My reflections

Reflective cycle – an experience in primary school

“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984). This quote reflects my practice in primary school.

Concrete experience

The original aim of this experience was to inform practice through the theory learned during the year and have the chance to experience getting in touch with primary school students.

During my practice, I was able to develop lesson plans that gave students opportunities for becoming involved in meaningful activities and interacting with me and with each other using L2. Furthermore, I was aware of the importance of being coherent with a pedagogical perspective and focusing not only on the language and specific subjects but in meaningful experiences to them, such as projects they could relate to.

Reflective observation

Throughout my practicum, I think I was able to be patient, enthusiastic and improvise when needed. Those attributes, together with observation, scaffolding and a sense of the theories are necessary to succeed in this teaching experience.

I believe my classes were well prepared, but students are not robots, which means that things can get out of control anytime and in these situations, we have to be ready to improvise to regain their attention. There was one activity during my first lesson that got a little out of control. All students were supposed to participate in “A world of taste”, but as they were more than 20, some of them were not paying any attention. A solution would have been making them stay seated and go around the classroom for them to taste the food.

However, I must say that overall, I’ve got a great participation and I could see students were very enthusiastic about the new activities I brought. After all, the journey to becoming a teacher is, in other words, a journey through learning. And how can we learn without making any mistakes?

Abstract conceptualization

I consider that I’m more aware now of stopping or shortening an activity if it’s not working and improvising something else. However, if I had the chance to develop this practice again I would definitely change a couple of things. First, I would work a little better in linking one stage of the lesson to the other. It’s important for students to know exactly what to do. Additionally, I would give more time to explain the activity, as I realized some children were a bit lost after my explanation and I had to go around to explain individually to some of them. I also would check their understanding of all the activities by asking them what to do.

I’m sure this experience made me grow personally and professionally and I’m going to make sure to always inform my practice through theory. Now I can say I feel more prepared and aware of what I’m doing and I’m sure this will be very helpful in my future practices.

Active experimentation

Acquiring a foreign language is much more than learning its structure and fulfilling school requirements. “Knowing how children learn their first language can help us teach them a second language”. (Slattery and Willis, 2011). According to Vygotsky, one of the proponents of the sociocultural theory, social interaction plays an essential role in this process.

Following what the authors mention, I consider teachers must interact with learners by offering meaningful activities and by guiding them throughout the whole process. Offering activities that foster different abilities, such as musical, spatial, naturalistic and linguistic, will allow them to develop different skills, as they learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. Additionally, authors such as Pinter, Moon, and Roth shed light on the importance of integrating grammar and lexis in a meaningful context and this is something I believe I was able to do and I’m going to continue doing. Teaching and additional language is more than just give students photocopies with loose vocabulary. One of the most important aspects of the effective teaching of EAL is the need to support and develop learners’ competence in the mother tongue alongside the learning of English.

Conclusion

Kolb (1974) views learning as an integrated process with each stage being mutually supportive of and feeding into the next. I believe I’ve done this as part of my reflection.

Having done a teaching practice in primary school in the public system was a very valuable experience. It was a rich experience and I think I’ve proved that, although they come from low-income families and some of them never had any contact with the English language before, they were able to understand, follow commands and participate.

In conclusion, becoming a teacher is a constant process of reflecting on one’s practice and giving one’s best every day.