CRITICAL REFLECTION

All over the observations, I have noticed certain aspects that are constantly repeated in each class. These aspects are called “patrones” in Spanish.

The first patron is that students always have to repeat the same motto in English every class when the teacher enters. Also, they always have to use chucks like: may I stand up, can I say something in Spanish, and may I speak Spanish. I realized that the teacher makes them do this since in this way he is eliciting the target language due to the fact that students are allowed to speak their mother tongue when necessary and they are using the L2 as much as they can. This does not mean that the L1 is prohibited, in fact he uses it when he sees that students are having problems.  As he said in the interview “muchas veces los estudiantes no tienen ni alguna pequeña base para realizar las actividades y me he visto en la necesidad de dar las instrucciones en inglés, pero permitirles a ellos que me pregunten en español y yo también responderle en español”. This was evidenced in the first and in the second observation when students did not understand what they were asked to do and he proceeded to give them the instructions in Spanish. This decision is probably made for him too when he notice that the time is short. 

The second patron and which I consider a great characteristic of the teacher is that he is always building rapport; he is always trying to have a good relationship with his students. He always makes jokes or asks students what they like since for him values and the socio-affective part are very important, he states “creo que los valores humanos son fundamentales en cualquier clase”. Besides, he gives them the confidence enough to use English and he does not interrupt them even when they make some mistakes. According to him, errors are not bad “nuestra sociedad ve el error como algo muy negativo, debemos tratar de transformar este punto de vista debido a que el error es algo que nos ayuda a creer.” He also thinks that errors should be corrected but not in public, he said “la corrección es mejor de manera personal y tratar de evitarlo de manera grupal.” He probably thinks that due to the fact that students may feel stressed or their self-esteem will be affected by it if he does it in front of everyone.  According to an analysis “anxiety does cause poor performance, is negatively related to self-esteem, and is directly related to students’ fear of negative evaluation” (Hembree, 1988). That is why, correcting students in front of the class may not be a good idea. The two beliefs of the teacher exposed above are definitely put into practice in the classroom, he barely corrects a student in front of the other students and he is always trying to make them feel comfortable and he treats them as friends and not just as students. 

A third aspect that I noticed, is the way the teacher introduces a topic. For doing so he always use a communicative activity or a warmer-up, this is probably to motivate them and then introduce the new topic, in his words “considero que la motivación es fundamental para que el estudiante se interese y obviamente, después de estar interesado entrar en la enseñanza”. That is why before teaching them the topic “be going to / will” he decided to make them do a role play. 

In general, my personal reflections about the observations and the teacher’s interview has lead me to try to be the best version of me since I will be dealing with kids and teenagers who need not only an academic support but also an emotional support. Learning a foreign language in our context may not be easy but it is not impossible and we can always try to facilitate them the learning through the right teaching techniques.