UK celebrations: Personal report file

4-7-2014

UK CELEBRATIONS Personal report file

Melinda Dooly | Ivette Palau MontanyĂ

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Index Contextualization of the school…………………………………………………………………………………..……………4 A typical day in my internship………………………………………………………………………………….……………….5 Development of the teaching sequence……………………………………………………………………………………8 Implementation of the teaching sequence………………………………………………………………..……………12 Modification of the teaching sequence……………………………………………………………………..……………17 My on-going development……………………………………………………………………………………….…………….19 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..………………………………….………….21 References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….23

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As a student in fourth year of Teacher training I had to do a teaching practice from the month of February to June in which I had to stay with an English teacher. According to Lewis (2010), examining what worked and what failed in the past can lead to future triumphs. Therefore, the aim of this report is to do a self-reflection about my teaching sequence in order to examine moments that I felt proud of as well as others that helped me develop as a language teacher.

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Contextualization of the school The school where I am doing my teaching practice is Abat Marcet in Terrassa (Barcelona).

Students there mainly come from three neighbourhoods which are situated in the surroundings of the city: Torrent d’en Pere Parres, Poble Nou I Can Roca. Most of the population of these zones is young (less than 40 years old) what causes that birth rate is positively increasing every year. The majority of children of the school belong to middlelow class families and some of them are highly concerned by the financial crisis.

Last year, I chose to do my last practicum in this school because students begin the English subject when they are only three years old and, although they follow an English textbook, they have split groups of about 12 students which allow them to practice oral skills in English.

Furthermore, two years ago they decided to extend the English classes from two hours and a half per week to four hours per week due to the importance of English in the current globalized society.

A part from this, Abat Marcet School has got an exchange program with Trafalgar Junior School in Richmond. Although they do not do synchronous online meetings, they prepare some activities during the academic course which require students to work together. For instance, last April, students from Trafalgar school created a survey through google form in order to discover whether English people recycle more than Spanish do or not. In this case, Catalan students had to understand the questions in English in order to answer the survey.

Abat Marcet is a public School that defines itself as Catalan, democratic, participative and supportive school. Nowadays, it has got two main learning focuses which are included in its educational school project: Improving their academic results and reinforcing students’ oral skills. In order to achieve the second objective, three years ago they designed a linguistic plan, which is still current, that is focused on doing oral activities to help students develop their oral skills, such as drama. As most of the students have Spanish as their mother tongue, these activities are mainly focus on practicing Catalan skills.

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The School is separated into two different buildings which are divided in three floors. The first floor is for students from 3 to 7 (Nursery School and year 1 students), the second floor is for pupils from 7 to 9 (year 2 and year 3 students) and the last floor is for students from 9 to 12 (year 4, year 5 and year 6 students). There are two lines for each level (A and B) except for year 3 where there are three lines (A, B and C).

I have been doing the teaching sequence of UK festivities with one class of grade 4 students of primary education. There are 25 students in the class, seven of which are boys and eighteen are girls.

In this class there is no child with special needs. However, there are different learning rhythms and some children need more scaffolding from the teacher. Moreover, there is one boy who has ADHD and is usually nervous, especially in the afternoon classes. A part from that, there are three students from Morocco and three more who came from South America. However, all of them are in the school since infant education and they have not got any special problem concerning the language or the learning rhythm. In general, there was always a good atmosphere in the class and therefore, the feedback between the children and me was very positive from the very beginning.

A typical day in my internship

As it can be deduced from the timetable above, a typical day in my internship was really exhausting! We started classes at 9 o’clock in the morning, have a break from 11 to 11:30 and finished classes at 12:30. Then, we always had meetings which lasted between 1 and 2 hours.

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Finally, in the afternoon, we had classes until half past four. My tutor and I taught English all the days, from grade 1 to grade 6 students. However, since each class has English lessons four hours a week, there are two more English teachers in my school who teach pre-schoolers and students from 6 to 10 years old.

