Mentor Observation

Experience with the Centre Mentor:

-Observation Task

During my internship, I could observe my mentor’s lessons with five different groups. She taught two groups of 1st ESO, one group of 2nd ESO, 1st Bachillerato and Business Vocational Training Cycle.

I could observe that she was able to establish a very good relationship with students who showed high respect and a friendly attitude towards her. She adapted to the students’ needs, helping them and being very patient with those students who showed more difficulties in the subject. Her lessons adapted perfectly to the groups’ level and she thought to be very important to widen students’ vocabulary, using as many situations as she could to teach her students new vocabulary related to the topic.

The groups of ESO were arranged in individual rows and they were not used to work in groups. In addition, my mentor told me that it was very difficult to manage the ESO groups when planning speaking activities or games because of their disruptive attitude and their lack of interest. The group of Bachillerato, who was arranged in groups, worked better in these kinds of activities because of their English level and a more mature and responsible attitude Yet, students’ intervention was limited to answering or correcting exercises. I had the feeling that they were demanding opportunities for using the language in a more communicative

The most recurrent situation was students talking, so in this case, she usually called students’ attention and asked them to keep silence. When they repeated their behaviour, impeding the continuation of the lesson, she asked students to stand up at the back of the class or she asked them to leave the class. I was not particularly in favour of this measure as students were deprived of the learning opportunities. Finally, with more complicated situations, she turned to give students a warning. These kinds of situations were more recurrent in the two 1st ESO group, where class management was more complicated and students showed a lower level of motivation and interest towards the subject.

-Guided Intervention

During my internship, I took part in the lessons helping students understanding and completing some exercises that my mentor asked them to do. I focused especially on those students who showed more difficulties in the subject or who showed less interest or motivation.

I was also asked to correct students workbooks and writings in 1st ESO as part of their daily work mark. I had to check that the exercises of the firsts units were done and corrected and assess them with a criterion of excellent, very good, good or