ENGLISH PEDAGOGY

STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICE

OBSERVATION STAGE

Task 1: The School and Learning Environment

Name of student: Maximiliano Ayala Pozo.

Name of School: Liceo Pedro Montt.

Number of students: 400 (approximately).

Date: 10/05/10 Class: English.

Briefly describe the following aspects:

1. The school:

Describe the general background of the school including the physical

location, organisation, student population, philosophy and educational
and behavioural policies.

“Liceo Pedro Montt” is located in Avenida Alemania, Cerro Alegre. It is an

old little institute painted in white. When you come into the school, you
can see immediately people doing the cleaning and some academics
walking around there. There’s a lady at the door that always welcomes
us with a smile, and tell us to come in freely. She knows we are
prospective teachers in practice. Then, when we get to the yard, we can
see many students playing football, having their lunch or just having a
chat. There are approximately 400 students in this establishment. Their
policies are to respect each other, and something that called my
attention is that there is a whiteboard with specific and impressive rules,
like the following: “not to steal” (this is a school in which is very usual
the activity of stealing) and “not to swear” (another very common), to
wear the uniform in the days they have to use it. But the students seem
not to respect these rules (among others). There’s no noticeable respect
between each other and they don’t stop swearing or (sometimes)
fighting.
2. The classroom

Describe the atmosphere of the room and the levels of engagement in

the room. Make notes on seating, sight lines, space, air, light,
whiteboard, equipment, etc.

The atmosphere of the room in general is kind of messy. Although there

are no more than fifteen students per course, twelve of them are just
doing nothing, and three of them pay attention. There are enough seats
for everyone, the classroom is big, there’s fresh air, lights, a whiteboard,
but not much equipment like the typical closet in which teachers keep
papers and home works and there aren’t even curtains. In fact, the
students have pasted shied of papers in order to protect themselves
from the sun. They have a kind of wall made of paper in which they, as a
course, “organise” themselves. I write “organise” because they are not
really interested in having a good organisation. The rooms are filthy,
there are flies flying over the classroom, and they have a carton box as
a trash bin. A situation that called my attention is that when I was with
the third grade guys, there was a big space in the classroom, which
instead of looking like that, it looked like a dance floor.

3. The activities & resources

a) Make notes on the kind of activities used, the nature of student

involvement, balance of student doing things and teacher doing
things.

Our guide teacher played a game with the eighth grade students, the
so well known “colgado”. The objective was to spell the possible word
that could have fit in the gaps in order to put in practice the alphabet.
They seemed very interested, because it was a game, and most of
the students participated in it. The teacher always tries to relate the
contents with games, so they can have fun and learn at the same
time. In fact, she showed us many materials planned by her.

b) Describe the resources used and the materials available within the
school. How are the resources used in the classroom?

The resources used in the classroom are a whiteboard, an eraser, and

just that. In the sessions in which I participated, I never noticed any
innovative resource like a projector or something similar to that, just
the traditional ones. There’s a computer’s classroom in the school,
 but it seems like not many students can use it. I never saw a student
using one, when it could be a great resource for them.

Task 2: Student´s learning

In this second observation task, you should focus on the things that help
to create conditions for effective learning and on the aspects that play
a part in preventing learning.

1. The learners
How motivated are the learners? Why? To what extent are they
taking part in their own learning? To what extent are they
expecting the teacher to do the work for them?

Well, generally speaking, the students don’t seem very motivated

about the subject, and I think it is because that’s the way these
students behave. Most of them don’t have any motivation on doing
things, there are few students that are planning to give the PSU or
that at least want to continue doing something with their lives.
Most of them do not expect anything from the teacher, even
though the teacher wants them to learn. They don’t really care
about learning and most of them expect the teacher to do
everything. A situation that called my attention was that there was
a student that told me: “I’ll pay you one thousand pesos if you do
this homework for me”, and I answered “No, I won’t, I can help you
to do a part, but I would never do that for you”. Then, the boy said
to me “Woah! You’re so selfish” in an informal way.

2. Behaviour during classroom activities

Describe the ways students are encouraged to participate in
activities. Are there any particular strategies for managing issues
and motivating students? Are there any students with special
needs?

The ways students are encouraged to participate in activities is

almost any. As I said before, a little number of students are
interested in learning, participating and doing well at school. The
teacher tried to use strategies to motivate students in order to do
the activities she proposed to them, but with no big success. And
there are a lot of students with special needs. They are kids and
teenagers looking for attention, for guidance, a person in whom
 they can trust their problems, a helping hand, and in terms of
knowledge, they need more reinforcement in the English subject.

3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in the

classroom.

The learning styles and levels of English are very poor. I noticed that
many eighth grade students are studying the alphabet. I know that at
that age they should be learning Past Simple, or at least a simple
tense. But they don’t, they are learning how to pronounce each letter
of the alphabet, a very late content for their level.

Deadline: May 12th, midnight

Note: Read “Steps to Writing an Observation Paper” by Nick Pell for further
questions and/or doubts.

IVV/RGS
2010