Treasure Hunt on Key Competences: a reflection

This piece of work, written at the very beginning of the course, set the tone and really made me reflect on what teaching is all about. I had been involved in the teaching world for nearly fifteen years and been exposed to many styles of teaching, but seemed to have it drilled in to me that teaching at secondary school, and in other types of schools for that matter, involved getting through the course book to make sure students acquired all the necessary grammar that the curriculum required them to learn. I had never come across the term, “competences” and the ideas expressed in this piece of work opened up my eyes as to what the system actually requires teachers to do. Students should be taught the necessary competences, which can be acquired by completing or following a textbook, or not. The requirement to teach students the passive or the third conditional, simply because the curriculum said so, is a complete fallacy. Students need to be taught how to achieve certain tasks and they need to do so actively. Teaching, quite different to the Franco years, involves listening, being adaptable, being motivated and, most importantly, being aware of students` knowledge and needs. I also found the idea of a Treasure as quite novel and motivating.

The main functions of assessment: a reflection

Assessment has been one of the key areas of this subject. I have chosen to include this essay in the portfolio simply because it summarises the basic components of assessment, of which I knew very little about at the time, but I could have chosen any of the assignments from this module. However, I feel I have learnt a great deal about the importance that assessment has in teaching, an aspect to which I had paid little attention. I see now that assessment is king in teaching and our whole teaching unit and methodology is based on how we propose to assess our students, to make their time in our hands as productive as possible. Previously, I had planned my lessons according to what the textbook dictated, though I have never followed a textbook religiously, and then designed the final exam accordingly. I never took into account the need for formative assessment, perhaps I did so but I was unaware of it. I certainly did not give formative assessment such importance as it should have in the learning process. When I designed my unit of work for the Practicum, three areas of assessment (formative, summative and assessment to improve future teaching) took on an important role, and also altered the way in which I taught.

Comparative analysis of oral communication: a reflection    

                                    

This piece of work made me reflect a great deal on how I approach oral communication in my classes. I often used traditional activities, such as role-plays, which were simply based on some grammatical aspect that I had been working on in class. I gave very little importance to pre-communicative activities and, more worrying of all, whether the activities would be of any interest to the students. I realise now that for a communicative activity to be successful there must be groundwork done beforehand, and that they should be functional and meaningful and, above all, motivating for the students. I also learned that the importance of working on motor-skills and interactive skills. I feel the activity I proposed for this assignment included many of these elements. Although I have not had the opportunity to put it into practice I feel it would be very successful and productive in the classroom.

The activity commenced with showing various short sketches of British comedy that exposed teenage problems, very up-to-date and engaging. It then included a quiz show on typical teenage matters and progressed into the students elaborating role-plays on teenage conflicts. There were activities planned on intonation and other conversation elements such as gap-fillers. The idea was for the class to put together all of their role-plays and produce a whole play. The play would then be presented to other classes of the school. The activity includes many of the elements necessary for effective oral communication, I was very proud of the work. 

Teaching and testing writing: a reflection     

                                   

As a teacher, written communication is something I make my students work on considerably. I generally set them one composition a week, though from other modules of this subject, I realise that other activities may be done as homework. I found the reading I had to present to the class very interesting.

The article, amongst many things, reinforced the idea of seeing language in context and that writing had to be anchored to their original contexts for them to be learned successfully. It was very closely linked to Vygotsky’s principles of learning, which is supported by much of the material presented in this Master. The principle is based on the line of thinking that social interaction is fundamental in the process of cognitive development, a student has to be active and interactive to be able to learn. From my experience in the Practicum, this belief was not much adhered to, as many of the classes were teacher-orientated and the students were rather passive to say the least. From the article, I also learned about the importance of working within the student’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). A student will get frustrated if the tasks are either too easy or too difficult. I have reflected on this aspect and made some adjustments to my teaching.

Integrating vocabulary into the classroom: a reflection         

                              

A very simple but very reflective assignment. Very often we take for granted that everything we see in a textbook has been designed effectively for students. More often than not, we do not reflect on the activity in mind and how such an activity is perceived by the student. I did do in this assignment and thought about numerous ways of making vocabulary learning both fun and effective and real. Vocabulary is one of the areas that most affects a student’s ability to participate in class and thus other social environments.

I give vocabulary teaching a lot of importance. However, on reflection I spend more time on teaching grammatical aspects than I do vocabulary, and this assignment made me reflect on this aspect. The assignment also made me realise the importance of making the vocabulary as meaningful as possible to the students, whatever the area. Students need to feel the vocabulary and be able to relate it to their world and use it in order to be able to learn it properly. In addition, for students to learn vocabulary, it is not enough just to practice the items just once in the classroom. It is vital that everything is recycled as much as possible. As a teacher I am very guilty of covering vocabulary just the once and expect my students to learn it. I shall think differently now.

INS Rambla: a reflection  

                                      

As an extra activity, I have decided to include the assignment I carried out on creating a virtual school, INS Rambla. I have included this activity simply because it has been quite different from the rest of assignments and has given me an insight into the workings of an institute. I was completely oblivious before.

