MY EXPERIENCE AT PRIMARY LEVEL IN WORDS

MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 

Teaching English to primary school children is definitely a challenge and one of the most enriching experience for a teacher. The philosophy that accompanies my practical teaching is this thought: "If I am enjoying together with children during the lesson, the thing is working...". Motivation, play, fun, discovering, collaboration are all part of children development, so they must be hand in hand with learning. I think that children learn the best when they are doing what they like and what they enjoy most.

SHARING SOMETHING LEARNED...
Teachers or future teachers, let me give you here some humble advice that I have learned during this residence. First, keep the children active, offer varied activities that imply not being always seating in front of the board, move them to the floor and go there with them and do not give only instructions, do the activities with them, so you can feel what they feel and you can modify if an activity does not work. Second, listen to them, they have interests, ideas and can give us important information about themselves, what is a key when planning our lessons. Third, be flexible, extend the activities beyond the language aims, to engage pupils, to create an atmosphere that allows emotional engaged and a good rapport.  
TEACHERS' RESPONSIBILITY...

It is our job, as teacher, to match learning into students' interests, so it becomes something natural for them. Creating the correct environment, thinking as they do and learning from them are the best tools to achieve it. When I am in front of the students, I always have in mind that I have part of the huge responsibility of guiding their development. As teachers, we are going to leave a mark on learners, but there are two ways to do it, teaching with responsibility and leaving a positive mark or without responsibility and leaving a negative one. I believe that if we work with all our senses, with our knowledge and our feelings, that mark will be always positive.

It is said that children are able to learn fast and incorporate a lot of information, but that is not all, they are capable, and need to receive affection, to learn about values, social skills, and to develop creativity to construct their knowledge and make it useful for different contexts of their lives. We must not forget about that. Once again we are in front of the word "responsibility".

MY APPROACH TO TEACHING AND LEARNING...

I planned my practical teaching around the Constructivism Theory (Piaget, 1896-1980). This theory considers that the learning is a process in which learners construct their own knowledge involving their previous experiences. That is what I tried to do during this experience and what I believe promotes a meaningful learning. I took principles from Social Constructivism, since Vygotsky (1896-1934) added the concepts about ZPD (Zone of proximal development), what leads us to scaffolding, the way of helping learners to link what they already know with what is new for them. I acted as a guide for a student to allow them to build their knowledge and, working to discover students' previous knowledge, thoughts, internal representations. Gardner identified the multiple intelligence, that is why each individual learns in a different way and is motivated by different things, so I also beard in mind this concept when planning the activities to catch everybody's attention. 
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH, SKILLS INTEGRATION...
Communication in the classroom is what I fostered during all my practical teaching. I performed it in a school which follows the same model regarding English teaching. So, I felt comfortable and the experience was enriching for all the parts involved in it, learners, the Institution and me. I always tried to have students exposed to the language, using real materials, I tried to create opportunities to use the language in a meaningful context, connected with students' interests. I considered that I gave learners a purpose to speak in English, to write, read or listen, carrying out activities to develop skill integration. I also promoted team work and collaboration through group or pair games and tasks.
TEACHERS' ABILITIES...

I would like to close this writing describing the abilities that involve teaching English in primary school. Of course, it is necessary to have communication skills to speak fluently to students and to give clear instructions during the whole lesson. It is necessary to show confidence from the beginning of the lesson, to show a positive attitude and to pay attention to children needs to create a good relationship. Creativity is another main ability that a teacher must include in their practical work and also help students to develop it.  A teacher needs to be funny, patient, a good observer, flexible, affectionate, responsible in each lesson and critical and reflexive after each lesson. I may say that in some opportunities teachers are actors or actresses! If you have taught English especially to children, I am sure you understand! Because during many activities like storytelling, singing, role play or simply when we have to explain new ideas or unfamiliar concepts, we gesture, make mimics, we dance, use different funny voices or we model actions, showing our drama abilities, sometimes without knowing we had them. There should be an Oscar Award for teachers!