MY PRACTICAL TEACHING EXPERIENCE AT SECONDARY SCHOOL

Teaching English at Secondary School..... 

I have performed my practical teaching at school N° 718 "Libertad". I had my opportunity with 17/18/19 years old students taking 6th year and it was a complete new experience for me. It was totally unexpected for me as regards how it would be or whether I would success during my practical teaching or not, although I was prepared to do my best! I must say that I felt confident due to the contents and teaching skills I had acquired in the last period of my teaching course and which I continue reflected about and improving.

Discovering teenagers...

It is commonly said that teenagers are demotivated at school or not interested in anything. I was able to prove that it is not totally true... In my experience I saw that teenager students may experienced a lack of internal motivation as regards school. However, this motivation is latent inside them, waiting to be aroused and it can really happen in a wonderful way if they receive the appropriate incentive. 
During my residence period I noticed students arriving to the classroom looking not very enthusiastic or not totally predisposed to have a good learning time. Nevertheless, once the activity started to develop, they caught their attention and they gradually encouraged them. The group got motivated and I think that it was possible for students to feel a learning experience a bit different from what they are used to fee it.
Of course it was not everything perfect or easy to do, some activities in my lessons worked better than others and some students got more motivated than some of their classmates. Though, I believe that all what we lived together has left a mark on students in their  last year at Secondary school and above all, it has taught me many things to reflect on my practical teaching, improve it and become my work more successful in the future.

My teaching philosophy...

The philosophy that accompanies my teaching is that students are able to:

• express  their feelings, opinions and develop communicative competence within a propitiated atmosphere created in the classroom,
• develop critical thinking about important contents for them and society, to be prepared to live in community and collaboratively,
• reach an integral development through the acquisition of different skills and creativity which can be applied in real world to help them to succeed in life.

Going beyond grammar and vocabulary... 

CLIL approach (content language integration learning) refers to teaching content (in this case secondary school curriculum subjects) through a language, other than the first language of the learners. It has two aims: "the learning of both the subject and the language. The language is the means to the end of learning subject content." (Learning teaching. The essential guide to English language teaching, chapter 13, Jim Scrivener, Macmillan, third edition).
CLIL approach provides a natural way to learn a language. When a subject is taught in that language there is a concrete purpose to learn both at the same time, content and language, within a real context. It often  motivates learners because they can get the most of the content if they understand the language around it. Moreover, being content focused, CLIL classes engage students and favor those ones who are unenthusiastic about learning a language. It also allows students to be exposed to the English language related to multiple subjects and it gives students the opportunity to produce and recall information in their second language. CLIL encourages students to develop 21st Century skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaborative work. 
Considering all these advantages, I have chosen this approach for my lesson plans in this practical teaching period and it worked effectively well. The lessons included contents like types of tourism (718 school is a tourist-oriented school), tourism in Western Europe, evolution of mass media, cyberbullying, ecological habits, unusual jobs, together with an useful vocabulary, language items around present perfect and taught through different functions. Most of the aims set for each lesson were achieved and, as expected for this approach, students were in general motivated and have developed 21st century skills in an integrated way such as, social skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking, autonomy, creativity, among others.

Teacher's skills

CLIL is an effective approach and beneficial for ESL students, but it is still a challenge for teachers. Integrating content and language implies not only be competent as  regards the language, but also acquiring the knowledge about the content to be taught, which can be related to any of the school subjects, current society's events and students' real life. In my experience, I had to research and learn about different topics and contents which enriched me a lot and which I gladly shared with my students.    
Heterogeneous classrooms also requires teachers' attention to all pupils' necessities,  targeting to different learning styles in order to catch students' attention and to make them easier language and content acquisition. It is also a challenge for teachers to plan lessons that help learners develop multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983). I have had all this in mind when planning activities, since I know it is crucial to favor development of students' potentials as well as  to arouse abilities that students may not  know they are able to deal with.
All in all, responsibility is essential to perform the teaching job so that, affecting positively students' lives. The teacher's role nowadays is about guiding students to achieve contents, develop language and social skills but it also includes emotional education, considering learners interests, feelings, thoughts and their realities out of school. Personally, I tried to perform my lessons in a way of leaving on students an educational experience. Always avoiding non-educational experiences, which would not let anything important on learners or bad educational experiences, which would affect them negatively (I. F. C. Lenguas Vivas Bariloche, Instituciones políticas y educativas, Unit 3, María Fernanda Piva, 2019).

Purpose of communication


I based my teaching on fostering skills' integration and communication in the classroom. I always tried to have students exposed to English language and provide opportunities to use the it, both through free activities and more guided activities. I provided support to students, especially to those with lower English level, even allowing the use of L1 when the speaking activity was focused on fluency and expressing opinions rather than accuracy.

Providing feedback

I evaluated students through informal assessment and through a more formal way like was a written exam. I carried out the informal assessment through periodic observation, considering students' final products, but above all, their learning process. I took into account their participation in the classroom, their work and effort put into activities, their collaboration in group tasks and their performance as regards language items, contents and skills development. I did not use different assessment criteria with students who presented more difficulties with the subject, but I offered more scaffolding, attending their needs. On the other hand, I tried to challenge students with higher levels of English, who kept their interest by working with an extending vocabulary, by practicing skills and especially by developing knowledge about different contents.
When correcting learners during the activities I always tried to encourage them with a positive comment first, and then, give them the correct model of what they said or wrote or read. In many opportunities I guided them to discover their own mistakes, using recast-repetition or elicitation (Extract from Ciselt course, IFC LEnguas Vivas Bariloche, Didactica específica para nivel secundario, Unit 6, Darío Banegas, 2019). In other opportunities I did not point out the error immediately to avoid interrupting them and I did later if it was related to the aim of the activity. I applied different ways of corrections such as teacher-students correction and all class correction. Moreover, in some activities, especially, games, I included student-student correction, that in this case, it was group-group correction (Learning teaching. the essential guide to English language teaching, Scrivener, chapter 12).

Resources and materials...

The didactic resources and materials used in a teaching practice are really important since they catch students' attention, they organize information and support understanding. They also engage and motivate students if they are properly chosen or properly developed.
During my lessons students were exposed to audiovisual resources, PowerPoint presentations, audios, visual aids (posters, photos, maps), worksheets, their Booklet activities. I also included varied games, pictograms, reflective questions, debates, role plays, a written test, technological tools like telephone recordings  and a Padlet.  Almost all of the material was developed by myself, for which I researched, evaluated, designed, adapted them according to my teaching aims. 

Sharing, reflecting, enjoying and learning together... 

• Sharing opinions, ideas, feelings, students' productions in the classroom... 
• Reflecting on topics that affect teenager lives, their society and culture as well as other ones, in order to develop critical thinking and interculturality....
• Enjoying the time spent in the ESL classroom through games, interesting and active activities, engaging productions to share in and outside the classroom...
• Accompanying students in their growth, listening to them and guiding them... 

In my opinion, all these aspects are crucial to achieve a successful learning process at secondary school that goes beyond the language, it allows an integral learning.