Minorraren inguruko feedbacka

Ingeleseko ahozko azterketa taldeko eztabaida bat izan zen, gure irakasleak entzule lanetan zeudela. Guri jarri ziguten gaia Minorraren inguruko feedbacka ematea izan zen. Beno, egia esan, borobilean eseri eta Minorrari buruz ordura arte esandakoaz gain beste ezer gehitu nahi ote genuen galdetu zigutenean galdera izotzaldia urtzeko sarreratxo bat zela ulertu nuen, eta "benetako" azterketako proba ondoren etorriko zela uste nuen.

Gauza da ez nintzela oso gustura geratu eztabaidaren emaitzekin. Ikasleon aldetik feedback negatiboa egon zen ia bakarrik, eta esan zen gauza positibo bakarrari heldu eta hori pixka bat landu beharrean, segituan eman zitzaion buelta alde txarra bilatzeko.

Gure irakasleek ez zuten ia hitz egin, guk hitz egiteko momentua zela adierazi zigutelako. Irakasleen artean gure iritziek izan zuten harrera argitzeko, haien hitz batzuk ekarriko ditut hona. Ez ditut hitzez hitz gogoratzen, baina honelako zerbait izan zen:
A: Tira, ba zuen kexa horiek guztiak idatzi egin beharko zenituzkete eta "B"-ri bidali - ezkerrean zuen irakasleari zuzenduz - zuzendaritzako taldeko kidea baita.
B: Beno, agian "A"-ri bidali beharko zenizkiokete, bera baita Minorreko zuzendaria.
A: Zuzendaria ez, koordinatzailea.

Hori guztia irribarreen artean esan bazen ere, iruditu zitzaidan ez zuela lagundu ikasleon eta irakasleen arteko harremana hobetzeko eta konfiantzazko giroa sortzeko. Agian orain ez dauka horrenbesteko garrantzirik, ez baitugu ia elkar ikusiko hemendik aurrera, baina ez ninduen ondo sentiarazi, hala ere.

Behar bada feedbackaren inguruan dudan iritzia lanean partaidetza prozesuak dinamizatzetik datorkit. Hain da nabarmena jendearen artean aurpegira botatako gauza negatiboak positiboak baino gehiago direnean prozesuak emaitza garratzak izango dituela, unibertsitateko eragileen arteko harremanak ere arreta berarekin behatzen ditudala, eta antzeko jarrerak ikusten ditut.

egon + egin = izan

Graduko lau ikasturteetan zehar ikasi dugu irakasleak bi lan nagusi dituela: egotea eta egitea. Horrela ulertu dut nik behintzat. Graduko ikasgai guztietan izan dugu aukera egoteari eta aritzeari buruz ikasteko. Hala ere, ikasgai batzuk bereziki zuzendu dira egotea lantzera, eta beste batzuk egitera bideratu dira. Lehendabizikoen artean jarriko nituzke Hezkuntzaren Soziologia, Hezkuntzaren Teoria eta Historia, Irakasle Funtzioa, Hezkuntzaren Psikologia, Eskola Inklusiboaren Oinarriak eta Zailtasunak Garapen eta Ikaskuntzan. Garapen Psikomotorra I eta II egotea eta egitea estuki uztartzen dituzten ikasgai moduan bizi izan ditut nik, baita Ikastetxearen Antolakuntza ere, hiru Practicumekin batera. Gainontzeko ikasgaiak, orokorrean, egiteari buruzkoak izan dira, irakasleren batek edukiak egoteari buruzko gogoeta egitera bideratu bazituen ere.

Ondorioz, esango nuke gradua egoteari buruz ikasten hasi genuela, eta hortik aurrera egitearen inguruko ikasgaiek nabarmen hartu zutela aurrea. Batzuetan faltan bota ditut egotea lantzeko aukerak azken bi ikasturteetan. Nire ustez, zailagoa da egotea lantzea eta hobetzea, eta zailago izate horrek azkenean garrantzitsuago bihurtzen du. Zer egin errazagoa da ikasten, baina nola egin... hori beste kontu bat da.

Bestetik, beldur naiz nire gelakide gehienak ez ote diren azken bi ikasturteetan gehien landu dugun horrekin geratuko, egitea alegia, egotea alde batera utzita. Azken batean, hogeita bi urte dituzunean duela lau urte egindakoa galaxia urrun batean dago.

Whom is your text suitable for?

During the degree and the Minor, we have often discussed how important it is to use texts suited for the audience we intend to reach. I have come across a tool that can help in this sense, a website named "Analyze my writing", which gives a set of readability scores for any sample text you copy and paste into it. It offers details about the readability indices it includes and is very easy to use.

I have given it a try with a quite informal text for my self-assessment on a unit in the Minor, the autobiographical story I told a group of fourth-graders during the school placement, and with a sample from my dissertation, and the scores are quite different.

I think it can be useful to test the difficulty level of texts before taking them to the English class, as well as to check that we are producing the right type of texts for our most formal assignments, like the dissertation.

What next?

The visit we received yesterday from former students who graduated last year raised questions and comments about our nearest future once we finish our degree. In her last words, our teacher encouraged us to continue sharing our practice with other teachers, to discuss, to question, to challenge, to collaborate.

She also mentioned something which troubled me. She told us that she really liked the way Artigal linked things which apparently had nothing to do with education, while he watched a film, an opera, or listened to a song. I picked on her idea of how great it was that he was constantly thinking about education, and I felt terribly guilty, because thinking about work all the time is just the opposite of what I intend to do if I start a new career. Ricardo Semler explains quite well in this talk my reasons for that:

There are two things he mentions which I liked a lot in his talk: the fact that nobody in their deathbed will be wishing they had spent more time at the office, and his advice to ask three consecutive "why"s to ourselves when an automatic answer comes to our minds.

When our teacher encouraged us to do the same as Artigal and to share our experiences with each other I thought "what on earth will I share, that I am some lazy teacher not willing to stay late to prepare some exciting material for I don't know what?". I have friends fighting cancer, others who died even before we finished our first degree. I already regret having a niece who will turn one soon and whom I have seen half a dozen times, even though she lives across the river. I want to try live as if I were to die tomorrow, and to work as if I were to live forever; and not the other way around.

Thinking about it later, I have come to the conclusion that maybe that is what I will have to share: the experience of somebody who tries to be a good teacher and finish work at 16.30 at the same time, which is one heck of a challenge, come to think of it.

Ereindako hazitxo batekin topo

Atzo arratsaldean iloba zaharrenaren bila joan nintzen eskolara, ikasturtean lehen aldiz. Lau eta bost urteko gelan zegoenean bere eskolan egin nituen praktikak, ondoko gelan. Hortaz, atzo haur horietako batzuk ikusi nituen.

Bat gerturatu egin zitzaidan kasu egitera. Ez zuen nire izena gogoratzen hasieran, baina lehen silaba esan nionean etorri zitzaion burura. Sobra ere, nire izena ahaztu arren ni gogoratzen ninduela adierazi nahi zidan, eta honelaxe esan zidan: "zuk egun batean paper bat eman zenidan, eta luma bat zuen itsatsita, eta luma berdea zen", eta jarraitu zuen azaltzen, airean lauki bat marraztuz "honelako baten barruan liburua zegoen, eta horrek zituen lumak". Gero agur esan, eta lagunekin jolastera joan zen.

Aurreko ikasturtean ipuinaren tarterako egin nuen zorroaz ari zen haurra. Haur honek ez zituen ipuinak gustuko, ezta irakurri eta idaztea ere orokorrean. Lau urteko gelan zegoela iritsi zen eskolara eta aurretik ez zuen euskararekin harremanik izan. Ipuinetako hizkuntza zailegi egiten zitzaion ulertzen eta normalean deskonektatu ohi zuen. Ikasle bihurria zen, gainera; beste haurrekin eta irakaslearekin gatazka mordoa izaten zuen horietakoa. Berak eta beste batek ipuina gordetzeko zorroari lumak kendu zizkioten, eta haien apalean gorde zituzten. Baina horrelako sekretuak ezin dira luzean gorde gelan, eta beste haur batzuk azkar etorri zitzaizkidan bi gelakideek egindakoa. Lumak "konfiskatu" nizkien, baina berriro itsastea ez zen posible, eta haiekin positiboa zen zerbait egin nahi nuen. Horrela, erabaki nuen haur bakoitzari praktiken amaieran idatzi nien olerkitxoan itsatsiko niela luma bana. Lumak bildu zituzten biek jaso zituzten txikitxoenak.

