My Interventions

The first week , as I said in the diary, was more observational; but gradually the teacher let me participate. Although I did not gave any “official class”, because i only helped my teacher when she explained the lesson or I gave examples that could help children. Although I could explain why the snakes shed their skin and, in addition, i could show a true snake skin that my teacher had in a little box in class.

In the second week I already  started teaching language and science classes. In language I had to explain grammar, specifically the uses of the letter G and J. This is something abstract and some children find it hard to understand. They didn´t understand when they have to use one or the other; that's why I told them that  to understand the use of G and J they must have read a lot and study too. After reading and explaining that page, we begin to do exercises to practice what they had learned (for example, they had to make a red circle the G words and a blue circle the J words).

Another day I gave a science class, was also a surprised class, because I could not prepare the lesson before. So I had to explain the state of water . To do this I wanted to put in practice some of the things I had learned in the university; first I wanted to  produce curiosity in the students and then explain the lesson. So I asked first if they thought that the snow is water. They said yes . Then I asked what are the clouds and  they answered that they are water too. By this I started to explain the lesson  telling the children that water is found in 3 states (solid, liquid and gas) and in what places we could find. To understand it better I find pictures on the computer that could see through the projector in the class. Later we did some interactive activities with the interactive whiteboard that the teacher had prepared, which, as I have said many times, I think is very productive for the children and their learning.

In the third week, I gave my last class, this time I could prepared it at  home because my teacher told me that the day before. The class I gave was math, they studied subtraction, so I wanted to put into practice what I learned in class teaching of arithmetic (didáctica de la aritmética). I wanted to make use of manipulative material, because I noticed that everyone in class had materials that could be useful. So we did activities together on the whiteboard, they made chips and also some activities that I found on  internet, as I said before making use of teaching materials. The activity consisted about “bloques multibase”. They had to use their units, tens and hundreds (squares, bars and plates) to do subtraction. This made the students had to concentrate to subtract, as they don't use to do that, they found it harder, but it can help a lot in their daily lives. I have to say that the teacher had also used this method before with students.

Finally I wanted to finish here talking about my interventions with children with learning disabilities . Its true that it is not an intervention in front of the whole class, but no longer as important as the other interventions. As I said in the diary, there are 4 children with certain problems. 

For example, there's a guy with a significant curriculum adaptation in content and objectives. That's why he has a different book from his colleagues, with much smaller contents. As I said, he is always on the floor, jumping or shouting, so it becomes very difficult to teach a class with him. I always try to help him as I can and get to studying and doing activities with him, because if you leave him alone, he does absolutely nothing. However, when he wants, can be able to solve oral issues than their companions sometimes don't  resolve. So treating him with love and patience, one day he could be a kid like the other students.

There is also another guy in class with important educational program, but this guy has the same book as their peers.Unlike the previous guy, this does not bother in class. He is always confused and does not seem to know what he does. It has some mental retardation, and has a hard time understanding the lesson, read or write statements. Also,like the other boy, he learned to read a few months ago so always going backward as their peers. Often I sit down with him for help him, or sometimes he is looking for me for help. I always try to read well the statements so he know what to do on tests and activities; however, his reading understanding is practically absent, he never understand what he is reading; however if there is someone who reads it slowly and clear he understand it .That need a lot of attention from the teacher, because otherwise he can't keep up with their peers.

Another difficult case is the girl from another class. She suffered a problem in the brain that makes her brain functions are limited. She has a very significant curricular adaptation. She has another book, 1 or 2 courses below the level it should be. In fact, the contents  ​​in the book are very basic and is about the name of the family members or the differents parts of a house. Also is hard to reading for her and often she doesn´t understand what she reads. She needs someone with her constantly, she  doesn´t do nothing alone. Although when the teacher puts some video or they do classroom activities, she always want to participate or speak the answer and sometimes succeeds when it comes to a topic she likes and when it's not too abstract thing.

Now I will talk about a girl who is from New Zealand and has arrived late to the Spanish educational system. According to teacher, she has improved a lot in our language. She can read speak and write better, although often wrong and she needs to correct it. Also always needs the help of a teacher, as she is always distracting singing or coloring and cutting; it is probably due to she doesn´t understand the language and it is easier for her to get distracted.

Her book is the same that their companions, but she doesn´t go as fast as their classmates. She has always pages undone or poorly done and I have to do it again with her. I have always try to help her to end that and to learn a little more spanish. The problem is that her family speaks english with her and she does not read or watch TV in Spanish, so it is very difficult for her to learn spanish faster.

Finally I want to say that I have tried to help  all these guys with problems, otherwise the teacher could not take care of them and now she is not going to have that help. However, the teacher has the support of the PT teacher and the teacher of zero hours (profesor de horario cero), as I said in the diary. Without them, the teacher will be impossible to get them keep up with their classmates.