Teaching Unit

This week I started my teaching unit. I must say that at the beginning I was completely lost and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to find a topic they could like. I asked some of them what were their interests, and basically, they didn't know what to answer. I also asked them what about music and they told me: Reggaeton!!

At the end, I thought in teaching them something useful and that's why my topic is about: The Airport. I must say that most of the students liked the topic. They were very motivated and they participated a lot in the class. I was so surprised and so happy! I started the class a little bit scared thinking, are they going to like it? are they going to follow the activities? Well, I have to say that they were just the best students ever!! I couldn't believe it. So basically, I can't wait to keep with the rest of the classes.

I am going to miss the students a lot!
And, by the way, we are planning to take them to the cinema.
You can see some of the pictures that my colleague took while I was doing the class.

Outside the Classroom - Claustre

Last week I followed a meeting of the equip docent so this week I have followed a claustre. To be honest I enjoyed more the equip docent meeting. In there they dealt with topics I was more interested in. These topics were related to the students directly. In contrast, the topics in the claustre have been more general such as the explanation of how the cicles formatius work or how to act in case of fire.
I don't have much to explain about this meeting.

Teaching in 1st of ESO

Today I have been doing some exercises with the students of 1st of ESO. It is an English Crèdit Variable so there are only 8 students in class. At the beginning I was quite nervous, but they could not notice that! And then I started to feel more confident. To be honest I was scared they were going to be bored or just ignore the class but so far it's been alright.

So let's talk about the class itself:

I was able to choose any topic I wanted to but last week they worked on descriptions such as... Ana has got blue eyes or Dani is very tall so I have done my class about clothes.
In the picture you can see the sheet of paper I have given to all the students, and this is what they had to do:
1.- Match the label with the picture.
2.- Write down a description of their neighbour using the new vocabulary plus the colours.
3.- Reading aloud the description.
4.- Exercise in the computer. Click here to see the exercise.
5.- Find the words (back to the sheet)
6.- Draw a picture of their favourite clothes labeling them.
7.- Quick game (Noughts and Crosses/ Tic Tac Toe)

These activities are all very short to do but these class is very active and I didn't want to bore them. They really enjoyed the internet activity.

"Rebelión en las Aulas": Where's the Key?

Last week, when I was about to go to 2nd of Batxillerat class, I can see how the corridors are crowded with students and teachers. I thought, as you might all think, that nothing special was happening. But for my surprise, the students of 4th of ESO were locked in their classroom. Just to let you know, this class is the one I'm following.

Do you want to know what happened? I was just about to tell you, because it's been an experience for me!

During the English class in the morning, from 10 to 11, they had an exam. Apparently, my tutor had to leave the class for a few minutes and when she got back the classroom was locked. The only possible explanation was: They have a key.

And I stop here to tell you that all the classes need a key to be opened/closed. So, the students of 4th of ESO have a key! Where did they get it from? Nobody knows... But the point is that at the end of the morning classes at 13:30, the head of studies orders one of the teachers to lock them up. Obviously, once they see the door is closed they start to knock heavily at the door, shout...some of them behave like savages!!
One of the teachers who is standing outside the classroom decides that it's not legal to keep them locked so she (and a few more teachers) get in the classroom so they can talk and find a solution. Some other teachers think that if the students have the key they should use it to open the classroom.
Well, at the end, the person who had the key didn't show up (as all of you can imagine), but the day after the key was found in reception.
I know that a lot of students were angry at the person who took the key. They say that he was a coward not telling the truth when he had to.
So, what you think?

Outside the Classroom - Science and English all in one!

In my school, there is a small project which consists on mixing English with Science. About 2 weeks ago we had a meeting with the teacher of this crèdit variable. He explained us that he wants the students to talk in English, to communicate. He is not an English teacher himself so he does not correct students all the time. He uses crosswords, readings, or material he finds in the internet. Since it is an English - Science crèdit variable there is no book assigned to this subject. So, the problem the teacher had was to find all the material he uses in the classes. However, I think it is very encouraging for the students to have a subject like this, it is something different.

Outside the Classroom - Equip Docent Meeting

Last week I had a meeting with the "Equip Docent de Batxillerat". All the teachers from batxillerat met at 13:30 on Wednesday so they could discuss different topics about their students. They had to discuss a lot of aspects but the one that took most of the time was: What do we do with students that are always late or that never come to class? All the teachers were really concerned about this problem and it took about 45 minutes to get it over with, and at the end, no firm conclusion was reached! Some teachers said that those students arriving late will have to go the school one afternoon extra, others said they should call the parents and many more different options, but as I have said, they could not agree what was the best solution.