Hori guztia gogoratu nuen atzo, haurrak ipuinen zorroa eta lumen kontua azaltzen zidan bitartean. Eta pentsatu nuen haur horrek ipuinak bere gustukoa izan zen zerbaiti lotzeko balio izan bazuen, merezi zuela ipuinen zorroa egin izana. Iruditzen zait norberak atseginez eta gogo handiz egindakoa besteengana iritsi ohi dela, eta horrek eragin positiboa duela.

Closing up on feedback

I am taking it easy during our Easter holidays. I have mainly been practicing some "active rest", hiking and enjoying life outdoors. Four years ago I spent all Easter holidays studying for the university entrance exams, and after four years I deserve some rest, I need it, and I also owe it to my family. And I still can't believe I need to justify that to myself; self-imposed duties are too deeply rooted in me, and when it comes to rights, I am always last, and those closest to me come the ones before last... Just the opposite of what it should be.

Anyway, back to the diary. Out last week before the holidays was short, and the last lesson was a bit bumpy, due to changes in the schedule brought by another teacher. Nevertheless, we managed to close the feedback on the lesson we have been guiding, and to close off the unit before the Easter break. We changed the dynamics of the feedback slightly, so this time each group mentioned one thing they liked about each presentation, and one thing they would consider for improvement; then, the next group did the same, and so on. And our teachers also reduced the amount of aspects they mentioned as feedback. Before starting with the feedback on the last two groups, they did a general round up of all the lessons we have had, and they stressed that the outcomes were very good, that there has been a great improvement since the previous lessons in the first term, and that we all had to be very happy with our work. They also reflected on how feedback needed to be in order to be the most effective, and mentioned that they are still working on it, since they had noticed that some of us had felt a bit down after the feedback sessions.

I intend to close the topic on feedback myself, for now at least. Feedback and assessment have really interested me during this last term, and I have been thinking on why this was. I have come to the conclusion that my interest is mainly due to wanting to improve as a feedback giver. Being on the receiving end of the feedback process has helped me a lot to realise how much I have to improve when I am on the other side, and I have learned a lot.

To finish with my reflections on feedback, I would like to mention a very interesting point, which was made by one of our teachers during their reflection on feedback in general. When our teachers commented on the fact that they have tried to give us the maximum amount of feedback on our lessons, so we could learn more on the things we need to improve, and how difficult it was to do that while maintaining our motivation at the same time, one of the teachers mentioned that novice teachers make the same common mistakes. At that moment, I didn't think about it, as we continued with the feedback on the last two lessons, but that comment came back to my mind in the following days. It seemed to me that it implied that one of the objectives of feedback, maybe the most important, was for them, as experienced teachers, to point out mistakes in our lessons, so we could avoid them when we become teachers ourselves. That seems to make a lot of sense.

Then I thought of a different situation which resembles this in a way; let's imagine somebody very experienced in life giving advice to somebody much younger, maybe a grandparent and their grandchild. What would the grandparent's objective be, to point out all possible mistakes one can make in life, so the grandchild would know about them and thus avoid them? Is that actually feasible? Is it desirable?

I would say the grandparent might want to make the grandchild aware of some fatal mistakes, the sort of mistakes which will not allow them to grow in life, because those are the only ones which one really needs to try to avoid, and which might be feasible to actually pass on. To me, that is the real objective of feedback: to promote growth, to create conditions for that. Not to avoid mistakes. And, as a feedback giver, you always need to ask yourself if you are "watering" the plant just right, so it will grow at its natural rhythm, or you are trying to "speed up" its development using too much fertiliser.

Coming back to the feedback session we had that day, the things we mentioned are very similar to what I had written right after the two lessons, but there was a very interesting idea which I hadn't picked on, and I think is very important: the second lesson, the one on children's worries, dealt with highly emotional topics, which must be handled with care. The teacher needs to take enough time to give adequate emotional support in an activity where children are sharing personal concerns, so children will feel that their concerns are being given the importance they have for themselves, and not treated lightly.

It was also interesting to see that some of my classmates found the story that was told on the first lesson - a story about Easter eggs, close to the fable of the golden eggs - a bit too childish for fifth graders. It's funny, because I didn't, and some other classmates taking the degree on pre-primary teaching didn't either. I think that the last cycle of primary is a great moment to bring fairy tales, fables and other classics to the classroom, because children at that age enjoy discussing ethical and moral issues, and those stories are full of them. If we don't want students to feel treated as if they were toddlers, we can use versions containing "different" illustrations. Here are a couple which came to my mind, from Rébecca Dautremer and Marcia Brown:

Finally, we also took some time to give our teachers feedback on the experience of preparing and putting into practice lessons with "real children". We all agreed that it was a very good experience and a great chance to receive feedback on our practice, and that even if it involved a great effort to organise it, it was worth it with no doubt.

Our last lesson before the holidays started with a warmer called "hidden sentence", which was a lot of fun. It could be used in the English class once students begin to be fluent enough to produce a short dialogue on a given topic. We also went into some practical aspects about the last lessons after the Easter break, our teacher gave us very useful information on summer courses and options to continue training after we finish the degree, and we also discussed the items we should include in our self-assessment for the unit. She brought the items that students had used for self-assessment in previous years, and I found it very helpful and reassuring, because we realised we had listed almost the same items as others had.

Lastly, we received some very interesting feedback on the subject from our teacher. She brought back the "contracts" we had designed in groups at the beginning of the academic year, with a column for what we expected from the unit, and another column with what we were willing to offer. I have to say that I had completely forgotten about that. I only remembered it when our teacher called out the members of our group; then I remembered where and when we wrote it, but not the contents. Having the long school placement in the middle of the academic year has made me forget a lot of what we did on the first term, and I think that has caused a distortion in my perception of what we have actually learned. It was fantastic to go back to this lists, because it made me realise that what we have learned exceeds the expectations, but also that we had quite clear ideas on what we wanted to learn in the Minor. To me, this has been one of the best activities we have done in the whole year, because it has given me an accurate measure of what I have learned. I remember I was aware of the accomplishment at the end of the first year in the degree, but after that it was much harder to realise what we were learning each year, because it was built on top of what we had previously learned. I think giving students tools to measure their learning is a great thing, and this activity could also be adapted to the English class.

There is hope for the humour challenged

I can't help but bring this post with some proposals to use humour in the classroom, which are suitable even for those of us who are humour challenged.

I would love to be able to slip jokes when I talk in public, like the man who run a short seminar on speaking in public last week at university, which was meant to help us with our dissertation presentations. Unfortunately, I have no such talent, but I like the advice in the post, because I see things which even I would be able to do. I especially like the idea of having students bring humour into the class. It is always a good idea to invite more skillful people to contribute, and there are always a couple of students who are good at humour in each group.

From the pre-primary teacher point of view, it is a very important subject, as children start to develop their sense of humour in those years, and they enjoy a lot playing with humour. Besides, it helps them greatly to develop their language skills, as telling jokes is a difficult thing where you need to use rhythm, body language, memory, tone and others in an specific way if you want your audience to laugh. And humour is a great way to bond and enjoy life together.

There was a time when I created a tag for cartoons in the blog, and would bring some once in a while, but I haven't done it lately. I should go back to it. Even though it is not suitable for children, I bring a funny monologue by Rowan Atkinson welcoming his audience to hell. It could be used in an English lesson for adults, for instance. It can even be found with captions.

Last two lessons (in the academic year, and the degree)

On Monday, we had the feedback session on the two lessons of the previous week. I agreed with many of the things that were said, but I must say that I didn't agree with a basic aspect: it seemed to me that from the quantitative point of view, the feedback given to the first group was way too negative, whereas the feedback give to the second group was much more balanced, especially thinking of the five-to-one rule that I mentioned in my previous post.

