My first week
The very first day was a bit scary… but at the same time I was really happy because the High School in which I would be doing my Practicum was from my city, so I wouldn’t have any problems with transport or the timetable.
I firstly met my CAP mate, Júlia Prat, and after talking for a while we went directly to the English Department where our tutor, Esperança, was waiting for us. In fact, I had never been to IES Lluis de Peguera before, so the building was a labyrinth for me…
After meeting our tutor and seeing the English Department, we went to the teacher’s room where we had our first tutorial and in which I was much more relaxed due to the information that our tutor gave us and to the organization of the whole Practicum. Luckily, our timetable was perfectly compatible with the one of our tutor; therefore, we didn’t have any problems.
Afterwards, our tutor showed us the distribution of the High School and we went directly to an ‘Equip Docent’ meeting of 3rd of ESO as we would be dealing with class 3B. My first thoughts in that precise moment were: ‘Oh! An Equip Docent meeting! Oh my god!’. I was really frightened and even though I just had to listen to it, I was really nervous. Nevertheless, as the decision was really quick, we just had time to sit down and realise we were in a room next to twelve teachers dealing with our ‘future’ group… (I have to say that both Júlia and Esperança seemed really nice and it helped a lot!).
Within that meeting I noticed many different things. First of all, there were all the teachers involved in 3rd of ESO and the ‘Head of Studies’ as a representative of the ‘Equip Directiu’. They talked about different issues. Firstly, they exposed some projects and programmes that the ‘Ajuntament’ was dealing altogether with High Schools; they talked about some meetings they had for the next week; and they talked about ‘La Castanyada’. Furthermore, I knew for the first time that there was a ‘Discipline Commission’ which had to control and revise the behaviour of the different students of ESO (in their case) and they were the ones that checked student’s records. In addition, they used a ‘card’ which worked with points (each card ten points) and depending on the ‘punishment’ the student lost more or less points.
Afterwards, they began to speak specifically about the three different courses within 3rd of ESO (A, B and C) and I paid much more attention to the things related to group B. They said that there was a substitute as tutor and they complained about the fact that some students believed that they had much more authority than the teachers themselves. Moreover, they talked about a specific case in which a student was doing ‘nothing’ and that there was a need to do something. Finally, they talked a bit about the whole working of the class and the different problems brought up by students in tutorial sessions.
The whole meeting was new for me, and the thing that impressed me most was the fact that there had to be a good and competent work team among the different teachers. I thought that organization was a really important issue and that all of them had to know perfectly their own role and contribute in order to create a successful team work. Dialogue was needed, and even though there were some teachers sitting in a sofa a bit apart and talking softly in order not to be heard, most of them maintained a responsible and serious attitude.
24th October: ‘1st Batxillerat’ Class Observation
At last we had our first class observation! I was really excited and that class was justly before the break (from 10 to 11) so the students were active and participative, which made the class easier.
The first thing they did was to check whether the students were at class or not. Then, Esperança introduced as to the students and explained them that for some days we were going to be there doing different things. Then, they corrected some exams they had done in order to see problems and improve the mistakes they had done.
In fact, a method that Esperança used was that if any student had a problem with any word, she or the students translated it into Catalan in order to make it clearer.
The blackboard was perfectly organized and I thought it was a really important visual element, because it helped them to organize their minds as well.
In the second part of the lesson, they did a communicative activity in which they had to go in pairs in front of the classroom and tell the others which things they liked and which things they didn’t like about life in general. This interactive activity was really successful and all the students enjoyed it loads.
The truth is that I enjoyed it a lot.
24th October: 4th ESO Class Observation
Later on, after the break we had our second observation class, in this case with students from 4th of ESO.
It was a special beginning because we were in a class and we had to change into another one due to logistics problems. Moreover, the students were divided into two groups according to their level, and in fact it was ‘b hour’ in which classes are always divided into two.
I was impressed because the behaviour of the students of this class was really different from the one we had seen before. They were really noisy and they didn’t pay much attention. In addition, there were some students who tried to be the main ‘characters’ of the class; and some of them were really impolite, asking questions to the teacher such as: ‘Why do you always asks me this question?’.
The feeling I had with these students was somehow different from the one I had with the previous class. Nevertheless, I think that it is important to find out different groups in different moments in order to learn the reality of the classes.
To sum up, I am really excited according to the Practicum. I am happy because both my CAP mate and my tutor make me feel really comfortable and I am sure that we will all learn a lot with this experience.
I hope you are also enjoying and facing up with new situations!
