Logbook

Number

Date

University

Date

School

1

March 11th

Integrating skills

2

March 18th

Integrating skills

3

March 25th

Task based learning­ approach

4

April 1st

Micro­teaching (Yenifer/ Patti, María Fernanda/ Marlene)

5

April 8th

Microteaching (María Ignacia/ Rocio, Gabriela/ Constanza)

6

April 15th

Type of assessment – Formal and informal

April 17th

First day at school

7

April 22th

8

April 29th

Purposes of Assessing a Second Language ­ Formative and summative assessment ( Formal and informal) (practicality/reliability/validity).

April 24th

Vocabulary

9

May 6th

Purpose of Assessing a Second Language (Authenticity /wash back)

May 7th

Quiz

10

May 13th

Microteaching (Cristobal/Pablo, Karla/Daniela, Danilo/Ana)

May 15th

Fail Supervision

Microteaching (Jonatán/Maurice, Belén/Claudia, Andrea/Diego) April 24th

My fist class

Name: Andrea Cuevas V Date: March 11th Title: Integrating skills Number: 1 university

On March 11th, we were introduced the integrative skills through a book "Shaping the way we teach English" (page 37­43). Integrative skills are different ways or tools that teachers can use in order to have more effective activities. We discuss the integrative’s skills advantages, uses and examples during the class, although to reflect about if this can be implemented in schools.

After reading Module 4: Pair group/ Groupwork, I realized that to implement these skills into activities for a class is a complex process. According to my experience, as a student and a future teacher, I know that most of the teachers are afraid of trying new things, for example, using integrative skills. Moreover, I don't think that teachers are prepared to incorporate some of this skills during pair work or group work, either because they don't know how to incorporate them into the class or because are not sure if is going to work. Despite this, in my opinion are important and necessaries, in order to improve students’ performance at the moment of working with other people in a group, developing skills, and also teachers can practice and learn their role in the classroom when students are working.

In conclusion, even if working with integrative skills in big groups or small groups have some difficulties it is a great way for students to improve and progress working with others and at the same time practice activities using integrative skills.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: March 18th Title: Integrative skills Number: 2 University

On March 18th, the first part of the class we started with an engagement activity, then work on some pages from "The CELTA courses. Trainee book" which talks about integrating skills and also about integrating content and language.

Listening, speaking, reading and writing are skills which are not very used among most of the teachers; most of them focus on grammar or vocabulary. In my opinion, this happens for two reasons. First, because most of the students don't like practice some of the skills, for them is difficult, boring or they think that practice them is not important. The other reason is that most of the teachers think that they have to work on these skills, they are almost obligated to accomplish with this requirement, so they include them in some activities during the semester and in test without give the students strategies or more practice.

I think I would like to practice more this skill not just to fulfill the requirements, but to really practice them in different ways, combining them, as a groupwork or pairwork, using different steps ( describe, interpret or evaluate), etc.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: March 25th Title: Task based learning­ approach (University) Number: 3 University

This lesson was about Task based language teaching or also known as TBLT which can be defined as (1)" Task­based learning focuses on the use of authentic language through meaningful tasks such as visiting the doctor or a telephone call. This method encourages meaningful communication and is student­centered. ". So, basic tasks like preparing a meal, ordering food, solving a problem, etc. can be used as an activity.

I think that this approach has some advantages and disadvantages. One of the characteristics of this approach is that prime student's construction, this means that the student is in charge of producing something in order to solve a problem or complete a task. For a task to be completed students have to use different resources, for example, skills, creativity, use of the language, etc.

However, in my opinion this approach has some disadvantages. For most of the students is difficult to speak English when is a speaking activity, they tend to swap into Spanish. Although, not all students may feel motivated by the TBLT for different reasons, for example, some students need more guidance, so they may feel that the task is not important. Despite this, I think that before using the approach teachers should know how the class works in order to avoid these problems, for example, for students not to switch English for Spanish the teacher should monitor more, for students who need more motivation, teachers should provide more motivating activities.

As a conclusion, TBLT is a great approach to try in different classes and in different activities. Regarding the disadvantages that it has, teachers improved their performance over the experience.

(1)http://www.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/best%20of%20bilash/taskbasedlanguageteaching.html

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 1st Title: Micro­teaching (Yenifer/ Patti, María Fernanda/ Marlene) (University) Number: 4 University

On April 4th, the first two microteaching’s groups presented their task. Yenifer/Patricia and Marlene/Fernanda.

To be honest that day I couldn't go to class, but I ask about the microteachings, as a result I can only write about a few comments that my classmates gave me.