I am not that sure if students go into the depths and subtleties of qualitative aspects of feedback when it comes to interpreting it. At the end of the day, most of the negative feedback that the first group received could be summarised as "you could have taken more risks, be more ambitious", and that doesn't seem a terrible problem to me. I think their lesson was a very good model of what we should aim at when we first start working as English teachers: small steps, but steady. In my opinion, after having made that point clear, all we needed to tell our classmates was: "since you are brilliant teachers, there will come a time when simplicity will not be enough for you, and you will want to introduce more challenging objectives such as...", and then we could have mentioned most of the things that were mentioned in the feedback.

I think that we all lack basic skills when it comes to giving feedback, mainly due to our education system and our culture in general. It reminds me of a sitcom I have been following at times, called Modern Family, where one of the couples, Jay and Gloria, have very different styles when it comes to education; he likes a marine-style with plenty of crude negative feedback, while she believes in being "the wind behind your back, and not the spit on your face" and praises her son all the time. In general, our culture is much more marine-like; we believe that only negative feedback will take you far, when most of the time a gentle wind on our back is so much more effective. I think that we haven't been given enough opportunities to learn how to give effective feedback, and how to take it, just like we don't know how to deal with praise (giving it and receiving it). I say this for myself mainly. I hate coming up with these smart-ass ideas now, when I reflect, and not then, when they would've been useful. Somehow, I have the feeling that reflecting on things doesn't take me half as far as I would expect and like to.

Well, let's continue. A very useful remark that was made during the feedback session, which is something that we have been told several times during the Minor, but is nevertheless worth repeating is the fact that the shorter the message (input), the harder it will be for the student to understand. So, when it comes to language learning, simple is not necessarily short. It might be a good idea to have short activities, but not short messages (unless they are well known from before, such as short imperatives like "stand up").

And now, it is time for the reflection on the last two lessons. I have to say that what I have been writing down on the lessons was meant to be a collection of notes for myself; I would never give that to my classmates as feedback. As a matter of fact, I have hardly mentioned any of the negative feedback I have been writing down in our feedback sessions. Usually, what I did was think of the one thing I thought could have really made a difference in that particular lesson, and choose that one as the thing to say in class, if nobody else pointed it out. On the other hand, some of the things I have written down are opinions based on a very personal point of view, which don't need to be in agreement with what others might think, and needn't be mentioned. I would say that others will be shared by most, and those would be the ones worth bringing up.

The first group of classmates changed the topic, but only partly, as in the lesson of the first term they chose Halloween, and now Easter. So, in general, we could say that they have been working on the topic of celebrations. During the academic year we have had some debate over this topic about celebrations coming from other cultures (Halloween, Easter). I have to admit that I don't like them (for now; I am open to changing my mind), and I wouldn't encourage them in my class. The reason is very simple: they are merely a commercial celebration. From the point of view of a resource for education, in the way they have been imported so far, they don't offer much, they are just an excuse to spend money and promote consumerism.

I have to say that our classmates have really made an effort in this sense during the academic year, when they taught us the origins of Thanksgiving, for example. That could be a way to tackle the topic in an educational way, but I am still not sure. So, I have to admit that what I had in mind when I saw the Easter eggs that our classmates brought to us in this lesson was my young niece last Saturday stopping at the windowshop of a bakery in the city centre, admiring the chocolate eggs and saying how much she would love to buy them all. "A dozen "buñuelo", that's what you are going to get from your aunt, miss!", I thought to myself. All my ideals on good education down the drain, while the dragon of traditional education came out of my chest like the alien in the film, only with blazing fire coming out of its nostrils... ha-ha-ha.

Bearing in mind that my opinions on the topic of the lesson should not interfere with the assessment of the lesson itself (how one can actually manage to do that, I don't know), these are the things I liked about it the most:

• They started the lesson posing a problem that students needed to solve. Problem-based learning is good, as we have seen many times along the degree, but too often we use problems with only one right solution, and that is where I think we fail to get the most out of this resource. We should work more and more with problems with multiple solutions, or even with no clear solution.
• They used a video with a real person speaking, who was non-native and didn't speak too quickly. This was an improvement compared to what some of us had done in the previous lessons.
• They carefully picked the story in order to avoid introducing religious matters in the lesson. I learned about this after the lesson, when we commented on the lesson with the group, and I think it is a very good thing to consciously try not to influence on your students' beliefs and values in that way. Taking into account gender, culture, ethnicity, religion and other aspects when planning a lesson is very important, and our classmates showed great consideration towards their students in this respect.
• They used visual support to tell the story, applying what they had learned during the school placement (similar puppets to the material in Artigal). I liked the poster and the puppets.
• They gathered students sitting in a circle to tell the story. This helps so much more to achieve close interaction and ensure attention. Even in 5th grade of primary, it is a great idea to sit in a circle to listen to a story. That way, also, you avoid the problems of images or text being too small to be clearly seen from the desks in the far end of the classroom.
• They made groups randomly, based on the colours of the stickers they had given students. It is a good thing to alternate between letting students make their own groups and pushing them out of their comfort zone. Still, in general, I think it is better to let them organise groups themselves, because it is an activity which yields a lot of learning. The only time when the teacher should take over is when they observe that some students are being left out, or when the grouping criteria followed by students leads to very homogeneous groups where not much learning will take place. Again, discussing and reasoning about these matters with students before making groups can be a great way to avoid such problems.
• They used a song proposed by students as a formal ending for the lesson, which was really nice. Not only was it nice, but it also left a final feeling of competence in the students' minds, which is always a good thing, as we have been told that the last memory is what we most vividly remember.

Among the things I liked less, or I would take into account if I were to use this lesson in the future, I would mention the following:

• The origin of the problem was a message that our classmates said they had received from someone who was visiting for Easter holidays, and it happened to be a king Charles III. It didn't sound too real. I would rather use more realistic proposals.
• Our classmates didn't manage to handle the video not working as well as some other classmates. The three of them were silent while they tried to get the video to start, and they could have used that time to review the problem and the context. It is easy to say, and difficult to do, but others have managed, so it can be done!
• As it has happened with some other lessons, there were things to improve in the quality of input (writing "Charles's castle" and pronouncing it /iz/ instead of /isiz/ and more basic errors). Some of them could be prevented just learning what we have been taught during the year, such as the example I mentioned. The video of the king talking didn't offer much input quality either.
• There wasn't much excitement in the storyteller, as if she didn't like the story much. If you don't like the story, it will be impossible for your students to like it.
• It was a bit strange to use inferring questions while telling the story. It would have been just fine to ask what the students thought would happen next if the teacher had been reading a story, because the audience could think that she didn't know the answer herself, but being as it was so clear that she did, it seemed a bit awkward to me. I would use those questions only when reading aloud, and not when telling. In the latter, I would use more "why" questions.
• Some of the activities were not very well linked; they seemed to have no purpose, like when one of the teachers came in with an Easter egg drawing and read the clues on the back. At that time, it made no sense and lead to nothing, and only later did we realise she had given us a model of an activity that would come later on. I think models work better if you actually make it explicit that they are an example of what students are meant to do.
• Most of the activities worked on receptive skills, and in 5th grade of primary students are already quite articulate, so it might be more challenging to propose activities to work on their productive skills.
• Just like most of the lessons have not managed to finish on the given time (30-35 minutes), this group finished too early (just a bit over 25 minutes). They didn't go particularly fast over the activities, which means that they could have added maybe one more. Children could have written a letter to king Charles III, telling him what they had found and where, for instance.