Personally, I really liked teaching students from different stages because I could compare and contrast the methodologies that my tutor used. On the one hand, when we taught grade 1 students, we always used visual supports such as objects, videos or images from the digital board. Moreover, most of the activities that we did were focused on practising oral skills (listening and talking) and some of them were done within total physical response method.1 On the other hand, classes with grade 6 students were completely different. The majority of the activities were focused on the course book and they were not meaningful for students anymore. Nevertheless, my tutor took advantage from split groups to prepare engaging activities based on oral skills.

Another difference which I could observe from teaching different stages is that my tutor spoke English all the time with grade 1 students but mixed Catalan and Spanish when talking to 4, 5 and 6 grade students. This fact really surprised me and therefore, I decided to talk to my tutor and ask her why she translated things in Catalan to older students but spoke in English all the time when teaching year 1 children. She told me that at the beginning of the course, the three English teachers of the school decided to say to their students that they were born in London and therefore, they only knew how to talk in English. They did not tell this story to the older ones but to the younger children since it was easier to trick them.

Regarding what caught my attention the most during my internship, I would like to mention the half group sessions. When students were working with the whole class together, they were bored and usually disconnected from the activities that were done. However, when they worked with split groups (12-13 students) they went to have English classes in a smaller classroom and seemed much more engaged. In my opinion, there are two main factors that help students be more motivated when they are in split groups: firstly, they are fewer students, so the teacher can pay attention to their individual needs. Furthermore, the teacher can create activities which are different from the ones in the book that let all the students participate actively. For example, if students are working on the past tense, the teacher can let

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TPR (total Physic Response) is a teaching method based on learning by repeating movements.

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them create a song in which they have to use the past tense. Then, they can record themselves with a camera and show their videos to the other half of the group Taking all of these considerations into account, I have to say that the part of the day that I liked the least was when students were working with the whole class together as they used to do activities from the book. I specially did not like those moments when students were taking exams as I felt I could not do anything. However, I would like to highlight the classes with split groups and specially, those moments in which I could implement my teaching sequence, since it was when I could really act as a teacher.

During my time with different classes I learnt a lot: from resources to daily routines that help students be ready for the English class2 and strategies to control behavioural problems. Specially, I learnt how to establish meaningful connections

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practice when I implemented my teaching sequence since I was the one responsible for managing the class and guiding grade 4 students in their learning process. As Aristotle suggested, “one must learn by doing the thing. For thought you think you know it but you have no certainty until you try�

Sophocles, (5th c. B.C). This idea coincides with one of the main principles of sociocontructivism approach since it defences that students learn by doing. This is why I learnt a lot while implementing my teaching sequence. In general, I feel that every day in my school internship let me learn something and helped me think carefully about my personal position and beliefs about teaching.

In order to summarize my every day at school, I wrote a weekly diary in which I summarized my feelings and my experiences that I lived during my internship. You can consult it by clicking on the following issuu icon:

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In my case, students sang a hello song and a goodbye one in every class in order to distinguish the English class from the others.

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A part from writing a personal diary, I also took notes about my feelings on a notebook during my trainee period. Every day, I chose one adjective that summarized my feelings of that day.

Accordingly, when I finished my internship I created a Wordle map in order to summarize my experience at school. As you can see from the image below, the adjectives that better define my trainee period are happy, proud, exhausted and worried.

Development of the teaching sequence The teaching sequence I have already done is UK celebrations. The project is for the fourth level of the second key stage of Primary and corresponds to the English subject.

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You can see the whole teaching sequence planning by clicking on the following issuu icon:

Moreover, I created a prezi presentation to provide an overview of the teaching sequence:

My inspiration when deciding the topic of my teaching sequence came from my school tutor as she asked me to work on UK celebrations. We thought that it would be better to do my teaching sequence in fourth of primary owing the fact that they were working harder and would finish their textbook earlier than expected. This way, I could program all of my activities without using the textbook.

