TERCERA OBSERVACIÓN INGLÉS SECUNDARIA (SORIA - SEGOVIA)

Y llegó la última observación de Candy Christine Scobling (IES Virgen del Espino) en el aula del profesor experto César Martín (IES María Moliner):

Friday’s observation with César Martín at Segovia’s IES Maria Moliner began bright and early at 8.30am. We met Mariví from the CFPI, another great addition to our team, and headed to class with the first year bilingual group I’d met the day before. 

Today’s class was fantastic and a pleasure to watch. It was surprising to see students so participative at that time on a Friday morning! 

César began by introducing the new reading book - The Twits by Roald Dahl. There were many different versions of the book cover in class so they discussed the different images, what perception they had of the characters and vocabulary they could use to describe them. 

Then, César mixed a series of activities throughout the rest of the class, based on him dictating questions to the group and them copying, then having to answer individually and compare answers as a class orally, discussing opinions and vocabulary as they went along. They talked about physical appearance and personality traits, stereotypes, and even managed to get a pronunciation activity in there, distinguishing between bird, beard, beer and bear. 

Finally, they began to read parts of the book. Firstly Cesar read a bit, then a student would continue. I have to say the read aloud very well and it made me realise that I should probably read more to my own students to give them clues on pace, volume and expression, before letting them continue, as usually I immediately ask for volunteers to read. 

After each excerpt from the book, Cesar continued to ask questions and integrate other knowledge into the conversation. 

Once we’d finished the first class, I attended the department meeting where we discussed the British Council bilingual programme and they filled me in on a few pieces of news about the programme I was unaware of, as well as discussing how everything works in our two schools and comparing ideas. I’m glad I got the opportunity to do this as it was very enlightening, and I’d like to try to create more coordination between departments in my own school.

Finally, we finished the morning with the 2nd Bach BIE class again, where Cesar, Mariví and I all took turns doing some speaking activities with the girls. Mariví showed us a logic puzzle type game where she wrote a clue on the board and the students had to guess what it represented, like CCCCCCC is “the seven seas”. Cesar and I then used the “panel of experts” improv activity I’d introduced him to in my class on the first observation, and he improved it by suggesting I use the “random words”, so we gave  each expert a random word which they had to incorporate into their discourse, and the other students had to later guess what the random words had been. 

All in all, a lovely way to conclude our three day teacher exchange. Although, of course, it doesn’t really feel like a conclusion, but rather a beginning, as we’re going to remain in touch and I’m sure we’ll be sharing ideas and helping each other out for many years to come. 

Thanks Cesar and the English dept from IES María Moliner, Mariví, Javier and the CFPI team, as well as Celia and Pablo from the CFIE in Soria, for all of your help putting this together. And here’s to many more opportunities like this in the future!