The second group of classmates had the same group of students, with whom one of our classmates had done the school placement, as we all had an opportunity to find out when they sang a farewell song to her in the end. This group of classmates also changed the topic of their lesson (they had parts of the body in the first term), because they found no way to adapt it to the age of students. I have to say that I loved the topic they chose - children's worries - because it should lead you to a student-focused lesson almost without noticing, and it offers plenty of opportunities for communicative activities. These are the things I liked the most in their lesson:

• They used a real problem. That caused other problems (the video being too hard to understand), but I think that using real material and real tasks is very important to increase student engagement.
• They underlined the topic of the lesson with the written material that was on the wall. Visual support is very helpful, especially for those students who get lost easily.
• They explained the three steps of the task very clearly, and explicitly marked the transitions from one to the next, so students knew at all times where they were. I like that, because it gives students control over the lesson. 
• They alternated activities in pairs and in the large group. Mixing different types of grouping during the lesson helps greatly changing rhythm and provides opportunities for all students to participate.
• Again, like in the previous lesson, students were sitting on the floor. This informal setting helped them loosen up, I think, and created an adequate atmosphere to discuss personal matters, such as worries. Spatial aspects have such a great influence on the outcome; much greater than we often realise.
• They provided an structure to organise and classify worries in several types, and also to arrange them according to their importance. It was visual, clear and simple, and made with unsophisticated materials. I liked it a lot.
• They showed a map to locate the country for the comparison on children's worries, and also another video. This last video had no words, only music, and it was nice to include an element of little language difficulty into the lesson, to diversify rhythm again. In this case, the text was easy (non-existent, as a matter of fact), but provided that the task is challenging enough (putting the story in the video into words, for instance), it can be great for a language lesson. It reminded of the time when I bought a picture book called Journey, without knowing it had no words. When I received it on the post, I thought it had been a complete waste of money, but then I realised its language potential: I could use it to ask children to put words to the story, a perfect excuse to produce output. Depending on the age, children will need some help (maybe taking turns in "reading" the story), but stories with no words are a great resource to learn language.
• One of the teachers insisted on students talking in English, instead of giving the Spanish translation of new vocabulary. She said it firmly, but in a very friendly way at the same time. I thought that she got the right tone, and children answered wonderfully to her demand. She only needed to ask for it twice, and students automatically did a small click in their minds and spoke English after that. It can be as easy as that, really, so we shouldn't give up before trying. Never.
• They gave a proper ending to the lesson, with the picture they took for the researcher that had brought the problem. They closed the circle, and it all ended well, with a sense of accomplishment and a group activity. After that, children sang to the classmate who had been with them during the school placement, which was very nice too (personally, I wouldn't have liked that to be done in front of all my classmates). It was a good chance to think of activities which a teacher can propose to thank a trainee teacher, and promote language learning at the same time.

The things that I liked less, or I would bear in mind if I put this lesson into practice are the following:

• At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher let students get away with translating into Spanish all new concepts. She should have changed her strategy. Instead of asking "what does "worries" mean?" or "what is a sociologist?", she should have asked them to explain it in other words, or to give examples, and insist on students speaking in English. As another of her groupmates proved, she would've succeeded.
• The video was difficult to understand, mainly because the researcher was reading, instead of talking freely. I wonder if adding English captions would have been enough for students to understand, because they weren't that far off. I think I would've given captions a try, and see what happened.
• The teachers gave no explanation on what worries are. I think it would've been good to give examples or a short role play to show the central concept of the lesson explicitly.
• Students read the card with their worries to the teacher, not to their classmates. The teacher asked them to read louder once or twice, but I think she should have insisted more on it. I like the idea of students embracing a very basic concept: they are doing the activity for themselves and their classmates, not for the teacher to mark. Driving them once and again towards the real purpose of activities is vital, in my view.
• After watching the second video, the one that had no voice, the teacher made some questions, and students raised their hand to ask for turns to answer, but the teacher ignored that and let students speak freely. Nothing happened, because they were very well behaved and waited for others to talk, but the teacher missed a golden opportunity to arrange turns. If students have acquired a good habit we shouldn't encourage them to lose it!
• Towards the end of the lesson, after the second video, our classmates drifted and changed the topic altogether, from children's worries to moralizing on how we should help the poor. I found it awful, I have to say. Contrary to the previous group, who made an effort not to impose their values and beliefs, this group failed in that sense, in my opinion. The last part of the lesson was a collection of clichés, in my view, and they weren't brought forward by the students, but forced by the teachers themselves. This is something I strongly think should be avoided.

One final remark on the worries children had: what on earth are we doing soooo wrong in education, when 10-11-year-olds are only worried about exams? One of them mentioned his grandfather being ill, a couple talked about having a job (normal in the recession we are currently facing), and another one mentioned having no friends and being alone. The majority only mentioned exams. On the one hand, it is good to know that children have their most basic needs fulfilled, but this obsession about exams doesn't sound healthy at such a young age.

Reflections on feedback and motivation

Last week, when I wrote about the lessons that we had watched during the week and about the feedback that we give to each group, I tried to look for information on a very basic question: what is the right ratio of positive to negative feedback? what is the most effective?

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to time to research on the issue, and I had to finish writing my diary without dealing with it. This week, I stumbled upon an answer, in the form of a post in a blog I follow (not that it means I can read every post...) titled Strategies for helping students motivate themselves. The author claims that you need a ratio of positive to negative feedback between 5 to 1 and 3 to 1 in order to promote healthy learning. The problem is that when you pull the thread of the "extensive research" that he mentions as a source for that statement, you find evidence coming from business management and academic research subject to recent controversy, which doesn't seem that "extensive". Still, even if the main reference were Gottman's five to one - as being the ratio of positive to negative interactions that a couple needs to accumulate over time in order to remain married - I'll say I buy it. It makes sense to me, and no harm can come from it, even if the author doesn't provide solid proof of the exact extent of its benefits.

So, if you want to help your students becoming successful learners, when it comes to giving feedback, you should have the 5-to-one ratio in mind. And the same goes for your partner, friends, employees, workmates etc.

There are more things that I liked in that post, though. Autonomy, competence, relatedness and relevance are concepts I had already come across in the little reading on motivation I have been doing for my dissertation, and I totally agree with the idea that teachers should focus on feeding the intrinsic motivation of students, rather than using extrinsic motivators. I liked the idea of providing cognitive autonomy support through open-ended problem solving, and I especially liked the proposals around making thinking processes visible. I found this last idea absolutely inspiring for teachers in general. From the language learning point of view, it can be very helpful to promote communicative activities in the classroom.

Another thing I really liked from the post, which is closely related to feedback, was the recommendation to praise effort, instead of intelligence (aptitude, outcomes). The statement by Carol Dweck on the fact that praising intelligence takes people to play conservative because they don't want to risk their "genius" status is very revealing. On the other hand, a student who tries hard is bound to succeed sooner or later, and will be much more resilient when it comes to facing obstacles.

Whereas I see the other three concepts absolutely related to intrinsic motivation, I have my doubts about relevance. Too often we use relevance as an external motivator ("now, let's see, who can tell me why we should learn English? what will it be useful for in our lives?"). It must be handled with care in order to use it right and improve intrinsic motivation.

Reflections on lesson planning

These last weeks we have been dealing with lesson planning in all of our units. We have been planning and putting in practice lessons ourselves, and at the same time we learned Penny Ur's guidelines for ordering the components of a lesson plan from her book A course in language teaching: practice and theory:

• Put the harder tasks earlier
• Have quieter activities before lively ones
• Think about transitions
• Pull the class together at the beginning and at the end
• End on a positive note

By all means, Penny Ur's guidelines are essential, and I would say that the easiest ones to tackle as a novice teacher are the ones about ordering the activities (putting harder tasks earlier, having quieter activities before lively ones, so the teacher will not have to make a great effort to calm the group down). On the contrary, I find that managing transitions in such a way that the overall outcome will feel balanced and harmonious, and the lesson will flow naturally, is much harder at the beginning.

Especially in pre-primary, I see a lesson as a unit in time and space, when and where the teacher must create an atmosphere which will resemble a big balloon that holds the whole group inside. It is the teacher's task to blow this balloon up at the beginning of the lesson, with the class together, as Penny Ur suggests. This first blowing up is not that difficult, as children are curious by nature and will be interested at first. It is maintaining the balloon with the right amount of air throughout the lesson what is really hard.