A part from my school tutor, all of my classmates and my teacher at university helped me to make decisions during the planning process. For instance, the teacher provided me with the SWBAT expression (students will be able to...) in order to show me how to plan a great project, starting from the end and going backwards (Dooly, 2010). For their part, my classmates gave me advises during the planning of my project so as to help me present the activities in a logical and sequential progression.

Regarding the development of the planning, I had to go through a lot of changes in order to improve my project and change its focus from small, de-contextualized task-sequences designed by the teacher for presentation, practice and production of pre-selected linguistic to more embedded language learning that is more similar to project-based language learning (Dooly, 2010).

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The main changes I made during my planning stage are represented in the following chart:

General idea

• 1st draft Creating a video about UK celebrations for the school blog.

• Final version Creating a video for students from Trafalgar school comparing celebrations in UK and in Catalonia.

Activity decontextualized

• 1st draft I planned an activity about birthdays on the second day but it was decontextualized.

• Final version We did the activity at the end of the teaching sequence.

• 1st draft I didn’t know how to let them know the information they needed for the poster.

Scaffolding to create the posters. • Final version  As Emily was there, we created an enormous mental map on the board.

Rehearsal of the oral presentations

• 1st draft I didn’t consider this.

• Final version  We had 30 minutes for students to rehears the oral presentation in front of other groups.

Timing when preparing the oral presentations

• 1st draft  One day. It wasn’t enough.

• Final version and implementation Two days.

As it can be deduced from the chart above, I made five main changes during my planning process related to the general idea of the project, the sequence of the activities and the scaffolding for the students.

According to Krashen (1989, p.440) learners acquire a foreign language as we engage them in meaningful interaction in the target language. This same idea is defended by Dujmovic (2006, p.75) who asserts: “Since language is an interactive process, children learning a language need

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ample opportunities to interact in meaningful contexts.” Thus, it seems that language teachers have to provide students with meaningful projects based on real interaction. This way, I decided to change the first general idea of my project, which consisted on creating a video about UK celebrations and uploading it on the school blog as it was not meaningful at all because students would not see the point of using the target language if their families talk in Catalan or Spanish. Therefore, I finally decided to create a video for students from Trafalgar school comparing celebrations in the UK and in Catalonia.

In addition, I also had to reorganize the activities so as to present them in a logical and sequential progression. According to Dooly (2008), teachers should frame specific learning goals inside a wider context of “being able to communicate with others” when planning a project, in order to put students into a meaningful context. This in turn implies that the sequence of activities in a project is carefully planned. Personally, I had to remove one of the activities I had planned in the first draft, which was related to birthdays, since it was not contextualised and therefore, it did not make sense to do it.

The third change that I made during the planning process is related to scaffolding. When I presented my first draft to my university mates I realized that I did not have planned how to provide my students with the information and the language needed to work on the posters.

DCSF (2009) asserts “language teachers must not only plan the activities to be done but also the language to be used very carefully to ensure accuracy and clarity”. This way, I talked to my classmates and my university teacher to receive ideas about how to scaffold the language that students would have to use. Finally, we agreed to take advantage of Emily3 and

Figure 1: mental map on the board

create an enormous mental map on the board (see figure 1). I planned to do it collaboratively with all of my students since they could give the information about Catalonia to Emily and she could inform us about celebrations in the UK. 3

Emily is a trainee teacher from Trafalgar Junior school in Richmond who came to our school for two weeks.

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This same problem related to scaffolding affected to me in two more stages of my planning process. On the one hand, I had not considered time for students to rehearse their oral presentations and therefore, in my final version, I had to add 30 minutes for them to rehearse their oral presentations in front of other groups. On the other hand, I realized that I had only planned one day for preparing the oral presentations and this was not enough. Thus, I decided to add one day more.

Lewis, B (2010) said: “Teachers must change in order to adapt and remain relevant in the everchanging world of education”. Therefore, it seems that I am going in the right direction.

