Primer dia de observacion

1. My Experience and Practicum at Primary School
On June, 2nd in 2017, I started my practicum of ELT in 5th (B & D) grades in
Granaderos de San Martin primary school n° 25 in Santa Rosa. When I arrived,
a mixture of sensations and emotions sprung not only because it reminded me
of the time going at primary school in my childhood and hometown but also
because I was experiencing something new visiting school from other place.
It had been a long time since I did not hear the bustling noise of children
in primary school when they were playing in the patio during the break. They
seemed full of energy and liveliness when enjoying their break as I used to do
when I was a child. Then, when my classmate and I entered the classroom and
the teacher introduced us, children received us very well like the techer
(Jorgelina Rodriguez). On the one hand, I felt so comfortable and I could
notice that despite being restless, the children could work after the teacher
made them get organized and sit down in their chairs. She tried
to catch children's attention by talking in a loud voice suggesting them to sit
down and calling them by their names but she always kept calm and patient,
then she presented the activities and, once they got the instructions, they
started working.
On the other hand, I also felt scared of what in a moment I will have to
do which is teaching in front of the children, trying to keep the class under
control and providing useful interesting activities to them as Jorgelina does.
One of the activities she gave them were related to personal information in
which they had to answer questions about their names, age, favourite colour
and then, they had to draw and complete a chart with personal information of
a famous person whom they admired a lot. The idea was that they could
complete a chart with the similar answers by coping from a model, this would
help them to start developing writing English skill so that they can produce a
short sentence in a correct word order in English then. I could notice that
Jorgelina did not explain the grammatical rules of the language but rather,
she explained how to produce it correctly in a more explicit way and
they practiced this excersice quite often along the clases. Little by little,
children learned vocabulary and how to use it within short complete sentences.
Moreover, the idea that they could choose someone to draw and give personal
information made them enthusiastic to work because the excersice was
connected with their likes and interests, for example a student chose his
favourite football player, Lionel Messi. The next activities had to do with a

2. song about school objects and numbers and a recording about personal
information, these activities promoted the listening and reading skills since in
both cases they had to circle the correct option that was mentioned in the
audio. Children appeared very motivated and focused on them as they showed
their learning with positive results.
Another activity I found appealing is related to that the teacher draw a
net with numbers and blank spaces on the board in which they were invited by
the teacher to participate asking them "One Volunteer, please" and the
children seemed willing to participate. This activity I liked because it
promoted participation and learning of numbers in English and pronounce them
aloud. The last one consisted of a dictation that applied a revision about all
the contents seen along the last classes such as school objects, colours and
numbers. Dictation promoted the development of listening and writing skills as
well, since the teacher dictated a short sentence that they had to write on a
sheet of paper, for example she dictated "Two blue books" and children had to
write it down. As they still do not know very well how to write in English, the
teacher let them look up the words in their booklets so that they can know
how to write each one. Most of them were able to identify what she was
talking about. They seemed completely engaged with the activity that day and
their attitude showed how much they have learned while enjoying. Finally, in an
activity they had to work with maths, some of them claimed that the
calculations seemed extremely easy to do, this happened because they were
learning numbers from 0 to 20.
After that, the next day children begun to socialize quickly with us. They
appeared gorgeous even though not all of them came in contact with us. They
asked us our names, age and greeted us with a kiss.
All in all, I can say that I feel so grateful with teachers, children and
school in general for letting me do my practicum this year there. I hope I can
achieve my goal and learn a lot from them to get my stance as a teacher in
spite of this uncertainty and fear that something new is coming. Perhaps this
fear to the unknown will remain until I face the challenge to give a lesson
and I acquire experience in the classroom by implementing ideas
and theoretical concepts learned from this subject (Practice II).
Grecia Roldán