Journals

1. Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Primary school
Group: 5th blue
Date: 03/09/2015
Lessonnumber: 1
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
The lesson planning was based on the Communicative approach, in order to develop their
communicative skills through activities that included the four skills: reading, writing, listening
and speaking. The topic was presented following the Presentation-Practice-Production
procedure with different activities related to each step.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
This lesson was student-centered, the aim of each activity was that they identify new vocabulary
from the context, answer questions using their previous and their new knowledge, and
participate every time they want to. I gave whole group instructions using examples, body
language and pictures and then I walked among the students helping the ones that had problems
while developing the activities: I repeated the instruction to the ones that had doubts regarding
it, sometimes changing the words I used the first time in order to make it easier for them; and I
used gestures, body language, pictures or flashcards when they did not remember the meaning of
any words.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
When students arrived at the class and they saw the big and colorful poster they were surprised.
They liked that we used a lot of pictures, colours, different characters and a video/song to
introduce the topic, they made a lot of short activities so they felt motivated to continue working.
While we watched the video, some students danced a little even they were sitting at their desks.
They had a lot of fun while they learnt, in each activity they could include what they had learnt in
the previous one, too. I had to ask for silence twice only when we started one of the activities
(because some students finished it quickly and I asked them to help other classmates so they were
not sitting in their places when I started to talk), the rest of the lesson they paid attention to every
explanation and instruction that I gave them.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
Walking among the students was great as I was able to notice particular problems and to help
them individually, encouraging shy students to answer calmly and in the correct way. Materials
were well developed, too, as I explained in the previous question. They also worked in an
organized way, developing the activities, pasting them in their folders, copying from the
blackboard when I told them to do it. They are a great group and when they are engaged with
activities it is really easy to develop the lesson.

2. 5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?
I should pay more attention to the time next class because I had a watch but we were not able to
finish the last activity on time, so we did not sing the video song at the end of the lesson.
Furthermore, students had some problems while developing the last activity: they had a lot of
doubts when giving the directions orally, so we are going to practice more during the next
lesson, starting with short written and oral instructions until they are able to write a short text
explaining how to arrive at certain place/building.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next lessons will be developed taking into account the new needs and preferences that I could
observed as a teacher during this lesson.
On the one hand, I will include more written activities where they have to write sentences or a
short texts because they need more written practice but I will include oral activities because they
like them, they participate a lot in that kind of activities. On the other hand, I will continue
working with body language, as they love to copy it, songs, and pictures because they show
themselves highly enthusiastic when I used them in this first lesson.
7. Any comments or observations you would like to share may be added here.
I was a little nervous at the beginning of the class as they are a big group, but I am sure I
created a good atmosphere because they worked a lot and they were involved with the different
activities. I am a little sad because I lost the opportunity to record the first lesson, now I only
have what I was able to record in my mind in order to improve it for the next lesson (the teacher
was more than satisfied with the lesson development and the children’s reaction).
Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Primary school
Group: 5th blue
Date: 10/09/2015
Lessonnumber: 2
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
I designed the lesson plan based on the Communicative approach, including different activities
to develop their listening and writing skills. The topic was performed following the Presentation-
Practice-Production method.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
All the activities connected the topic (giving directions) with the story. All the instructions were
given in English using body language and classroom objects (scissors, glue, and so on) in order
to help students to understand everything. I also asked students some questions about the