Implementation of the teaching sequence I feel satisfied with how the implementation went generally, although there were some moments that could be improved. In order to show my developmental trajectory, I am going to reflect on moments during my teaching sequence that made me think and helped me develop as a language teacher as well as moments that I felt proud of.

On the one hand, I would like to highlight some moments of my project that I felt proud of. At the very beginning of my internship, my school tutor told me that Emily, a trainee teacher from Trafalgar Junior school in Richmond, would stay with us for four days. This situation was an eureka moment for me because I could ask Emily to show my students some photos of the children from Trafalgar school and to read them the initial email. Furthermore, I told my students that Emily would show our video to her students and she told us that they would try to create another video for us. Consequently, the main goal of my teaching sequence became absolutely meaningful for my students. As I already commented in the previous section, several experts agree that students only learn within meaningful contexts. For instance, Dujmovic (2006, p.75) asserts: “Since language is an interactive process, children learning a language need ample opportunities to interact in meaningful contexts. Barba and Capella (2010, p.101) also defend this idea and add: “students’ learning only becomes meaningful when they create a new product for real life”.

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Photo of the students from Trafalgar Junior School in Richmond

The email used to introduce the teaching sequence to students.

Another moment I felt proud of was when I realized that most of the groups had carefully prepared the oral presentations and that they had studied a lot. This in turn made me feel that students were motivated with the project and therefore, they would really acquire the language. As Krashen (1989, p.440) claimed: “acquisition is by far the most important process

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when learning a second language. He also added that students acquire as teachers motivate them in meaningful contexts. (Op. Cit.)

An example of a poster done by a group

You can watch the final video created by my students with their oral presentations and their egg hunt by clicking on the following icon:

I also realized that students were motivated when they asked me whether pupils from Trafalgar Junior school would send us another video about celebrations but in Spanish.

Finally, the last moment that I felt proud of was when students were asked to take the role of the teacher and gave feedback to their classmates. Before doing this peer assessment I was scared since my school tutor told me that they had never done this before. However, when we

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did it, most of them participated a lot and tried to be impartial with their mates. This situation let me feel that I had given the necessary scaffolding to my students and that peer assessment fully provides children with opportunities to develop speaking and listening skills in a structured context (Cuestas, 2013). You can watch a video of my students doing peer assessment by clicking on the following icon:

However, I do not feel proud of all the moments of my teaching sequence. There were some activities that did not work at all and helped me develop as a language teacher. First of all, most of the groups were usually interacting in Catalan or Spanish when preparing their posters for the oral presentations. However, when they had to complete the final self-assessment rubric, 58% of the students said that they had talked in English all the time.

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I talked in English...

Sometimes 58%

All the time 42%

Therefore, my reflection questions were the following ones: How can we ensure that our students interact in English when working in groups? How can we make sure that they are honest when doing self-assessment? My classmates and my university teacher help me answer these questions through the tutorial discussions. They told me that students do not always need to interact in English when discussing in groups, because their natural language is Catalan or Spanish. The point is that they really have to use the target language when talking about the vocabulary and the oral texts that they have to create. In this turn, it would be better to change the rubric criteria so that instead of saying “I talked in English all the time” it says “I talked in English as much as I could”. Moreover, they told me that students learn to be honest in self-assessment by training and modelling as they are not used to this type of assessment that involves critical thinking.

Furthermore, I had an unexpected problem during the oral presentations. A student who is very shy got into a panic and did not talk. Fortunately, another member of the group reacted and decided to say her part. On the one hand, this situation made me feel that they had worked collaboratively since one girl was able to say not only her part but also her mates’ part, which means that she knows all the information. However, on the other hand, I did not know how to assess the girl who did not talk. What I decided to do with my school teacher was to calm her down and let her relax. (Watch the video by clicking on the icon below)

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In this case, I wondered two reflection questions: What should we do as teachers when something like this happens? Which strategies could I use in order to help this girl feel selfconfident and get over her panic? My classmates at university gave me some advises such as simplify the oral text for this girl so that she feels confident to say it easily and then, increase the difficulty in the following oral presentations. According to Peña (2012), teachers need to teach their students how to succeed in real life and how to live in the current and future society. Therefore, it is important that we as teachers help this girl surpass her fear because she would need to talk in public in the real life.