Irene
The very first day was a bit scary… but at the same time I was really happy because the High School in which I would be doing my Practicum was from my city, so I wouldn’t have any problems with transport or the timetable.
I firstly met my CAP mate, Júlia Prat, and after talking for a while we went directly to the English Department where our tutor, Esperança, was waiting for us. In fact, I had never been to IES Lluis de Peguera before, so the building was a labyrinth for me…
After meeting our tutor and seeing the English Department, we went to the teacher’s room where we had our first tutorial and in which I was much more relaxed due to the information that our tutor gave us and to the organization of the whole Practicum. Luckily, our timetable was perfectly compatible with the one of our tutor; therefore, we didn’t have any problems.
Afterwards, our tutor showed us the distribution of the High School and we went directly to an ‘Equip Docent’ meeting of 3rd of ESO as we would be dealing with class 3B. My first thoughts in that precise moment were: ‘Oh! An Equip Docent meeting! Oh my god!’. I was really frightened and even though I just had to listen to it, I was really nervous. Nevertheless, as the decision was really quick, we just had time to sit down and realise we were in a room next to twelve teachers dealing with our ‘future’ group… (I have to say that both Júlia and Esperança seemed really nice and it helped a lot!).
Within that meeting I noticed many different things. First of all, there were all the teachers involved in 3rd of ESO and the ‘Head of Studies’ as a representative of the ‘Equip Directiu’. They talked about different issues. Firstly, they exposed some projects and programmes that the ‘Ajuntament’ was dealing altogether with High Schools; they talked about some meetings they had for the next week; and they talked about ‘La Castanyada’. Furthermore, I knew for the first time that there was a ‘Discipline Commission’ which had to control and revise the behaviour of the different students of ESO (in their case) and they were the ones that checked student’s records. In addition, they used a ‘card’ which worked with points (each card ten points) and depending on the ‘punishment’ the student lost more or less points.
Afterwards, they began to speak specifically about the three different courses within 3rd of ESO (A, B and C) and I paid much more attention to the things related to group B. They said that there was a substitute as tutor and they complained about the fact that some students believed that they had much more authority than the teachers themselves. Moreover, they talked about a specific case in which a student was doing ‘nothing’ and that there was a need to do something. Finally, they talked a bit about the whole working of the class and the different problems brought up by students in tutorial sessions.
The whole meeting was new for me, and the thing that impressed me most was the fact that there had to be a good and competent work team among the different teachers. I thought that organization was a really important issue and that all of them had to know perfectly their own role and contribute in order to create a successful team work. Dialogue was needed, and even though there were some teachers sitting in a sofa a bit apart and talking softly in order not to be heard, most of them maintained a responsible and serious attitude.
24th October: ‘1st Batxillerat’ Class Observation
At last we had our first class observation! I was really excited and that class was justly before the break (from 10 to 11) so the students were active and participative, which made the class easier.
The first thing they did was to check whether the students were at class or not. Then, Esperança introduced as to the students and explained them that for some days we were going to be there doing different things. Then, they corrected some exams they had done in order to see problems and improve the mistakes they had done.
In fact, a method that Esperança used was that if any student had a problem with any word, she or the students translated it into Catalan in order to make it clearer.
The blackboard was perfectly organized and I thought it was a really important visual element, because it helped them to organize their minds as well.
In the second part of the lesson, they did a communicative activity in which they had to go in pairs in front of the classroom and tell the others which things they liked and which things they didn’t like about life in general. This interactive activity was really successful and all the students enjoyed it loads.
The truth is that I enjoyed it a lot.
24th October: 4th ESO Class Observation
Later on, after the break we had our second observation class, in this case with students from 4th of ESO.
It was a special beginning because we were in a class and we had to change into another one due to logistics problems. Moreover, the students were divided into two groups according to their level, and in fact it was ‘b hour’ in which classes are always divided into two.
I was impressed because the behaviour of the students of this class was really different from the one we had seen before. They were really noisy and they didn’t pay much attention. In addition, there were some students who tried to be the main ‘characters’ of the class; and some of them were really impolite, asking questions to the teacher such as: ‘Why do you always asks me this question?’.
The feeling I had with these students was somehow different from the one I had with the previous class. Nevertheless, I think that it is important to find out different groups in different moments in order to learn the reality of the classes.
To sum up, I am really excited according to the Practicum. I am happy because both my CAP mate and my tutor make me feel really comfortable and I am sure that we will all learn a lot with this experience.
I hope you are also enjoying and facing up with new situations!
Irene
