PRACTICUM V 

Practicum IV and practicum V are interrelated and for me both of them are part of this experience.

 

However, with practicum V, which was focus on teaching English as a foreign language to primary students, I have also learnt new things:

 

On one hand, when I started this practicum I was very happy with my Practicum IV and I did not want to go with another teacher and leave my class. Moreover, I did not want to be an English teacher because I felt that if I was an English teacher I will not have the same relationship with students and I did not like the idea of moving from one class to another without having my own group. However, I have been able to discover its pros and cons of being an English teacher.

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• Pros: If you want to teach English properly you cannot be a class tutor. Being a class tutor takes you a lot of time, you have a lot of things in mind and you can work properly into developing proper English lessons. Moreover, children needs to see you as someone with who they have to communicate  in English, if you are the class tutor and know you can also speak with them in Catalan or Spanish, they are not going to make any effort. Therefore, if you are an English teacher you can focus on creating projects that engage students in developing a second language and you can generate a great environment. Moreover, if you are a specialist you do not have to communicate with the families or develop more than one subject.

• Cons: If you are an English teacher you might have to teach different levels and different groups. Your timetable might go from 1rst graders to 6th graders which means that you will not have YOUR group, and sometimes you might feel that you have tones of students but you do not know any of them. The relationship you establish with students it is not as strong as the class tutor does.

 

On the other hand, I have learnt how to design a project including grammar and vocabulary. It is very hard to to think about a project which includes both and to make it useful for the students. I believe we learn English as a way to communicate with people from other countries, so that if we travel we can communicate and make ourselves understood. I consider this should also be the objective of our students and we have to transmit them why are they learning something. With my restaurant project I make them reflect about which was the importance of learning the vocabulary about food in English or knowing some expressions to use in a restaurant. At the end, they were engaged because they understood that if they were going on holidays and they need to order a menu, they will need to know how to say it or even understand what were they ordering. I believe it is very important to share with students WHY is useful to learn a specific topic, not just in English but in all the subjects.

 

To conclude, this practicum has been the best so far because the fact of being in a school for a whole year makes you be totally involved and committed to it. Moreover, it gives you a view of what being a teacher is and the effort that you have to put in some projects to make them shine. I have been lucky to have two amazing tutors in the school this year, who have inspired me a lot and with who I have learnt a lot.