Frequent problems are the balloon going flat because the lesson lost momentum, or bursting it. In my experience, based on what I have seen and done myself during my school placements, losing momentum is mainly due to "losing air" during transitions, but also because the teacher decides to maintain an activity after its peak of interest and excitement for students, thus letting it die slowly. On the contrary, "bursting the balloon" is often due to excess of lively activities, excess of stimuli, or lack of ability to return the class to a calmer situation after lively activities. Teachers must acquire the right skills to manage these situations gracefully, monitoring the class to know when the balloon is deflating, in order to pump in some air, or when it is so tight that calming down is essential for it not to burst.

Certainly, knowing what the teacher should do is one thing, and managing to do so is quite another. Only experience, together with determination, will train the teacher in this sense.

Not-so-graceful knockout and more lessons

This was a long week, and there are lots of things to comment on. On the one hand, we received the feedback on our last week's lesson and, on the other, we had four more lessons conducted by our classmates.

I will start with our knockout. This is one of those times when you wish you never wrote a diary, because you feel like you would like to swallow up all your words. So bad, that it is even funny. Our teachers' and classmates' opinion on the lesson had little in common with my impressions. These are the things they liked:

• Our general attitude or style as teachers.
• The way we started the lesson, especially with the skirt full of pockets (there we agreed).
• The way we ended the lesson, with a farewell song.
• We only used English.

The list of things they didn't like was much longer:

• The quality of the audio in our story, the fact that we spoke too fast, and the difficulty of the language. Also, we got the impression that overall the video was perceived as being a bit tatty.
• The topic itself, whatever each is good at, was seen as not adequate by some. Also, introducing the structure "to be good at" was considered a bad choice.
• The story itself was difficult to understand.
• It would have been better to tell the story ourselves, without using audiovisuals.
• Asking children to fix their attention on what each animal in the story was good at was a bit too forced.
• Our explanations about what is to be good at something, the examples we gave, weren't understood by children.
• Children didn't understand our instructions about how to play the game either, although the picked it up when we started playing.
• They thought we helped children too much or too soon when they were doing the game.
• When each pair had their turn to solve a challenge, the rest got bored.
• Watching the video with the story didn't help children when it came to play the game. They used the cards we gave them with the animals to check what each was good at.
• Asking them to teach us a goodbye song in the end was a bit risky, because what if they had said they didn't?

I didn't have much time to think while they gave us the feedback, but two flashes came to my mind: first, "oh,my god, I have lost my judgement completely, being so happy and excited about the idea of finishing the degree has blurred my mind and I haven't seen any of this", then I felt guilty, because I had actually been the one who proposed to use this story, which had been created previously with another group of classmates. The worst thing is that when the four of us in the group met to discuss the feedback after class, we realised that we had similar opinions about the lesson, which differed a lot from the feedback. The only concern that we had when we prepared the lesson was the speed of our speech in the recording, which we couldn't change because we didn't manage to find another suitable song that lasted over 3 minutes in time to record the voices again. We were also aware that children wouldn't fully understand the story after watching it only once, and that is why the main purpose of the game was to actually be a means to understand the story, with the help of the cards we had given them at the beginning.

The feedback received from the English teacher of the class who came to visit also points out that the story wasn't clear, and adds that we worked on receptive skills but did little about production. It agrees with the feedback we had received in class on several positive aspects (good beginning and ending), as adds a few more positive things: we gave good input, the topics were adapted to the age of students, and the materials and resources were adequate.

The group that did their lesson after us, with the same group of children, received much more positive feedback, even though they didn't have a good impression themselves (funny world, the opposite that happened to us!). The emphasis was placed on how good their story was and how well they told it taking turns the three of them, which I totally agreed with.

Of course, it was a pity to end our group presentations in the degree with a failure, because the four of us agreed that this was the most negative feedback we had received so far, but I won't complain one bit about it, because I believe that failure is essential for learning. I was an undergraduate student at this university 25 years ago, and comparing to those times (I know it is almost prehistory for my current classmates), one of the few things that I feel has changed for worse is the fact that students are given very little opportunities to face failure nowadays. The other bad thing, and this has remained the same since back then, is that the university is an institution that has no will to learn; as a matter of fact, it refuses to learn and puts all sorts of obstacles to learning as an institution. But that is another topic altogether.

Thankfully, I have failed in all possible areas of life - personal, professional and academic - so I know it is not nice, but it can be good, if you learn how to deal with it. Also, I know that thoughtful teachers give negative feedback in the quantity that they believe the student can handle, which turns the whole picture into something actually positive.

Next, we will have to design a set of five activities or so before the end of the term, and describe the procedure to put them into practice in class. We were given the choice to link those activities to the lesson we had prepared, but considering the negative feedback we had serious doubts about whether we should continue with the activities we had already started to outline, or drop the idea altogether. On the other hand, this story was really inspiring for us, and it made us think of all sort of exciting activities which we thought were worth sharing. It is hard to draw the line between not giving up, and being plainly stubborn.

So, after discussing in the group during the week, we have decided to try to improve the story as much as we can, to finish designing the activities we had originally thought of, bearing in mind the aspects that were pointed out in the feedback, and we will also develop some ideas for activities linked with the lesson we prepared during the first term, which received far more positive feedback. A compromise between not giving up on our ideas, and acknowledging that when all the rest agree on something, and it is only the four of us who don't, no doubt they are right.

But, as I said, we have had four lessons during the week, so there is still a lot to comment on. We had two lessons on Wednesday, and another two on Friday, all of them with different groups of children. The first group on Wednesday had a real challenge: one of the groupmates fell ill at the last moment, which must have altered greatly their plans; the two teachers that accompanied the group of students kept on taking part in the lesson, which seemed extremely rude to me; the group was really loud, which was a big challenge; and in the first activity, their key wasn't attracted by the magnet, contrary to what would've been expected. I think they did very well overcoming those initial difficulties, to be honest. These are other things I liked:

• They gave English names to students, and children loved it. It didn't help much addressing students by their name, because they didn't have enough time to sink into their new identity in only one lesson, but it proved how good the idea is.
• Using science activities in the English class is a great idea. They were very attractive activities. Activities that involve manipulation are very interesting.
• The students were really engaged in all activities.
• Using the surprise factor, with one of the teachers entering the classroom with an urgent problem is also a good idea to use once in a while and break the expected routine.
• The materials that children could use were very clearly presented with large flashcards.
• They asked students to first explain how they would get the key out of the bucket, and then to actually do it; thus pushing them to produce output.
• The activities had a purpose for students, and not just for the teachers; students had to experiment and solve problems, and then explain their outcomes, and that was a wonderful idea.
• The lesson had a closing activity, where students received a diploma after having done so well, Again, if used in every lesson it would lose its strength, but it is a very nice thing to do, and will be especially helpful when the class is learning very challenging content, or is struggling with things that seemed easier. It's a resource to keep in mind when students' motivation and self esteem need a boost.

Among the things that could be improved or things that need careful attention, I would mention the following, and most of them are related to mistakes that I recognise in myself. Actually, more than feedback for our classmates, they would be notes for myself in case I decided to put their lesson into practice in the future:

