[ESCRIBA EL NOMBRE DE LA COMPAA]

ENGLISH PRACTICE
First school practice of English class
[Escriba el nombre del autor]

1 GRADO EN EDUCACIN INFANTIL Y PRIMARIA PIMM Practical task to be developed by the student at the Educational Institution where s/he is doing his/her training during the first term: Fieldwork at school: The student will have to observe and keep a registration about the following events related to teaching English to children and write a final report describing and analysing the teaching-learning process of the English language at that school in Nursery and Primary education. 1- Levels/courses where English is taught. English class is taught from Nursery to Upper-secondary. 2- Other subjects where English is used as a vehicular language . In this school, English is used as a vehicular language in psychomotor activity. In this subject the teacher speaks in English to explain the games and give orders to the children. 3- Which teachers teach English? Or who speaks English in class? Sometimes teachers speak some words in English in all classes. Only the English teacher speaks whole class in this language. In this school there are two English teachers .One of these is in four years and the other is in five years. 4- If there is more than one English teacher do English teachers design the syllabus of the course together? Do they meet periodically to revise the programme of the English learning process? I think English teachers design the syllabus of the course together. They meet periodically to revise the programme of the English learning process. 5- How many hours a day/ week are the pupils exposed to English? The pupils are exposed three hours a week to English. One hour in English class and two hours in physical training. 6- What type of resources do teachers use? The teachers use the English book, songs, games, and flashcards. Sometimes watch videos in digital board. 7- Do they work with any specific publishing house? And Why?

Yes, they do. They work with Macmillan publishing house. The book is Captain Jack 1 Plus by Jill Leighton. They work with this publishing house because the book has many interesting resources to learn English. It has Multi-Rom, press outs, stickers, Captain Jack puppet, flip over book, audio cds, photocopiable resources cd, teachers notes and flash cards. 8- Do they revise periodically other resources published by other publishing houses? Yes, they revise periodically other resources published by other publishing houses in order to improve their classes. 9- Are teachers free enough to choose resources? Yes, they are free to choose resources. These resources have to be adapted to the English programme. 10- What type of activities do teachers carry out in English? They carry out games and songs in English. They watch videos too. Also pupils draw the main characters of the videos. Sometimes children bring photos to work different concepts. 11- Do students understand them easily? No, they dont understand them easily. Only one or two kids understand the teacher easily. The others understand little by little.

You have to carry out a critical reflection about the teaching-learning process and all the agents involved taking as a reference the 'Real Decreto para las enseanzas minimas'. You can add more observations you consider relevant in relation to 'teaching English to children'.

Teaching English to children To start this critical reflection, Im going to talk about the process of English teaching. When we are trying to teach English to children, we have to know that children are incredibly adapted to learning languages, and pick up new words, phrases and grammar structures easily. The worse thing is that pupils have a lot of energy and a shorter attention time than adults, so we will struggle to get them to sit and learn. However, we can use the children energy to our advantage and engage them with games, songs and activities that will help them learn while having fun. These things are very important to prepare English classes. First of all, it`s necessary to immerse the kids in the English language. Children have an advantage over adults because they rapidly pick up new words from conversation around them. We have to create a productive learning environment by exposing kids to English through classroom, games, DVDs and videos. In my school, children of four, work with Captain Jack 1 Plus by Jill Leighton. This book has many interesting resources to learn English. It has Multi-Rom, press outs, stickers, Captain Jack puppet, flip over book, audio cds, photocopiable resources cd, teachers notes and flash cards. These resources are very useful for the English teacher and for the children. They are very excited when they work in English classroom. The English teacher uses music and songs to help teach pupils English. She uses songs to teach numbers, the alphabet, body parts and other words requiring memorization. Now, they are learning to play spiders and flies, sharks and fishes, hot potatoe They sing songs too. They are learning Hookey Pookey, Once I caught a fish alive, Five little monkeys and Head, shoulders, knees and toes. These games and songs are useful to teach new words to the child and to improve their psychomotor activity. In addition, she uses motions and gestures during the lesson to reinforce learning. The English teacher talks to pupils in English. She gives small rewards for effort and accomplishment. To finish, Im going to talk about the Royal decree for the minimal educations in Pre-Primary. This royal decree establishes aims, ends and general beginning of the infantile education. It corresponds to the schools to develop and to complete the curriculum established by the educational administrations. The schools may have to promote a first approximation to the second language, in this case, Valencian and English language. In the school which I go this year, English is taught from Nursery to Upper- Secondary. In this school, English is used as a vehicular language in psychomotor activity and in English classroom. In both classes, the teacher speaks in English to explain the games and give orders to the children. Children like both classes but they prefer psychomotor activity. The pupils are exposed three hours a week to English. One hour in English class and two hours in physical training. Sometimes teachers speak some words in English in all classes. For example, everyday the pupils remind the days of the week. In spite of this thing, only the English teacher speaks whole class in this language. For the majority of the children its very difficult to understand simple orders and teachers have to translate the orders for these pupils. I think this is a positive system to teach English to children.