Patricia and Yenifer made an activity related to solve problems in an analytic way. I think that the activity they did was really good and original, but their problem was that students have to produce in order to be a real task.

Most of the students need a model or an example as to begin an activity, a task, a test, among other. That's why I think they had problems with students producing, maybe if they had worked with examples o models done previously by the teacher, they would have produced.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 8th Title: Microteaching (María Ignacia/ Rocio, Gabriela/ Constanza) Number: 5 University

Microteachings are opportunities to practice and evaluate our performance as teachers. In this opportunity, we saw María Ignacia, Rocio, Gabriela and Constanza working on the main objective of microteachings this semester which is to prepare a class based on "Task­based" or "Content­based approach".

The first group (Maria Ignacia and Rocio) worked on a task based on how to solve a problem according to the different perspective and different personalities. Even though, they were teaching to their classmate, it can be a good task for students to develop because they can solve a problem from different points of view even if their personality is different or they would not solve the problem as the activity.

The second group (Gabriela and Constanza) worked on a task based related to recognized risky situations that people face every day from the riskiest to a not that risky situation. Due to teenagers take a lot of risks in their daily routine, because of their age, it is important for them to identify situations in which they are in danger. Therefore, I think is a good task, especially for teenagers.

As a conclusion, both microteachings can be taught as real classes. There clear with the instructions and the main objective. Moreover, there are helpful for students.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 15th Title: Type of assessment – Formal and informal Number: 6 University

On April 15th, we were introduced into the term assessment which is (1) "In education, the term assessment refers to the wide variety of methods that educators use to evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness, learning progress, and skill acquisition of students from preschool through college and adulthood."

The main objective of the class was to learn about the different kinds of assessment, formal­informal, formative­summative, traditional­alternative. I will focus on relating what I learn that day with my experience at school.

We started the class learning the difference between teaching, testing, and assessment, which was important for me because I didn't know the real difference between each other. I learnt that a simple expression like "Good job!" was an assessment. Due to my unawareness of this I realized that most of the teachers focus on assessments which are formal, summative or traditional. As a result, teachers don't realize the importance of applying another kind of assessment, in order to be more creative and motivate students.

As a conclusion, I think I need to be more aware and practice other ways to evaluate and measure student's knowledge.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 17th Name: First day at school (Objective: To work on different skills) Number: 6 School

On April 17th was my first class at the school. I noticed that the school was well equipped, secure (surveillance camera and security zones) and it has recreational facilities. My guide teacher told me that she works with a book from Monday to Thursday then she works with skills, Thursday and Friday I will have to work with different skills through the semester.

The first day that I was there was with a 10th grade, I observed the whole class. That day they work on a handout, which had listening activities, writing and reading. Even though, the activities weren't contextualized to anything they did in the week the students enjoyed working skills. Furthermore, there was a calm and pleasant environment, they not only worked individually also in groups.

As a conclusion they students enjoy working skills, I think is a great way to practice skills ones a week not just once or twice in the month and also they can practice without much pressure.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 29th Title: Microteaching (Jonatán/Maurice, Belén/Claudia, Andrea/Diego) Number: 7 University

In this opportunity, three groups performed their microteaching. The last group was Diego and me. This reflection I will focus in our performance, our strengths and weaknesses.

I consider that we didn’t do a bad class but we had a lot of problems. We had problems regarding with the task that we supposedly had to accomplish. We had problems connecting our ideas; therefore, our task wasn't as clear as it should have been. Regardless of our weaknesses, we were confident in front of our classmate doing our microteaching. So as to confidence on what we were doing we did not have major problems, we manage to encourage the students to participate in the activities.

As a conclusion, we know that we didn’t achieve the main object, which was to develop a clear task, we are aware that we have to work on this and improve our performance.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 24th Titlte: My fist class (Objective: To continue working on the activity related to skills) Number: 7 School

th​ On April 24th, I performed my first class at the school. That day 10​ grade had to continue working on Friday's activity, which was related to sports .They had to work the theme through written, reading and listening activities. I realized that they did what I told them to do, but they were not motivated enough.

During the class, I observed they asked me about the handout and they answered them, however, they were too quiet. Therefore, I asked them what they like them and what they think we can do to practice the skills they need to practice on Fridays; I received a lot of different answers. As a result of their opinions, I realized that I had to work on reading, writing, speaking and listening with the ideas that they told me in order to be more meaningful to them. For example they told me they like sports, music, films, etc, they were all normal teenagers hobbies, but they didn’t just told me what they like in addition to this they created activities relating skills, without even realize.