• It was obvious that saying that touching the water was very dangerous in order to justify that the key couldn't be taken out of the bucket using their hands acted as a powerful magnet. I can't think of a better way to present the activity as a problem that students need to help solving, but maybe it would be more simple to just present it as a challenge with a condition: try to think of ways to get the key out of the water without touching the water.
• It is difficult to speak clearly while acting as being agitated, so children didn't understand what the teacher who came in with the bucket said. As a general rule, I think that if one can avoid acting agitated, it is better, unless the only thing that students need to understand is that one is agitated.
• If students had had access to manipulating the materials while thinking and writing down alternatives to get the key out of the bucket, they might have come up with more imaginative results. Also, it might be difficult for some students to postpone the manipulation until all the thinking and explaining is finished. That is something that the teacher will need to adjust to each group of students; it worked fine with this group, but it might not go that well with other groups.
• It would have been a good idea to give a time warning before finishing each activity ("you have 2 minutes left"). We tend to forget that even though we have a very clear idea of how the lesson is going to develop, students don't, and too often we forget to anticipate the change of activities to them. Just like we wouldn't like our teachers at university to give us an assignment and them telling us without notice that the time to finish it is over, we must try to get in our students' shoes and act the same.
• In general, the teachers' style seemed a bit bossy to me, but maybe it is because I come from the pre-primary education degree, and I guess that our classmates who are taking the primary teaching degree probably think that we act childish and a bit like clowns.
• One of the groups didn't get to come to the front and show the rest what they had thought of, because they were told theirs was very similar to the previous group. Children might have thought that it was unfair, because in reality all solutions were very much alike.
• After the students showed their solutions, the teachers explained another option to get the key out of the bucket, using only the magnets. I feel that this went against the task feedback circle that we have learned, in the sense that students were given a task (coming up with a way to get the key out of the bucket without touching the water), and they succeeded, so why did the teacher have to come up with another solution? Students might interpret that their solutions were not good enough, so it is something to use with care. The teacher could have proposed a new challenge instead: "seeing that you did so well, how about an even more difficult challenge: try to get the key out of the bucket using only one type of material".
• The problem of the key not being attracted to the magnet could have been avoided with rehearsal. Another graceful - but very difficult - way to deal with the situation would have been to say something like "I also would expect the key to be attracted to the magnet, should we try with another key?". I myself wouldn't have been able to come up with that solution then and there, but it's an idea to keep in mind for the future.
• As it was pointed out when our classmates prepared a lesson on magnets in the first term, it would have been a good idea to give different materials to each group, in order to create an information gap that would have made students more interested in listening to the other groups' solutions, in both of the first two activities.
• The third activity, going fishing, was very good too, but since our classmates were pressed with time, and it was more complex than the other two, students failed to understand the instructions at the beginning. I am sure that our classmates introduced this new activity so that it would be clear that they had worked on the proposal they did for the first term, but it wasn't necessary. Having three activities made then go over their time, and the lesson would have been just as good with only the first two activities.
• Finally, the quality of input could also be improved, partly with things that can be easily done, such as knowing all the vocabulary involved in the lesson (bucket, for instance).

The second group that morning changed their lesson compared to the proposal for the first term. It was also a lesson around science activities, so all the positive aspects pointed out for the previous group on the topic are also valid for this one. This time, it was a lesson around density, floating and sinking. One of our classmates had done her school placement with the group of students, so we expected them to feel very comfortable and spontaneous. The things I most liked from this lesson are the following:

• They used an autobiographical story, which sparked students' interest (well, maybe not that much this particular group of students' interest, as they seemed quite a challenge in that sense, to be honest).
• Our classmates stayed each with one group of children, monitoring, giving input and helping them.
• They involved students in the activities, although maybe they could have given them more leading and protagonist roles.
• There was group discussion and teamwork involved in some of the activities.
• All activities were very well linked with each other, in the sense that each lead straight into the next; as a matter of fact, so directly that it seemed too much of a coincidence, but I will come back to that in the end.
• Students got to manipulate objects after having expressed their hypothesis, in order to test if they fulfilled or not. Again, chances to manipulate are a great source of interaction in the classroom.
• Even though the video about the experiment of throwing a bowling ball into different waters was difficult to understand by the students, the task that was proposed to them (identifying the types of water bodies where the ball was thrown into) was achievable. As a matter of fact, even if students didn't understand a word that had been said, they could still answer.

I would point out the following as aspects to improve or to bear in mind when putting into practice a lesson like this:

• The autobiographical story was only partly believeable, as some of the objects are not usually carried in a handbag (a stone, clothespins). Making the autobiographical story as truthful as it can be is an important aspect in my opinion, because otherwise students can think that the teacher is pulling their leg or taking them as very gullible persons.
• No time warning to finish the activities was given, and it would have been very helpful.
• Some of our classmates sounded a bit bossy, but my impression could be linked to what I explained above.
• Even if students did the testing on the first activity in groups, they were given an individual sheet to complete a table. That could have been done in groups too, leading to more interaction and negotiation among them.
• Students hardly participated, produced very little output, and showed no enthusiasm at all. This surprised me, as from what I have seen in my school placement the last cycle of primary is when students start producing much more, after having worked on their receptive skills for some years. But maybe that only happened in the school where I was, and is not a general thing.
• Students had no purpose of their own to do the activities, except for maybe the first. It was more a collection of demonstrations conducted by the teachers than activities where the focus was on students. Students were like the magician's helper in the circus.
• It would have been nice to have a more formal ending activity. Maybe there could have been something that made them return to the opening story, as a way to close the circle, or something like that.
• This group also went over the time limit set for the lesson. The lesson could have been just as good with one less experiment, really.

Finally, it was a bit awkward to see that even though students participated and produced little, when they did, it was with exact terms in response to very open questions. Students answered "sink", "shape", "density" and "Dead Sea" to the open ended questions almost immediately and, at the same time, they didn't seem to be fluent at all in English. It seemed like they had either worked on this topic before, maybe in their regular Basque lessons, or they knew beforehand about the lesson they would be doing. Some of us in the audience had the same feeling but. of course, we could be wrong, and maybe they felt especially shy for some reason, and didn't show how fluent and accurate they really were. Even if the lesson was a repetition of something they had already worked on, or if they had received prior information, that wouldn't change the fact that the activities were very good and could easily be put into practice making students the protagonists. I find more intriguing what would bring a group of very good classmates, capable of designing an excellent lesson, to try to have a perfect lesson. Would something like that happen if you got too carried away by the experiments you came up with, and tried to do them all in the same lesson, thus needing perfect transitions and having to do them all yourself not to waste any time? would it be excessive pressure to produce a lesson where everything comes out well? excessive competitiveness towards your classmates?

The first lesson on Friday morning was prepared by a group of three classmates. They maintained the topic chosen for the first term (things we are good at, and things we are not good at), but only partly, because they also introduced the circus topic. These are the things I most liked about the lesson:

• They had three corners in the classroom, and each corner had a different activity lead by each of them. Therefore, children were doing different things at the same time. This is a very interesting idea.
• Our classmates introduced a drawing activity to synthesise and express what had been learned during the lesson. This is a very good idea too: having a final activity that will round up what has been learned, and using means other than writing to summarise. For the younger students, drawings offer a great support to later on explain ideas with words, because the rest of students have a visual source of information which complements what is often hard for the student to express orally.
• Students were encouraged to interact with the audience, thus multiplying the opportunities to receive input during the lesson, and to produce. That was a very good idea.
• Those students who had finished drawing started to rehearse for the show, while the rest were given time to finish drawing. Having an activity for those who finish early is also a very good idea.
• They had a formal ending for the lesson, with the show they put up for the audience.
• The topic, a circus show, is very attractive and rich. It offers opportunities to design an awful lot of activities around it.

These are the things that could be improved or I would bear in mind for the future:

• Having no name stickers for children was a pity, because it didn't allow to personalise the lesson and diminished the interaction among teachers and students.
• Acting agitated at the beginning of the lesson caused the message not to be understood, especially because it had to be inferred by the part of the telephone conversation we could hear. As a result, students didn't understand the purpose of the activities they were about to do during the lesson. I would chose another way to explain the problem in a simpler manner.
• Students changed activities with no time warning, and too quickly. The result would have been just as good if they had remained in one activity all the time, because they would have spent more time on it and in the final show they would have been more eager to see what the other groups had been doing.
• It would have been a good idea to have a song for the rope jumping activity. That would have also helped get the right rhythm, as it was a bit too fast for children.
• Asking students to repeat parts of a sentence they don't understand, like they did in the final show, doesn't help them much. The teachers could have acted as master of ceremonies, and it would have been just fine.
• The lesson had too many focal points; it would have been better to concentrate only on the topic of what we are good at and what we are not that good at, or on the circus, but trying to go for both was to much.
• The amount of activities seemed excessive; students had too many stimuli, and they had difficulty choosing where to focus their attention. Some of the activities could have been saved for further lessons, and it would have been fine too.
• One of the students was left standing for some moments, waiting to perform her hula-hooping, which created a bit of an awkward moment. This proves that it is difficult to distribute duties when several teachers are conducting the lesson, but it usually seems like a bigger deal to adults than it does to children.

