My first Practice and Observation week* [October 25, 2010 to October 29, 2010]**

My first practice and observation week was from October 25, 2010 to October 29, 2010. I went to “Venustiano Carranza” High School, and I stayed at the school all the afternoons of the week. This is my Permission Sheet:

The planning of the class*

In this first week, my work was to prepare just one class, so the topic assigned to me by the teacher was “The Present Continuous Tense”, also known as “Actions in Progress”. Here is my planning of the class:

The material*

This is the material I prepared for my class:



This is one of the flashcards I used for the students

 knew the structure of present continuous tense.  



This is the Is Sammy home? activity, the students should answer it.  





This is the Comic Strip in which the students

 should describe what the character was doing.



My Class*

My class was the first day of the practice week, October 25, so I couldn´t observe very much to the group before the class, but still, I think this was not so bad. I worked with the 1° “C” group, these was a group of 8 students.

When I arrived to the school I was so nervous, not just because it was my first practice ever, but because my class was the first day of the week and I would have no chance to know the students, so I was worried about they were rude to me, they didn´t pay attention to the class or they didn´t even care, and even worst, I wouldn´t be able to fix any of the situations before.

But when I arrived to the classroom, my other classmates were already there, and the teacher of the first class of the group hadn´t arrived yet. So we expected some minutes to the teacher, but as he didn´t arrived, we decide to present ourselves to the group and start to know them a little better.

My classmates and me ask them their names and explained them who we were and what was our purpose, then we did kind of a game with them. The students participated very well; they paid attention and followed the instructions, so I was more confident about them.

Then the first class finished and it was time to give my own class. So I explained my purpose and I began the class. I was more confident and I wasn´t so nervous anymore. First I showed to the students the flashcards I have prepared, one by one, meanwhile I described the actions in the cards. At the same time I make them questions for they discover we were talking about actions in progress at the moment of speaking.

Then I showed them the video about actions in progress, (in the planning I wrote “listening” because I knew I would not have the necessary tools for show a video, so the students would just listen to the recording, but in the class, I realized there were very few students, so everybody could watch the video) the students watch it and then they did the activity of the sheet of paper. But after this, my class was interrupted by the ceremony of tribute to the patriotic symbols, so I couldn´t finished my class.

I didn´t have enough time to finish my class, so I just arrived to the level of “identify and recognize”, at this level I evaluate my students, and the results were very good, but even if I have had the enough time to complete my class, I am not sure I could have reached my objective, because I still think, one class is a very short interval of time for students achieve the understanding level that is expected.

(foto)

I liked very much my first practice, I think students pay enough attention and they participate in the activities. I hope they have enjoyed the class and they have found it useful.

*Now, these are the videos of my class [but they don´t have sound].

My observations*

Venustiano Carranza High School is a school with a lower population of students; most of the students are older for the grade they are in. And sometimes the teachers don´t  attend to their classes.

These are the characteristics I observed:

·         Text books: Most of the teachers use the text books for the students read, do summaries, do charts or solve problems.

·         Activities: The activities that students do are work by teams, read a text, explain some topics, make drawings, answer questions and cut and pay pictures. But also, must of the teachers work with the “dictation” technique.

·         Favorite topics of students: they are not specially interested in a lot of topics, but the like a lot topics about internet, such as loading pictures, mail, messenger, chat and social networks.

·         Relation with their family: They love their family but they want more independence and freedom, the want to be with their friends and go to the parties; they don´t like punishments, but know that are useful, they know their parents care about them and they like it, but still, they want more independence and freedom.

*Some pictures of the week*

The students before the class



At the sports class



At the computing class



At the computing class too





At the geography class





When they have free time





And more free time





A bilology topic





The drawing of a cell





Math excercises





Math Drawing





The last page of the notebooks



The last page of the notebooks

Students and teachers



Teachers



Conclusion *

I enjoyed very much this first practice and observation week, I liked to have a close relationship with students, to know about their lives and problems, they were friendly and funny and I think they were interested about learning. Some of them care more about school than others, some of them pay more attention than others; but everybody participated and I think everybody made efforts to understand the topics.

I think a school with few students in each group is a better space not just for practice the constructivism, but  for education in general, because having few students lets the teacher to get in touch with the teenagers, to involve in their lives and to help them with their personal and scholar problems.

But I also think this observation week wasn´t very productive, because students were in exams and a lot of teachers should evaluate them, so most of the classes were about giving grates, giving results of exams and telling the students their averages.

                                                           ***