They also talked about the importance of Catalan and Spanish in subjects like economy, maths, biology and so on. What the teachers were complaining about was that students had a lot of written mistakes in the exercises and in the exams, so this problem had to be solved somehow. At the end, they reached a compromise between the teachers of Spanish and Catalan and the rest. They had to report serious language problems to the language teachers so they could work on that aspect.
Basically, these were the 2 main topics, and the session was longer than an hour and a half.

Outside the Classroom - Being a Guard!

Apart from following the classes, I have done some other things like having a meeting with the "Equip Docent" or do 2 hours of "Guàrdia" or having a meeting with a Science teacher that has an English "credit variable" in which Science and English are melted!

If it comes to the "Guàrdia", I have done 2 hours. What I had to do in the first hour was to walk around the center and check if students were in the corridors, if every class had a teacher, check if there were students in the toilets and so on. I also had to write down the name of the students who were punished, that is to say, some students were sent to a classroom because they had done something wrong and I had to report that. Basically, I was a guard, this might be were the name comes from... ;) Anyway, in my second hour, I was asked to take care of a class for half an hour. The teacher of that class was absent so I just had to be in the class making sure the students were doing the assigned task. However, the students did not have anything to do, so some of them were only chatting, others were doing homework and others were just drawing. What we tried to do (I was with another student of practices) was help some of the students with their English homework. We told them we were English teachers so they could take advantage of that. So, some of the students did their homework in class and some others kept on doing something else. Basically, my experience was good. I preferred to be in the class than just walking around the center being a guard.

What a Change!

The class three weeks ago... The class now!

Starting to work with them

After a few classes of observing the students of 4th of ESO we had the chance to participate in an activity with them.
Since each Monday the group is divided into smaller groups, we could talk and help them in a much more personal way.
One of the activities they had to do was to create a leaflet or a poster about a city. They could choose the city they wanted, the best part of this activity was that since all the students come from different parts of the world, the posters created were all different!
At the beginning, I was a little bit upset because the students didn't bring any material to the class to work with. The vast majority of the students had to spend the hour looking for information on the internet. The good part is that at least they could work on something, because if this had happened when I was a student of 4th of ESO I would have stayed watching what the rest of the class was doing since we didn't have internet or computers. However, they used the internet properly and they looked for information about their cities.
The next class they had to bring the poster or leaflet with them and make an oral presentation. I was very surprised because all of them brought the material! They all created a very nice poster... I was so happy! And the oral presentations were also very good. They all worked very hard and in the picture you can see one of the posters.

My First Week

About three weeks ago I had my first meeting with my tutor. We arranged hours the best we could since she is only teaching 9 hours per week. However, everything was sort it out in a good way.
I was assigned 4th of ESO. However, I also had the chance to observe "Batxillerat" and a little group of 1st of ESO.
As a first experience, I was a little bit scared, or rather, I didn't know what to expect, but to be honest I was nicely surprised.
4th of ESO is a very nice group. They might not be experts in English but the classes have a good atmosphere... and I think this is good when working with a group. Not all of them have the same level and I think the problem is there. A few students have a good level and are very active, some others have a low level and try to work hard and the rest have a low level and they do nothing. I am very concerned with the last group. I want them to participate and find out why English is not as bad as they think it is.

IES Joan d'Austria

Well, I think it's time to start talking a little bit about my school. My school is called Joan d'Austria and it is located in the neighbourhood of Sant Marti, in Barcelona.In the photo above you can see two buildings, the one on the right is my school. It looks as if both of them were part of the same school (at least that's what I thought) but it turns out that they are two buildings and two different high schools. The reason is simple: A long time ago one building was for ‘girls only’, and the other building was for ‘boys only’. I told you so, because when I found out I thought it was pretty curious.In this school there are around 570 students and 65 teachers. You can do ESO, Bachillerat or Cicles Formatius and I like it because it has a mixture of everything. In the classes I have followed a lot of students come from different countries such as Cuba, Brazil, Peru, China and many more. This makes classes more interesting and enriching for all the students (for teachers too) and it also contributes to work towards a multicultural competence.

So far so good...

Getting to know how a blog works!

Hello to everyone to my teaching blog. This is my first intervention in this blog created to tell you about my experience as a teacher. I have spent almost 2 hours getting to know how this works, so from tomorrow onwards I will be uploading information about my CAP in "Joan de Austria". I hope you enjoy my stories.