The last lesson of the week was prepared by four other classmates. They didn't repeat the topic of the first term exactly, but it was linked to food and based on manipulation all the same, so the essential idea remained. This is was I most liked about their lesson:

• They had a solid structure for the lesson: a warmer to review parts of the body, another warmer to review names of fruit, and an main activity where the vocabulary reviewed would be used. All that in a very creative framework.
• They had both calm and lively activities, with a lot of changes in the rhythm during the lesson.
• The main activity was very creative and manipulative: making a face with pieces of fruit.
• Students were distributed in four tables, standing, with the help of one teacher per table, and doing the main activity in groups of 2-3. It seemed like a very good grouping to me, because making only one face in a group of 4-6 would have been too crowded.
• They had planned to show the result of the activity to each other, so each small group would explain how they did their face, following the model given by the teacher ("a kiwi for the eyes"). They also asked questions letting students fill in the gap ("what did you use for the ...?", pointing to the nose).
• Part of the content was probably known by the students, such as the names of parts of the body and some fruits. That helped students feel confident, as the lesson built up on what they already knew. Introducing some things they already know, and some which are new is very important.
• They had a song with parts of the body to end the lesson, which was very appropriate.
• Getting to eat what they had built was great.
• Students were encouraged to interact with the audience, offering fruit.

The things I think could be improved, or I would take into account in the future are these:

• It was difficult to calm students down after the two initial games, which were increasingly exciting. It is ok, but it just needs to be taken into account.
• It would have been good to review the names of fruits before beginning the second game, because students only used the names of the fruits they already knew. Also, it would be better to play that game on the floor, instead of sitting on chairs, as students get very excited and can hurt themselves.
• It could have been nice to show a model of the face made up with fruit. As a model made with the exact fruits they were given would most probably caused all of them to copy it, another kind of model could have been offered, in order to promote challenging solutions, such as any work by Arcimboldo:

• It was difficult to show the face done to the rest of the class, because if the plates were tilted, the fruits slid. If there were several lessons on the topic, the teacher could take pictures of the faces, put them all up, and then have students presenting them.
• Students didn't pay attention to the presentations of other students. Maybe each group could have created a different part of the body, to introduce an information gap. Alternatively, all students could have been asked to leave their plates on a table, sit down on the floor in a circle, and then have each group present their work.
• Not all groups had the chance to present their work. Maybe the lesson could have had only one warmer, and use the main activity to introduce and review the rest of vocabulary, so there would have been more time for presentations.
• Towards the end of the lesson, teachers introduced a new topic (the number of pieces of fruit we are meant to eat everyday). Students didn't understand the question, as it wasn't related to what they had been doing during the lesson. It would have been better to leave it for another lesson, as the lesson itself was already great.
• Some of the teachers didn't know the final song, which could have easily been prevented with rehearsing.

Twelfth week of my school placement

This is it. Last week of school placement. I can’t believe it.

I have been extremely lucky in my three school placements; the school staff have been so welcoming, nice and helpful there are not enough words to express how grateful I am. They have taken me with them for some weeks, treating me as if I were to stay for good, making me feel like I belong, and they have offered all the help in the world. I am absolutely delighted.

This week was short too, because we had a Bank Holiday on Monday to celebrate carnival. Tuesday was a big day, because I took over one of the English teachers for five lessons (two groups of 4-year-olds, two groups of 5-year-olds, and one group of second graders in Primary). We had planned the lessons on the previous Friday, so everything was organised. The lessons came out perfectly well, and I had no trouble at all. Two of the groups were a bit louder than when both the English teacher and myself are present, but it was manageable. So, I can say I enjoyed it. It must be hard if you happen to have one of those days when someone throws up in the middle of the lesson, or somebody misbehaves really badly, or the whole group goes wild. I guess those are the sort of nightmares us rookies have. In a couple of the lessons I definitely felt warmer than I usually do when the English teacher is with me, but it was nothing that taking the jumper off couldn’t fix.

I have also taken some time to at least get a taste of other things in the school. I attended a lesson with the third English teacher in the school, who teaches in the 5th and 6th grades of Primary. They use a different set of materials, and their lessons are more project-based, closer to CLIL. Besides, the teacher is very different from the other Primary teacher; she has a completely different style. She also uses the materials more freely, and combines materials coming from other methodologies. Today, for instance, they were going to use some materials coming from the Amara Berri methodology, where the teacher had worked before.

It is great to see different styles of teaching. It helps you realise that you can be yourself, that you can (and should) develop your own style.

I have also had the opportunity to experience the free-circulation method that the school applies. I have spent a whole morning with three groups, two on their last year of pre-Primary, and the other one in the first year of Primary, during their free circulation hours. One of the classrooms offers several art activities; the other one has puzzles, building blocks and card games; and the third one has some building games and the reading and writing corner. Each teacher stays in one room, and they rotate classrooms every two weeks, because some children tend to stay where their teacher is. Children choose freely where they want to be, and which activity or project they will pursue. Every day of the week they have several hours in free-circulation. Of course, teachers encourage them to get involved in all activities over time, they help them decide what to do, and they push them to go further in their productions. I have also had a chance to see how the assessment is done, as it is quite different from the assessment if you spend all the hours with “your” group. This system needs very good coordination among teachers; they meet twice every week and discuss about problems that arise, or children whom they particularly want to follow.

Children’s productions created during free-circulation can be taken to other classes to be shown. For example, during the morning I spent with them we received the visit of three four-year-olds who told us the riddles they had created, and several of the children in our class went to other classes to arrange appointments to show their work. I very much like the idea of going to another class to show your work, I think it helps socialise and encourages autonomy and self-esteem. I also liked free-circulation a lot. It multiplies the number and size of corners you can have (compared to staying in just one regular classroom), and introduces variables that bring students to face challenges which you can rarely create in one classroom (a wide variety of choices, and having to select one; opportunities to make friends outside your group; very heterogeneous grouping, since children from two grades are mixed…). I think it is a great idea. Teachers also say that it is a heavy burden for them, and that after some time working like that, many of them end up disliking it for that reason.

Finally, I took some time during the week to give some feedback to the fourth-graders about their comprehension tests on the two stories we listened to. I prepared a rubric for each of them, and visited them in their regular classroom to hand it out. They had never seen a rubric before, and I didn’t want to take much time from their regular lesson, so I am not terribly happy about the explanation. It would have been nicer to go through the whole rubric slowly, so everybody understood, but most of them understood it and they were not that interested, anyway, because they know it is not part of their assessment.

As a final self-assessment on the experience, I would say that when I started the school placement I was a bit concerned because I wasn’t going to be able to do it part-time, like I had done the two previous ones. I thought I would have less time to prepare lessons and to think about the things that would come up everyday. I have certainly had less time to prepare lessons compared with the previous two years, as I had to work at the same time, but the experience has been very interesting, nevertheless. After Christmas, when I started being the leading teacher in the classroom with one of the two English teachers I have spent most of my time with, I have been experiencing more or less what it is like to take over without previous notice and with hardly any time to prepare lessons. I observed the structure of the lessons in the weeks before Christmas, and then I performed them after a very short exchange of information first thing in the morning with the English teacher. So, I was sort of improvising after having read the script a couple of times. And, of course, I had the security of having the English teacher in the classroom; my net. It has been a very different experience compared to the other two, and I think it will prove very useful in the future, because it has given me some confidence at handling a quite frightening sight: going into a classroom after being appointed the day before, like all temporary teachers who work for the Basque Government must do when they receive the call offering a temporary job which inevitably starts the day after.

Eleventh week in my school placement

It seemed like it would last forever, but the last week is here! Oh, and we are all sad to say goodbye.

The week went by quite peacefully. The group in the fourth grade of Primary missed two lessons, which add to some others over the past few weeks. There are weeks when bank holidays, school trips and other events pile up and the English teacher needs to manage those interruptions the best she can. The pre-Primary groups have been doing fine, and they are following the lesson-plans set up by the teacher.

In the last two weeks I have also been attending a group of second graders in Primary, because next Tuesday I will be taking over one of the English teachers, and I wanted to get to know the group a bit beforehand. I took over her once she had a burial to attend, but next Tuesday it will be more intense, because I will have five lessons: two 4-year-old groups, two 5-year-old groups and one group of second graders in Primary. I am happy and excited about this.

