Observed Lesson (Spain)

    

For my pre-practicum experience, I was assigned to help Alicia with her English conversation lessons in Bachillerato (equivalent to the last two years of high school). On the first day, I just consentrated on getting to know the students and getting comfortable with the class. The next two lessons, Alicia assigned me to give a lesson on my home, New York City. While giving my lesson, Alicia and I noticed, by the students’ responses, that they needed reinforcement in expressing the past tense. Therefore, Alicia decided to make a lesson on using the past tense for the following day. Her lesson consisted of having the students work in pairs. She had questions written out that the students had to ask each other and the answers had to be in the past tense. She and I would walk around listening to make sure that the students spoke correctly. However, Alicia was not able to complete the lesson because the classrooms computer did not work. To not waste paper, Alicia had put the questions in a pen-drive to project the questions on a screen. The problem was that someone had stolen the computers battery cable and the computer had run out of power. After fifteen minutes trying to find another cable or computer, she decided to desist and taught another lesson. She had a drawer in her office full of backup lessons just in case an emergency like this one occurred and she could not teach the planned lesson. I found this to be a genius idea; every teacher should have prepared backup lessons in case of an emergency. Anyway, her lesson then became "speaking in the conditional," which consisted the same structure as the previous lesson. She passed out sheets with questions that the students had to ask each other, except that the answers to the questions had to be in the conditional. At the end of class, Alicia assured the students that the next lesson was definitely going to be about speaking in the part tense, whether the computer worked or not.

While her lesson showed me that a teacher should always have a backup, it also made me realize that we are too dependent on technology. Fifteen minutes of class time had been lost on trying to find a power cable for the computer. There was a chalkboard in the classroom. Even when the questions were in the pen-drive we could have easily invented some other ones and written them out on the board. However, this idea did not occur to anyone until some hours after the class had finished. We all were so stuck on the fact that the lesson was made to be displayed that we did not think of other alternatives.  This is when I understood that, when planning a lesson (especially one that is dependent on technology) one should also pre-plan for problems. Because even if the solution is simple, in the spur of the moment, one might not come across the answer and may lose a whole lesson. This is when most of the BC lesson plan formats and lesson start making so much sense.
 

Lesson Observation (Bath, England)

One week in pre-school in Bath, I paid special attention to my CT, Mrs. Williams, lesson planning and how she conducts lessons overall.  When I first arrived to help in the classroom, I had almost no expectation of true formal lessons being taught.  I thought that such a young group of thirty children would not be able to grasp what I think of as traditional lessons.  However, this is constantly proven to not be true with this age group.  In America, students do not perform on this level until about age five, but these four year olds are learning to read, write, and do math among other things throughout each school day.  I also feel that they come across as so competent as first time students because of Mrs. Williams’ teaching methods.

In particular, her organization and conscientiously planned lessons continuously engage the students and make a better learning environment for them in general.  The best lessons I have seen her teach are in mathematics.  She varies her methods of instruction nearly every time I have observed her, which the children find more exciting.  She does this while making her lessons full of meaningful content, but manages to help the students have fun as well.  This is a very impressive and admirable way of teaching that I hope to gain myself as a future teacher.

In one math lesson, the students were told to sit in a circle, instead of their normal carpet rows, and Mrs. Williams placed a series of small white boards on the floor.  The first one had the head of a snake drawn on it and the last one had a tail.  In between, she wrote a few numbers in the sequence of 1-10, leaving five spaces blank.  She then called on a student who could help her to fill in the missing numbers to complete their sequence.   The children noticeably found this enjoyable and eagerly responded to her need for participation.  The class then worked together completing the sequence and counted all together out loud once they did it correctly.  Mrs. Williams’ ability to make the whole class included and engaged in this lesson, as well as numerous others I have seen, makes delivering lessons so much more enjoyable both for the teacher and the students.  She teaches with clear opening tasks and closing points that also make the lesson feel very relevant to the children, which is part of what makes her lessons so effective.

Promoting Equity and Social Justice (Bath, England)

At Widcombe Infant School in Bath, England, equal opportunities are given to each student regardless of the circumstances that they find themselves in which are out of their control.  It is clear that the teachers take the time to know about each individual’s background and family life as well as any other contexts that play a part in a child’s education.  In general, the school, while maintaining a great reputation, takes students from the surrounding area and accommodates their needs as they come about.  In this way, they are not discriminating against any issues that arose early on in the child’s life, allowing everyone to be on equal ground in the school context of their lives.

One example of accommodating to ensure equal opportunities for all students revolves around one student’s family life.  His father came forward and said that he would encourage his son’s school work as best as he could, but that he could not read and write himself, so he would not be able to help complete homework with the student or read the required books with him at home.  In knowing this, the teachers then ensure that the student gets extra help during school time so that he has someone to read to him or read to because this is a crucial exercise in the reception (pre-school) class.  When they have to communicate with the student’s father at home, they talk on the telephone and keep him up to date verbally as opposed to doing so through notes or e-mails.  This is one way in a series of many that I have noticed at the school in which students are guaranteed an equal opportunity for the best education possible.