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.