Finally, I had to reorganize the scaffolding for the students when preparing the oral presentations since they were not used to speak in public in English. Thus, I had to guide them a lot in order to help them produce their oral texts: I wrote a common structure on the board that everyone could use which was the following one: In the UK people… but here in Catalonia we…; I also let them consult the mental map that we had created some days before on the board and then, they memorized their sentences. In this case, I wondered how I could assess students’ understanding of contents if they were memorizing. Consequently, I looked back to my video recordings and I wrote some questions to check understanding: were they pointing to the pictures while talking? Were their opinions when doing peer assessment based on what they had observed? Could they solve unexpected situations? My mates and my teacher at university agreed with these questions and added that even when students memorise they learn because they are repeating common structures and vocabulary.

To sum up, it seems to me that I have learnt a lot from my reflection on my developmental trajectory as well as from the tutorial discussions I made with my mates and my teacher at university. In my opinion, these are the moments that really help me improve as a teacher.

Modification of the teaching sequence Taking all of the sections above into account, I have to say that I would make some changes if I had to implement my teaching sequence in the future, based on all of my experiences, learning, research and development that I have acquired throughout this year.

The main aspect of my project that I would change would be the time. After implementing my teaching sequence I talked to my school tutor and she told me that this project could be improved if we had more time because we could extend the preparation for the oral presentations. For instance, if we had more time, students could record their oral

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presentations with a video camera so as to watch them and then do a self-evaluation to decide how they could improve. This way they would be aware of their strong and weak points and their final presentations would be much better.

Another positive point of extending the sessions of my teaching sequence would be that I could transform it into a TEPBLL (Technology- enhanced project- based language learning) project which lasted a whole term. This option would imply that students had synchronous meetings with children from Trafalgar Junior School in order to collect information about UK celebrations. From their part, British students could receive information about how we celebrate festivities in Catalonia. A good tool 2.0 to develop these meetings could be google hangouts since it enables students to make videoconferences and write texts at the same time.

As the project would last about three months, teachers could also prepare activities at the very beginning for our students to get to know each other. Moreover, the children could decide which celebrations they want to investigate about so as to engage them from the very beginning.

Several experts have considered the importance of TEPBLL when learning a foreign language.

Dooly, M (2008, p.26), claims that TEPBLL projects fully improve students’ foreign language learning as they let students work autonomously: Through online collaboration, students may come to see the importance of taking responsibility for their own learning and feel empowered to do so while learning to respect the opinions and work of their online partners (Op. Cit.).

Moreover, she asserts that doing TEPBLL not only help students to acquire language contents and self-responsibility but also other abilities: By putting emphasis on teamwork through ICT tools, the students will learn to think creatively, to solve problems, and to make decisions as a team. Furthermore, they will be in control of technology (Dooly, 2008, p.26).

Moreover, I would also do some changes related to the implementation of the activities.

During the tutorial discussions in which we had to present our reflections, I could see that most of my classmates had questions related to teachers’ strategies for classroom management. Personally, some of my students had behavioural problems when they were working in small groups. Especially, I had problems with one child who has ADHD and

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therefore, is always moving. Although my school tutor gave me several advices to control the situation, I still feel I could have done it better. Thanks to the discussions we had at university, I could collect strategies that were provided by my classmates to keep students on task. For instance, I could create a home base which is a place where a student can go to escape the stress of his or her current environment and regarding control.

Another point of my teaching sequence that I would change will be the self-evaluation grid.

When I analysed the weakest points of my project I realized that some criteria that I used for the self- evaluation grid were two ambitions. In this case, my teacher at university advised me to change the statements of some criteria that seemed too difficult to achieve. For example, she suggested me to change one statement related to the use of English which was “I talked in English all the time” into “I talked in English as much as I could”. This in turn would be easier and more realistic for my students.