As a conclusion, yet the class was boring I could listen to their opinions, and make a plan together.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 29th Title: Purposes of Assessing a Second Language ­ Formative and summative assessment ( Formal and informal) (practicality/reliability/validity).

Number: 8 University

On April 29th, we become aware about the existence of the principles of language assessment. That day we learnt about what are the principles of language assessment and we worked with three principles (Practicality, reliability and validity).

I knew that to make a test or to assess something I needed to follow certain steps and requirements, but I didn't know the specific principles and their characteristics. I realized that most of the teachers at the university and at the schools don't work with this or they are not aware of these principles. As a result of this, students have bad feedbacks, bad grades and not a really meaningful learning.

As a conclusion, students need fair tests and assessments, not just focus in practicality. In order to accomplish this, we “future teachers” have to work on this now and understand that students need to understand their mistakes this way they can improve and solve it.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: April 30th Title: Vocabulary (Objective: To practice and apply reading strategies) Number: 8 School

On April 30th, I had the opportunity to performance my first class to 7th grade. We worked on reading strategies and in a text which I helped them with difficult vocabulary.

First, I showed them a presentation (appendix) about 7 reading strategies, this way they can learn the strategies and practice them through the text (appendix) I gave them (The text was about earthquakes).

Secondly we read the text out loud. Then they read the text individually. Through the whole process, we practice the strategies step by step. Finally the class worked with a presentation, in which they were definitions, examples, and photos in order to help them with some words that appeared in the text. The last step was to connect what they read to their life, they felt free to tell me their stories and they did, some students told what they experienced in 2010.

As a conclusion, I noticed they liked the text and it was meaningful. Also it was helpful for them, using the 7 seven strategies most of them understood that is necessary in order to understand a text.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: May 6th Title: Purpose of Assessing a Second Language (Authenticity /wash back) Number: 9 University

On May 6th, the class was about the last two principles, authenticity and wash­back.

In my opinion, all the principles that we learn are essential, but for me these two are the most important.

According to my experience, at the moment of receive back a test or assessment is important. Moreover, is an opportunity to improve our performance as future teachers or students. From my point of view, most of the teachers don't realize the impact that a test or assessment can have to their students; otherwise they wouldn't make a test that only measure knowledge through items that are not practiced before, authentic or meaningful to them.

To sum up, authenticity and wash back are really important principles to apply in a test so, as to be relevant to them.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: May 7th Title: Quiz (Objective: To revise vocabulary from last week as to take the test) Number: 9 School

On May 7th, I had the opportunity to apply the principles, seen at the university, in a test based on the vocabulary saw last class.

Last week 7th grade worked on vocabulary related to earthquakes. My teacher guide told me that I will have to create a test related to vocabulary saw in the text, in which it had to have two items (one about definitions and the other about examples). I realized that the text didn’t accomplish some of the principles, I become aware of this when a check the test. In my opinion, the biggest problem was validity. When I taught the vocabulary we didn't practice, so the items weren't what we practice in class.

On the whole, I think student and teacher had the fault why this test had but result. The students didn't study because they didn't remember that they had one and the teachers didn't make their students practice what they were going to ask in the test.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: May 13th Title: Microteaching (Cristobal/Pablo, Karla/Daniela, Danilo/Ana) Number: 10 University

On May 13th, three microteachings were performed by my classmate. Some of them were organized and understood what the task based method is, but others had problems.

Cristobal and Pablo/ Karla and Daniela achieved the main objective which was to work with the task­based method. Furthermore, we were engaged throughout the microteaching. However, the last group (Danilo /Ana) had problems organizing the engage and I am not sure if the activity they presented was really a task­based.

Therefore, it looked like a normal class we only had to answer some questions.

As a conclusion, I think that some of the microteachings presented that day accomplished the objective of the microteaching and others didn't maybe because of lack of effort or they misunderstood what a task is.

Name: Andrea Cuevas Date: May 15th Title: Fail Supervision (Objective: Students will identify, apply and solve an activity related to the task­based method.)

Number: 10 School

On May 15th, I should have had my supervision, but the teacher that was going to supervise me had a problem and she couldn’t go.

That day I was nervous because we didn't have an activity for the class besides my supervision activity. I had to improvise a speaking activity related to the topic that I should have taught that day. As a result, I didn't have problem improvising but I had problems with group management because they had a test after the class.

Despite they work and had fun with my activity they were worried about their test, so it was hard for me to maintain the group quiet and calm.

As a conclusion, I need to work in group management when I have to improvise or in situations where the students are worried about other things, for examples, other tests.