has started to cry. She felt lost and was not able to follow the classes, she has confessed. I would have never thought I would live such an experience. It has certainly been very sad to see such an outgoing girl crying while she was justifying herself. I have somehow felt helpless... but we have considered the best we could do is meeting with her during the break time, to listen and to analyze ther thoughts and her circumstances in a deeper way with the aim to see how we could encourage her and make her continue following the rhythm of the class. This has particularly made me think that, if our objective as teachers is the learning process of the students and improving their results, we must pay special attention to all and each of these issues. If you don´t listen to them, if we don´t analyze their feelings, thoughts and beliefs, the world within their heads, we will very easily start loosing students along the way.