The only group where it might be a bit more difficult to perform the lesson will be the first one, because they will have a new pupil in the group, and another pupil who has been away for several weeks will come back. The whole group was terribly excited today about the new friend who will join them tomorrow, and it hasn’t been easy to calm them down and guide the class. Besides, the pupil who will come back next Tuesday has Special Educational Needs and he will most likely need some days to adjust back to school. One of my former classmates, who is doing her school placement with this group, will stay during the lesson to help me manage the group, so I am sure it will go well. This afternoon I have planned all the lessons with the English teacher, so everything is set up.

In the last few weeks I have been working on ways to interact with the groups in such a way that they will follow the planned activities without me having to raise my voice. I hate shouting; I dislike noise, and this school is very noisy. Well, to be fair, ours is a noisy country in general, and this particular school is only maybe a bit over average. The noise is especially bad in the corridors and the stairs. Children are not noisy by nature, I believe; we make them noisy. And we make them noisy mainly by shouting at them. So I am determined to be a teacher with a reasonable tone of voice, but it is not easy, especially when children are used to being shouted at. Still, I think I have made some progress with these groups since I took over the English teacher conducting the lessons. Tranquility is a desired feature for me in a school; it is a condition for learning, and too often we ignore it.

Tenth week on my school placement

This week there is a growing feeling that this is about to end; the countdown has begun and soon the school placement will be over. What a pity! I am having a great time and learning a lot, and after having a taste of what being a teacher is like, I don’t want to leave.

I am happy with how the week went by. My second lesson with the storytelling for the fourth graders didn’t go that well, because the introduction to the story took too long. On the second story, I tried to get those students who usually don’t take part to participate, so I directed my questions to specific students, instead of opening them to the whole group. Since I picked the shyer students, they took much longer to answer, and we spent more time than the previous week in the pre-task phase. So now I know that I need to strike a balance between rhythm and wide participation. Other than that, it went down well. The whole group of students got involved in the two lessons and they took the tasks very seriously. I am very grateful and happy.

The pre-primary lessons were great this week. There is a group where the class atmosphere has been deteriorating in the past few weeks, so I decided to share with the 5-year-old students very clear objectives for the lesson yesterday, and it worked. I gave clear instructions regarding the activities we would do, and particularly about how I was going to mark the transition from one to the next, stressing the words I would use. I was pleased with the result, but we still need to work a bit more to set our routines.

I was also very happy with the way things went in the 4-year-old groups, particularly one of them. Besides modelling the main activity in the lesson (making a collage on a sheet with 8 pictures and their corresponding texts, to create a “dictionary” for the unit) using an example made by myself, this time I asked one of the students to come to the front and we went through all the steps together. Being more explicit than other times might have helped some of the students, because one of them, who usually produces quite poor work, did wonderfully. He was so proud of his work that he kept walking around with it in his hands and didn’t want to collect it.

That incident got me thinking about diversity and high expectations. This particular student that I just mentioned comes from a family of immigrants; one can easily tell by the colour of his skin. Since I first got here he didn’t pay much attention in class, often he would be playing with objects around him or with the student next to him. He wasn’t tidy at all when it came to cutting and glueing or drawing, and he tended to do the minimum effort that would be allowed. I think I was told that he was like that, and I have to admit that I just accepted it. Yesterday he taught me a big lesson. It is easy to talk about highest expectations for all students, but it is much harder to apply that principle being honest and fair as a teacher. A teacher needs to be constantly questioning the opinions given by other and their own opinions, to see if they are honest and fair, or just based on prejudice. Always looking for what will prove them wrong, more than for what will prove them right.

Ninth week in my school placement

This has been an important week, because I did my first session to collect data for my dissertation. I had a one hour lesson with the 4th graders where I introduced the topic of my autobiographical story through an open discussion, then we went through the questions they would have to answer after they listened to the story, then I told them the story, and then they answered the comprehension questions. So, if my questions were not well designed or my storytelling was bad, there is no going back.

Next Monday we will do the same activities, but based on the story of the unit they are about to start. That way, I will have data regarding two different types of stories, told in a different way. Too many factors will differ between both set of data, and being a small case study, the sample will be small, but it should allow me to reach some conclusions, nevertheless.

The pre-primary lessons continue being challenging, as I have taken over the role of the teacher. In some lessons she is not even present, like this afternoon, when she spent the whole lesson in the corridor with a student that doesn’t want to take part. It is her way of punishing the student, but I think he quite likes the attention. Taking into account what we learned on the psychology of education, her strategy shouldn’t work, but we will see. Apparently, the student agreed to take part in the next lesson.

These last weeks I want to concentrate on getting as much direct experience as I can, so I am happy with the way things are turning out. But doing more leaves less time for thinking, that is true, and I can see why it is difficult for teachers to reflect on their practice, because their schedules have no time allocated to that. There is time for giving lessons, preparing them, planning them and assessing students, but there isn’t a slot named “reflecting on what you do, how you do it, why you do it and what for”. But getting time for it is crucial, no doubt. Sometimes, I think that instead of engaging in the trivial smalltalk which generates in the staffroom, teachers would better use that time for “useful” things, like reflecting. But, then again, I think that socialising is also very important, because it can help create a sense of team. I don’t know; today I am too tired to think more clearly, I am afraid.

Hop on the roller-coaster!

Remember I said that maybe an undergraduate dissertation was not going to be tough or long enough to feel like walking through a desert? Well, guess what, I was wrong!!

It's a good thing I wrote about how happy I was with how things were coming out and how hard I had worked over Christmas on Thursday morning, because I turned upside down that very same afternoon, after I received a message from my trainee placement supervisor telling me that I was missing some fundamental points and sending me some relevant literature which made my knees tremble, because the minute I read the abstracts I knew they were those kind of articles where I can only get a grasp of maybe 20% of what is being said.

That takes me to an interesting point as a teacher trainee, as I got to experience myself the kind of feeling that children can sometimes have if you don't plan your lessons properly: plain stupidity. I don't mean ignorance, which is ok. Knowing yourself ignorant is normal; there are so many things to learn in the world and in life that nobody can be expected to know them all, and if you walk out of your comfort zone you are bound to feel ignorant. As a teacher, you can help students use this self-consciousness about ignorance as a pole to learn, instead of a spade to dig their self-esteem in deep hole.

But feeling stupid is quite something else; that's the kind of feeling you get when you are put in a position where what you are expected to understand or to learn is way ahead of you, when the gap between what you already know and what you intend to learn is simply too big and you don't find enough help around you to bridge it. During the degree we have learnt the technical terms related to these questions (zone of proximal development, scaffolding), as well as some of their deeper implications, but the basic idea can be explained in plain words.

During the degree, I have come to realise that teachers know a bit about many fields (psychology, sociology, linguistics etc.) and they apply that knowledge to real situations of learning and teaching in a school. Knowing just a bit about those subjects means that they can only go so far into the details of each field, or they need to take some time to study them in more depth before going any further. That is where the readings that help bridge the gap come in so handy, otherwise you just get caught up in jargon.

Coming back to my roller-coaster of emotions related to the dissertation, it has given me an opportunity to laugh at myself a bit and to reflect on what will most probably happen when I defend my dissertation in front of the committee in some months. My work will be read by (I think) three of our lecturers, who are experts in their fields, and they are bound to ask questions and make remarks based on their knowledge, which I lack. So, I'll have to bear in mind that the purpose of the whole thing will be for me to know what I know about and what I am ignorant about, just that.

And one last thing about this final idea: I have seen that in some other universities, the poster sessions on undergraduate dissertations are held weeks before the written report is to be submitted. In my opinion, that makes a lot of sense, especially from the point of view of assessment. Having the oral defense and poster session in the end, weeks after the written report has been handed in actually turns these two tasks into final assessment tools, whereas if the poster session is held during the process of producing the dissertation, it fits much better in the continuous assessment we are supposed to have. That would also help improve our work, as we would get very useful feedback on our work in a moment when we can actually still change things.