3. instruction and to repeat some of my actions, for example, picking up their glue. After giving the
instructions I walked among the students to check if they understood. I found two students who
were a little lost, so I explained to them again the activity using examples and different
vocabulary. I set the context taking into account their previous knowledge and students were
able to infer vocabulary from it. Although there were only 20 students, they participated a lot. I
left on board useful vocabulary that they needed to complete the activities and students used
them to complete their sentences and texts.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
Students remembered the video we had used the previous class, the lyrics and all the vocabulary
that we had learnt. They were very enthusiastic when I told them that they could choose the path
that they preferred to guide the princess. They really liked the story and the fact that the knight
had to rescue a princess; they all were very surprised with the end of the story. When we
developed the next activity, most of the students remembered all the characters and events. They
paid attention during the entire lesson and worked hard with all the activities.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
I believe I chose the correct material to work with this group; they were very engaged with each
activity. Classroom management was perfect as they were very concentrated. Walking among the
students was as effective as in the previous lesson.
5. What aspects of the lessonrequire change / improvement?
We were not able to develop the last activity because I used a lot of time for the first activity.
That was their first time writing a short text and I believed that was a very important activity so I
spent more time in order to help each student to write the note because it was an encouraging
activity and they were working hard to complete it.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Next lesson plan will include a lot of written activities because they need them and they like
them. I will continue using pictures and colours because they love them. Providing them with a
lot of material make them feel curious about what is to come so I will work with more
photocopies but I will use the book, too because even they did not ask about it, they always take
it to the classroom.
7. Any comments or observations you would like to share may be added here.
Last Thursday it snowed in our city so 10 students were absent. Next lesson I won’t complete the
last activity that we were not able to do during this lesson because those students did not listen to
the story. I will work with the next topic: describing cities; but we will write a lot as I want them
to improve their writing skills.

4. Trainee’s name: María Cecilia Nievas
Practicum level: Primary school
Group: 5th blue
Date: 17/09/2015
Lessonnumber: 3
1. What pedagogical principles supported the planning and delivery of this lesson?
The lesson plan was designed based on the Communicative approach. The topic was performed
by the Presentation-Practice-Production method. The lesson plan includes different activities in
order to develop the children’s writing skills.
2. What teaching strategies did you use? Which ones were effective? Why / why not?
During the lesson students learnt to describe a city according mainly to the buildings it has got.
Each activity scaffolds students’ development of the knowledge required to be able to describe a
city. All the instructions were given in English using a lot of written examples on board and in
the copies; I gave them oral examples, too. When they had to write sentences regarding the first
city, they had a lot of doubts so we wrote some sentences altogether on board, after that they
were able to write the rest of the sentences alone. When completing the text about our city,
students answered properly but they were not able to complete the text in the same way. When I
realized that, I started to write the text on board with their answers; maybe they need more
practice before starting this kind of activities. After giving each instruction I walked among the
students and they worked hard trying to complete each activity. During this lesson I left on board
useful vocabulary, too.
3. How did the students react to your teaching, to the activities and the materials? How did
they react to the lesson?
Students paid attention while I explained the activities and they participated a lot. They worked
hard because written activities are quite encouraging for them. Three students wanted to talk
about a new videogame, so I had to remind them to complete the activities and they obeyed my
instructions. They were very enthusiastic about working with famous cities and they shared their
knowledge about them.
4. What aspects of the lessondo you consider successful?
I believe that after working during two lessons with written activities students have learnt a lot
and they have developed their writing skills. Students were very engaged with the activities so I
think I made the correct decision while I designed them. Furthermore, they practice a lot the new
vocabulary so they are able to choose the correct name of each building and use the correct
directions to give instructions. Of course they need to practice more describing cities but we
have learned a lot during these three lessons.
5. What aspects of the lesson require change / improvement?

5. Some students did not take their book to the school, so they had to share some books, I believe
that as I wasn’t aware of this possibility I should gave them a copy of the texts. Furthermore, we
only worked with the text about Paris because I saw they got confused with the previous activity
so we started to complete the chart altogether.
6. What do you find useful of this lessonthat will help you plan the next one?
Of course I will take into account the aspects that I mentioned in the previous question even the
lesson plans will be for adolescents.
7. Any comments or observations you would like to share may be added here.
Taking into account that some students complete activities quite faster than other ones, I have
some doubts while designing activities. I believe I designed the correct activities because the
result at the end of each lesson but I always have this in mind.