The last aspect of my teaching sequence that I would change if I had to do it again is related to the oral presentations. Before implementing this teaching sequence I did not think of students who are shy and go into a panic when talking in public or in front of a camera. Therefore, I did not prepare any solution for these cases. However, now that I had experience with my students from Abat Marcet school and that I participated in the university discussions with my classmates and my teacher, I can affirm that teachers must simplify the task to those students who are shy and do not feel comfortable to talk in front of a camera. My university teacher advised me to assign only one short sentence to shy students so that they can feel comfortable to saying it right. Maybe, after doing it they feel much better and are encouraged to say a longer text.

My on-going development Before starting my internship, I was a bit scared because I had never taught English lessons before. Consequently, it was a challenge for me to design and implement a meaningful teaching sequence based on a real communication purpose in English. In order to surpass my challenge, I put all of my knowledge together (theoretical frameworks, what I had learnt from teachers and mates at the university, etc.) and tried to do my best. Nowadays, after doing my internship at school, I feel proud of myself since I have accomplished most of the objectives that I proposed to myself at the beginning of my teacher training period. These objectives have helped me develop as a teacher.

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Firstly, during my internship at school I have learnt several resources and strategies to strengthen students’ possibilities. Especially, now I know many digital tools that are really good visual resources to motivate students and scaffold their learning process since they provide pupils with wide possibilities to interact with others (Peña, 2012). Moreover, I have learnt how to plan a good teaching sequence within project-based language learning: starting from the end (general idea or focus) and going backwards; creating a meaningful context for my students that require them to use the target language in a real way; preparing tasks in a coherent and sequential progression based on students’ interaction; encouraging children to participate in all the activities; and finally, understanding mistakes as learning possibilities.

Secondly, during my trainee period I have learnt how to take care of students’ needs by designing activities of different learners’ styles. Since every child learns in a different way, teachers must teach in different ways too. Accordingly, I tried to design a teaching sequence that includes activities which approaches the four main learners’ styles: auditory, visual, tactile and kinaesthetic. Furthermore, I decided to diversify students’ types of interaction (pairs, cooperative groups, whole class…) so that everybody felt comfortable.

In addition, I feel I have had a good time while working. The part of the day I liked the most was when I had to implement my teaching sequence as it was when I could help my students and see their learning development. Probably, I transmitted my excitement to my students since they were really motivated to create the video for the British children. This in turn makes me feel that the teacher who loves her job makes her students love their learning and that is exactly what I want to achieve as a teacher.

Furthermore, now I know that English classes have to be student-centred since students learn by practising the language in real contexts (Dujmovic, 2006). Therefore, as a teacher I have to consider that students usually forget what has been explained to them; they understand what they see; but they truly learn by doing. In this sense, Barba and Capella (2010, p.11) suggest: “Students’ learning only becomes meaningful when they transform information into specific knowledge which is required to solve a real problem or to create a new product for real life”.

Another key point I have learnt from this experience is that we need to share the objectives of a project with our students from the very beginning. This way they will know exactly what are supposed to do and it is a good opportunity of engaging them just from the very beginning.

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A part from learning strategies, classroom methodologies and ways of planning good language projects, the fact of doing the tutorial discussions at university with my classmates and my teacher has given me the opportunity to self- reflect. I am sure I would not have learnt as much as I have done without watching my video recordings and my everyday reflections to analyse my strongest and weakest point. While doing that, a lot of questions appeared to me and I could solve them thanks to my classmates and my teacher at university who helped me answer them. For this reason, now I know that self-reflection is a key point for teachers to succeed. As Lewis, B (2010) said, examining what worked and what failed in the past can lead to future triumphs.

Despite all of these positive comments I have done to reflect on how I am now as a teacher, I know I still have a long way to go and numerous things to learn throughout my adventure as a foreign language teacher. However, I will try to do my best by doing continuous training and reading publications made by experts to update my methodology.

