Journals

Journal 1

This is an experience from an observed class with 8^th graders. When I first step in the classroom with my partner, students stood up, said hello and immediately started to pray the holly father. This make sense to me that students are committed with the language in the sense of memorizing the prayer and also the engagement with the L2 since all the students were active participants of the activity . Something that caught my attention was the fact that the classroom was comprised only by girls. This can be a relevant research in the sense of comparing girls and boys development skills in language learning and teaching. Furthermore, the girls are more outgoing and as a consequence they are more likely to perform activities in which they have to use their body (metalanguage). Though, the success of an L2 to happen is highly plausible.  

Another fact was that in an oral (memorize a prayer) activity they were required to fulfill as a part of evaluation, was that a big percentage of the girls were using their cellphones to practice. Some of them individually and some others in groups. I could realize that students that were working in groups were giving feedback each other and the ones who were working alone, they sometimes ask their partners for feedback as well. Hence, one can say that cellphones are new tools of becoming learning language more attractive and somehow more meaningful. In addition, grouping work is a relevant way for students to learn from each other. Even though they were not told to work in groups they feel that working in such way they could help each other.

Finally, it is seems to me that the teacher is an open-minded person since she allow students to make use of their devices. This is significant when language learning is taking place in terms of teacher development and students performance.   

Journal 2

Well, to start this entry I have to say that I observed the same teacher in the same grade but in a different group. Girls and boys composed this group and the environment was much more intense in the sense of behavior than the previous one. This experience will be addressed to the students behavior rather than the students language performance. First, to set the place, the class was at 2:00 o’clock, and for some reason the teacher had never been before at that time in regular basis. Students were pretty much tired and the heat was just unbearable. The classroom was wide short and the student range were between 32 to 35. Undeniable, that makes even harder the teacher’s job.

The teacher was struggling to keep students focus on the activities they were asked to do. However, students were reluctant to do the first activity. Even though the activity was easy for them to do, they took too much time to do it. They did not expressed themselves about the classroom being hot, but I realized because they were waving their shirts to make themselves coolers. repeatedly, the teacher called their attention and to stay focus on the topic she was trying to give, but they were not like having fun at all.

The teacher was surprised because of the behavior since she had told me that group was one of the best groups in which she teaches. Nevertheless, for me is not a surprise at all. Crowded and small classrooms make the teachers’ job in an almost impossible mission. The secretary of education does not care about having comfortable settings for students nor interested in diminished the amount of students per classroom.  

Journal 3

This is another experience from an observed class. The class was applied in a 7^th grade classroom. The teacher started his class by recalling what they have learned in the previous class. The teacher wrote some exercises and then he wrote in a corner of the board: positive points. I have to say that before the teacher wrote that deep little phrase, students (most of them) were kind of reluctant to participate in the activity. Then, students started to become more active. This totally blow my mind. How can a little phrase be as relevant as it was, and how that phrase just turn around the whole class. This can be taken as an strategy for students to be motivated (for a praise) and to be active agents of the class. Moreover, the fact that the positive points were given in public raise students’ confidence and somehow self-steam.  

The class continue with another activity, and the same strategy was applied. Students were willing to participate keenly. The pace of the class was extraordinary and sometimes it became sort of messy because all wanted to be in the positive points list. I asked my colleague how often he applied this kind of strategy to keep students focus on the topic. He told me that strategy is useful in terms of motivation and keep students under “control” in terms of behavior and that he applied that strategy quite often.

Summing up, I can realize how much relevance students give to certain things we do not pay attention to. However, this kind of methodology may have sort of drawbacks if we use it regularly. Giving an example, what if students do not work if they are not given any positive points. What if students work in class just because of the fact of being benefited with a praise? Some questions arise since this experience: to what extent is it good to give praises to students when performing tasks they are asked to do? What is the limit of giving praises? Is there another kind of reward we can implement besides positive points to motivate students?

Journal 4

This experience was due to a class I observed in a 10^th grade classroom conducted by the same teacher of my previous journal. This short experience is about how old “devices” are reluctant to be forgotten. The class started as a normal class, the teacher explained the activity they had to do, and the students (there were no more than 18 students) followed the instructions the teacher just had given them. I must say before I keep going, that nowadays students are technology fans, and they do not hesitate when it comes to use it if they have the chance to. As soon as the students began the activity they were asked to do, they immediately took out dictionaries , big ones dictionaries. I was shocked because even though they have their cellphones they preferred to use their “paper devices”. I really could not believe my eyes, they were actually looking up words in those old, grey pages dictionaries.

This experience was really attractive to me in the sense of why students would prefer paper dictionaries rather than their cellphones or tablets. What I regret the most, is about not having enough time to ask them why do they use their “boring paper-dictionaries” and not their cellphones. What was the principal fact of choosing their common dictionaries?  Is there any advantage of it?