I realise that, although it has many rewards, being a headmaster or headmistress of a Spanish secondary school is no easy task. In addition to having to know all the decrees and laws that are forever changing in the education system, trying to provide students with the best possible education in the best possible environment is a real brainteaser. So many buttons pressed, so much fine tuning to an already delicate system often goes unnoticed among parents who complain about the opportunities of their beloved Tom and Sally. By carrying out this assignment, we had to put ourselves in the shoes of a headmaster and analyse every possibility in the running of the school to ensure that that is it well run and offers the best possible conditions to its school members. While people may beg to differ, a school is very much run like a company. It needs full cooperation among its staff who all have to work together for the benefit of every child, who is different in their own way but equally important.  

Aprenentatge: a final reflection       

                                 

If I take a look the unit of work that I carried out during the Practicum, I would have to say I have learned a great deal from Aprenentatge, many of the concepts discussed throughout the modules have had an influence on me.

Looking at the different modules in Aprenentatge, I would cite Module One as the most inspiring, and more specifically how to approach teaching a secondary school class (which is also covered in various modules): teaching through competences and trying to make it as task-based as possible. I had never paid much attention to the different competences and how to incorporate them in the classroom. I was very traditional in this aspect. While I never religiously followed a textbook in my classes, the course book was my main source of classroom material and guide to the lessons. I never considered a different methodology. All the modules in Aprenentatge have, in some way or other, placed importance on constructivism and this was a totally new concept for me. The idea to provide real-world, case-based learning environments, focus on knowledge construction rather than reproduction, foster reflective practice, and support collaborative learning are just a few of the concepts which I had never really considered but do now very much reflect upon when preparing classroom activities. Even such simple concepts of seating arrangements have much more of a focus in my classes.

Taking assessment as the main focus of a unit of work also had never occurred to me, but it is something to which I give much importance now. Never before had I sat down to think of what I want my students to achieve at the end of a teaching unit, simply taking the progress test at the end of a unit as a guide to students’ progress. The focus of most unit tests is strongly grammar based and gives little importance to communication skills, especially oral communication skills. I feel if we want to improve language learning in Spain, and the level of oral communication, the method of assessment has to be completely overhauled and give much greater importance to oral communication in testing. If communicative skills are not given importance within summative assessment it will be very difficult to improve students’ competence in this area.

Oral competence was a big debate within the classes as it is such an important area but one in which many students have a poor level. Class size of schools in Spain obviously does not help the problem, but the article concerning the interview with Paul Seligson was most interesting and offers a few solutions to the problem: constant repetition of frames, both in class and at home (he also suggests the possibility of setting oral homework) and making oral communication as the main bulk of assessment, as previously mentioned. A worthy suggestion, I feel, was the reduction of the syllabus and streamline strategies. I think both teachers and students would welcome this with open arms, it is more important to get students to practice a few structures and know them well, rather than make sure they have been introduced to all the forms of the passive and conditional. “Less is more”, I like this quote and is something I’ll take away with me as a teacher.   

SEGARRA TODAY: CLASS WIKI

My “unit of work” was dedicated entirely to teaching the second year of Baxtillerat.  It was a mixed ability class so I had design a unit of work that would cater for students of different abilities and which would also try to take in as many of the key competences as possible. My teaching unit took into consideration all the key competences, except one, the mathematical competence. The unit of work also took into account the three specific English competences of communication, literary and plurilingualism and interculturailty. The teaching unit took place from the thirteenth of February and would continue, eventually over twelve sessions, until the twelfth of March. The students had previously been following the textbook, Definitions Two, in class and my instructions from my tutor was that I had to cover the aspects of unit four, “Making The News” from the same book. I was very fortunate in that I was given leeway to choose to carry out the class as I felt best. My tutor was very supportive.

What I decided to do, according to what I had learnt in “Aprenentatge”, was to create a final project which would embark on much of the material from the unit but also make it practical and active for the students. One of the fundamental aspects of learning is to be active, not passive. My overwhelming objective in designing the unit was to make the students as active as possible, with very little focus on myself as a teacher. I was also determined to make the students responsible for their learning and I dedicated a session to this aspect.

I set the whole project up as a class wiki. In this way, it would be a truly collaborative work where students could share ideas and correct each other’s work to produce a final project that would be worthy of their efforts and abilities. Together with the tutor, each group was chosen according to the abilities and nature of each student. Each group was of a mixed ability (in English) but would have various other organisation and I.T. skills.

The entire unit of work was posted on the class wiki so that students would have a clear idea of what was expected of them in each session. All of the worksheets were posted on the wiki, together with the answers of the activities (progressively). The students were expected to self-correct the worksheets. At the end of the session, I sensed the students were rather excited with the project but also quite apprehensive with the workload. However, I did not buckle under the pressure. My feeling was that all students complain about the work they are given, but the work would be done if the teacher was confident in their convictions. I feel I was proven right at the end of the unit.