Conclusions As a future language teacher, I think that the experience of doing my internship with an English teacher and programming a teaching sequence within the project-based language learning framework has been very enriching for me.

First of all, the fact of going with an English specialist all the time has given me the opportunity to see the English classes from first to sixth of primary education. Moreover, I had the opportunity to compare and contrast different methodologies done with split groups and whole groups as well as different types of activities (games, TPR activities, songs, etc.).

Secondly, the fact of designing a project in English and teaching it in a specific group class has let me accomplish one of the objectives that I had proposed to myself when starting the course: to design and implement a project in English based on a real communication purpose.

As I commented before, language teachers have to start from a topic or general idea when planning a project and then, they must work backwards from there (Dooly, 2008). In this turn, I chose a meaningful context that really involved children to use the target language and I considered what goals I wanted my students to achieve4. After that, I went backwards and could plan all the sessions coherently. I think that I have accomplished the objective of

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I chose the goals of my teaching sequence by using the SWBAT (Students Will Be Able To...) expression.

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preparing a motivating teaching sequence since students were really interested in preparing the video for children from Trafalgar Junior School in Richmond.

Moreover, the fact of doing my teaching sequence in two different types of groups (split groups and whole class group) has make me realise that there are different aspects that could interfere in the way I teach: the number of learners, their attitudes, the learning rhythms of the children, etc. As a future teacher, I have to consider all of these aspects to do appropriate variations of the activities taking into account the external factors as well as the characteristics of the students that I am going to teach.

In addition, throughout the whole experience of my internship at Abat Marcet school in Terrassa I have had the chance to interact with the children in a closer way and give them resources and opportunities to learn English within meaningful contexts. For their part, students and my teacher at school have helped me develop teaching strategies and resources to surpass problems. Furthermore, they have provided me with enriching moments that have let me reflect on who I am now as a language teacher.

Finally, I would like to say that this has been an enriching experience I will never forget. I am sure that I will make use of all the knowledge, strategies, resources and learning methodologies that I have learnt in my internship at school. I feel that all of these learnings have helped me improve as a foreign language teacher.

To sum up my experience at school I would like to mention the following quote: “Teaching that impacts is not head to head but heart to heart� (Hendricks Howard G.). This is the framework I would like to follow as a future language teacher.

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References Barba, C., & Capella, S. (2010). Ordinadors a les aules: La clau és la metodologia. Barcelona: Graó.

Cuestas, A. (2013). Using Skype in a primary class: A case study. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature, 6(2), 49-68. Retrieved 28 May 2014 from http://revistes.uab.cat/jtl3/article/view/521/572 DCSF (2009) Developing language in the primaryschool: Literacy and primary languages.

London: Crown Copyright. Retrieved 28 May 2014 from http://www.alllanguages.org.uk/uploads/files/Spanish%20Primary%20Lessons/developinglang uagesinprimary.pdf Dooly, M. (2008) Telecollaborative language learning: A guidebook to moderating intercultural collaboration online. Peter Lang.

Dooly, M. (2010). The teacher 2.0. In S. Guth & F. Helm (eds) Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, literacies and intercultural learning in the 21st century, (pp. 277-303) Bern: Peter Lang.

Dujmovic, M. (2006). Storytelling as a method of EFL teaching. Metodički obzori, 1, 75-87.

Krashen, S. (1989). We acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading: Additional evidence for the input hypothesis. The Modern Language Journal, 73, 440–464.

Lewis, B. (2010) The value of self-reflection: Any time of year, it’s important to self-reflect.

Examining what worked and what failed in the past can lead to future triumphs. Retrieved from http://k6educators.about.com/od/professionaldevelopment/a/self_reflection.htm Peña, R. (2012). Nuevas tecnologías en el aula. Tarragona: Aldaria Publishing Company.

Sophocles, (5th c. B.C) Oedipus trilogy

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