Final report

Laura González Salgado.

My educational center assigned to perform my observation practicum II, was the

Instituto Politécnico Ireneo Badilla Fuentes, which is located in the city of Linares.

This high school is old in the area and is considered a center with good educators

in the different technical-professional careers it offers. My experience as a student

intern was pleasant, and I remember that the welcome on the first day was

excellent, we were greeted by an English teacher and another student from the

university who was doing her practice there and then we were introduced to

members of the UTP and shown around the campus. During the next few days of

practice, I could notice the methodologies of the teachers I had to stay in the

classroom with, in this case, there were two, the "official" teacher, to put it in some

way, and the replacement teacher. Their methodologies, according to what I could

observe in the students, were accurate, since one, the Grammar Translation

methodology helped students in learning new vocabulary, necessary in their

professional technical career on hotel management, as indicated by Mart (2013)

“The Grammar-Translation method has been considered useful for students in

second language acquisition in that it enriches one’s vocabulary”. And on the other

hand, I observed the Communicative Language Teaching methodology, which

helped students build more trust with their teacher, this being very important within
that classroom, since students needed this type of connection with their teacher to

feel more willing to learn, participate and communicate with each other. According

to Rambe (2017) regarding this methodology indicates that “Accordingly, the term

‘communicative’ should mean ‘to make students communicate’ or ‘to make

students express ideas, feelings or information each other’ in the classroom”, and

that is precisely what this methodology focuses on, on communication among

students, being this what I could observe in the class, that students were more

willing to express themselves.

The activities that were carried out in the classroom were focused on the content

that was being taught throughout the semester, belonging to the "Healthy Habits"

unit. So, these activities were about learning vocabulary related to food, different

habits, what were good and bad habits, daily routines, among other things. This, in

my opinion, helped the students to reflect on their own lives, since many of them

opened up about personal things they were doing that could be damaging their

body and mind, besides, the teacher was also very open in telling her own

experiences related to this topic which, in my opinion, was good because it caught

the attention of the students and they felt more confident with her. Having said that,

regarding the development of the class, something that both teachers did and that

is very important to start the session is to write the learning objective, where, from

both sides they were very clear and showed the goal that was proposed to be

achieved at the end of each session. While, durin g the class, most of the time the

activities were carried out with certain difficulties, since it was difficult to get the

students to always stay focused, but, even so, with the help of the participation of
the majority the class was easier to carry for everyone. And finally, at the end of

the class, although it was not very common for the teachers to give feedback on

what they had learned, they would comment on the importance of each thing seen

during the session and tell them what the next class would be about. These three

parts of the lesson were tried to be carried out as well as possible, and I could

understand that when there is a good relationship between the teacher and the

students, a good learning and a good coexistence can be achieved.

As for the activities, it was through these and the content taught that the teacher

sought to create learning experiences in her students, in order to know which

learning should be evaluated and which should not, being this, in my opinion, quite

related to what the third grade English program says, mentioning that it is correct to

evaluate students only on what they have been able to learn through the

experiences guided by the teacher (Programa de Estudio 3° Medio, 2021). On the

other hand, through this type of activities and interactions with the students, the

teachers could forge something as important as identity and character in them,

seeking to interact through speaking and listening helping to work on English skills,

such as oral communication and listening comprehension, having in mind to

achieve the learning objectives written in the curricular bases of the school level of

their students.

To end this report, I would like to conclude by making a general mention about how

my experience was in this education cen ter where I had to do my observation

practicum II. I can say that the experience was different from the one I had at the

high school where I was assigned last semester. This time I was involved in a more
conflictive school context, in a manner of speaking, in which some students

presented attitudes that did not cooperate with good coexistence and certain

behaviors that stagnated the smooth development of the classes. Of course, this

type of cases can be observed in all educational institutions, and I am completely

grateful to have had this experience, as I am sure that it is a great contribution for

my future teaching. On the other hand, I must also say that I could see positive

aspects, I could realize that although the students used to be easily distracted and

had attitudes that brought some complications, most of them did care about

learning and passing the subject to continue with their studies, which I appreciate

very much. That being said, I know that this experience contributed to my path to

become an English teacher and will contribute greatly in terms of experiences for

my professional future.
 References

Mart, C. T. (2013). The grammar-translation method and the use of translation to

facilitate learning in ESL classes. Journal of Advances in English Language

Teaching, 1(4), 103.

Ministerio de educación. (2021). Programa de Estudio 3° Medio.

Curriculumnacional.cl

https://www.curriculumnacional.cl/614/articles-

140128_programa_feb_2021_final_s_disegno.pdf

Rambe, S. (2017). Communicative Language Teaching. Researchgate.net

DOI: 10.24952/ee.v5i2.1180