Statement of purposes

In the second year of this degree we had our first school practice. In my case, the experience wasn’t good enough because I didn’t get very well with my school tutor. We didn’t have any communication and then I could participate in class so I couldn’t have the experience of being a teacher. For this reason, during my second school placement I decided to change my mind and I got very involved with my students and with the whole school. In the second school practice I learn how to plan units and activities in real situations. Moreover, I could analyse how the primary schools work because I assisted to many teachers meetings and I could observe lots of the teacher’s tasks. Last year I felt as a real teacher and I finish my placement with a very good feeling: I had learnt a lot, I did my best and I got on very well both with my tutors and students. In this practicum three I want to act in the same way I did last year and I hope I can enjoy my teaching English practice because actually, this is the main subject I’m going to teach at schools.

In our third period of practice, we are going to spend five weeks at school and we will have tutorial sessions at university as well. I hope these two experiences help each other to improve our docent assignment. I would like that our university sessions guide us in this experience and give us resources to do it properly. It’s also very important to put in practice everything we have learnt during these three years and a half at university because both theory and practice complement one another and doing this, we will realised if our learning has been useful or not.

One of the main strength I have to face this English practice is that I’ve been working as an English teacher of primary and infant students during two years. Although I only had ten kids per class, I gained experience in planning, inventing activities, assessment, classroom management, etc. I think most of the resources I put in practice with my students last year will be very useful at school this month. I will make profit of the most successful activities and I’m sure children will enjoy them. I also think that the fact of having studied ELT methodology in the first semester is an asset for us. We have learnt how to plan meaningful English units, to develop CLIL projects, different resources to put in practice in class apart from de book, etc. Definitely, I’m sure I’m going to use most of the tasks we saw at university because I found them very interesting and useful.

If now I think about my weaknesses, I have just experience in teaching small groups of students. In the private academy I used to work I had maximum ten kids per class, so it was easy to manage the group. I also think it’s going to be difficult to teach just English. Last year we taught in our mother tongue, so it was easy to explain to students the doubts they had. This year I would like to talk most of the time in English, and I know the level of this language at schools is low. For this reason, I could get a bit nervous if children don’t understand me or don’t know how to do the activities I purpose. I have to consider too, that in Ignasi Iglesias School, there a lot of kids with special education needs. They spent the day both in the ordinary class and in the USEE, so that’s why I will have to adapt the contents for them.

I consider this school placement as an essential process in our degree and it will contribute to our teacher growth. With this, I’m very motivated to start this third practice and I hope it was as great as the previous one was. To have a successful experience I’m willing to work in a positive way at school and at university, to always offer my help to the teacher in class, to analyse all the educational situations and to reflect on my interventions with children. I also want to communicate and get on well with all the teachers of the school and with my university tutor and I will ask about any question I have. I hope to spend a wonderful time at school and to make profit of it for my future teacher assignment.