Letramentos’s Updates
Pre-service language teachers and the learning of a profession.
In order to become language teachers, this group of pre-servive language teachers regularly do the tasks related to their student student teaching period:
- As a group, once a week they have to meet their supervisor (the teacher educator who's responsible for supervising their work at some local public schools) to discuss some topics related to their student teaching (local school availability to receive pre-service teachers, school teachers interest in having pre-service teachers in their classrooms, teaching methods, classroom management, lesson planning, language education policies and whatever is understood as a topic for discussion and reflection during that semester);
- In pairs, they choose a local high school and a high school group to work with. At school, their tasks are:
a. observe English lessons (to understand class dynamics, the ways students interact with each other and with their English teacher and vice-versa, students' responses to English lessons, the content and organization of lessons, etc.);
b. get to know the students (their needs, interests, ideas, expectations);
c. talk to the English teacher (about the students, the schedule, the syllabus, get any other relevant information about the students and the lessons, listen to the teacher's instructions and expectations);
d. plan new lessons and materials (based on the conversation they have had with the teacher and the students, the schedule, the syllabus and their observation of school, lessons and students). They meet each other (at any time and place they decide to: their homes, a classroom at the university building, the library, etc.) to talk about their work, plan lessons, do research (on teaching materials, theories, etc.) and prepare new lessons;
e. teach the lessons they have planned.
- They email their lesson plans and materials to the school teacher and to their supervisor, review them according to their feedback (they usually get the supervisor's feedback only), and to the new ideas and the knowledge they now have about their work, the school, the school students and teacher, and the lessons.
-After teaching their lessons, if possible, they talk to the school teacher to get some feedback and new instructions, and to decide what to do next;
- Individually, they use their e-portfolios (http://ufopeportfolios.blogspot.com.br/) to write about their work, their tasks of planning and teaching together with a classmate, their narratives and reflections about the classes they have observed and the ones they have taught, the feedback they have received (from their partners, from the school teacher, from the supervisor and, eventually, from the school students).Then, they wait for their classmates' and supervisor's comments, suggestions and questions;
- In pairs, they meet their supervisor once or twice a week to talk about their lesson plans and materials, the lessons they have taught, the ones they intend to teach, the ones the supervisor has observed and their writings in their e-portfolios. The three of them discuss and decide together what to do next and how to do it;
- To conclude, they have to hand in two copies of a final report (a written and a virtual one) on their teaching experience during that semester.
Leina and Fernanda, as a pre-service education teacher, I am very interested in sharing ideas with you, mainly in relation to ways of organizing students work. The way Leina describe her sequence of building knowledge with students seemed very meaningful to me.
Leina, I'm pretty sure we have a lot to share. I'm also developing a project with pre-service teachers. Your project is really interesting! Congrats!
The idea of a blog is great too, because they can share ideas and interact with each other about their work taking responsability for their choices as they become public.
This project sounds really important in the sense that it helps teachers reflect about their own practice with the help of a supervisor, who works as a facilitator to encourage the data gathering, its organization in portfolios and the process of looking at this info and deciding what to do next. It has given me good ideas for my future work with teachers in similar processes.