We have returned back to our student based learning (SBL) days after completing our first practicum block. It was a great three weeks of practicum and it was a challenge to come back to focus on an assignment rather than turning up to teach. We had a meeting with our mentor teacher because we had no contact with her during practicum and we discussed our two days of SBL. We have started a culture paper so we had to complete some tasks for the two days.
It was a highlight to have had a meeting with some of the ESOL students to get to know them and what they think of school. I got to speak with three children one was from the Philippines, India and Austria. The three boys were different ages ranging from year two to six. They all spoke very well and answered the questions and even gave more than we expected so we got to know more about them. Another highlight I had for this week is we got to help and watch the cross country. This was a good experience to see how it was run and what organisation is needed for an event like this.
A challenge for this week was resuming the role of student teacher and not being in a class to teach. I also found it challenging asking the ESOL students some tricky questions that could be interpret the wrong way. It was mainly about them and their immediate family. The questions I was unsure about their reaction was around what their parents did for work.
I have learnt about how the school run their ESOL programme and I have learnt a lot about three of the students I identified. This was a valuable experience as a developing teacher because I will need the skills to understand each culture and to learn some strategies to teach these children. I learnt about setting up cross country and what is involved to make it successful. You need parent support because it takes lots of people to make it successful and safe.
