Hello.

My name’s Fabrizio Alejandro Alanís Espejel and I’m majoring in English Language Teaching and Learning at
Escuela Normal Superior de México. I will be refering to the major as ELTL.

This is my final project for “Herramientas para el análisis y la observación de la escuela y la comunidad”, which could
be roughly translated as “Tools for the Observation and Analysis of the School and the Community”.

I will be going over the following points.

 The syllabus
o Aims
 My expectations
 The prep
o Theoretical background
 The venue
 First visit
o Aim: Get familiar with a secondary school.
o Outcome - Report
 Second visit
o Aim: Get to know the
o Outcome - Report
 Third visit
o Aim: Get to know the
o Outcome - Report
 Last visit
o Aim: Get to know the
o Outcome - Report
 My final impressions
o Whether I met the aims
o What I learnt
o What I expect to develop now on
o The syllabus
Background.

This subject is designed for the 2012 Education Reform, which intends to meaningfully improve the way education
takes place in Mexico, establishing an important set of goals for the end of middle-school level or secondary school,
among which are Language and communication, as follows:

Student can use their mother tongue to communicate effectively, respectfully, and with self-assurance in different
context with multiple purposes and interlocutors. If they’re native speakers of an indigenous language, the will also
be able to use Spanish.

Student can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations
for opinions and plans (Secretaría de Educación Pública, 2018).

This last aim descriptor corresponds to the last one in the CEFR B1 level (Council of Europe, 2018).

Aims
Largely using a flipped-classroom as the instructional strategy, this subject belongs in the Practicum education path or
“trayecto formativo” (Secretaria de Educación Pública, 2019). The aims of the course, from my own perspective, are
these:

ELTL students will:

approach an actual and current secondary school, actual meaning real.
acquire analytical skills based on the study of an actual environment.
see themselves as part of their working environment.
be able to offer solutions based on daily interaction.
have a first approach to typing documents which will help for the “documento recepcional”.

The 6 actual aims of the course are:

Unit 1 – Look, see and observe: Participating and non-participating observation and Construction of observation tools
Unit 2 – Dialogues with the community: A survey as a means to observe the community and School in, with and for the
community
Unit 3 – Links between school and community. Resignification of practicum. IT as a possibility of data analysis of the
educational context and The documentary as a strategy for reflection on practicum

Object of study
Relations among school members and their environment.
Social elements (cultural, economic and family factors, among others).
Infrastructure.
Local, regional and national context.
Connection between educational and administrative activities.
o My expectations
What I expected at the beginning was a traditional and methodical teaching method. I was also expecting to observe
lessons to discuss the way teachers managed a class. Finally, I also thought of filling out observation rubrics, analysing
how teaching strategies were being carried out, to implement or discard for my future practicum.

o The prep
o Theoretical background
We studied the difference between the following verbs: see, look and observe. This was to establish some critical
points to start breaking our paradigms of what a teacher is and change them for what one truly needs to carry out in
order to have a better performance.

The paradigms we were expected to include through the analysis were:

A teacher must always know who they are to get to know the environment and act humbly.

A teacher must always observe their surroundings using all senses.

A teacher always reports discoveries and findings from an objective and neutral point, without judgements, as
judgements are subjective.

A teacher can only see what they know; hence the need to read and be updated.

A teacher is an active member of their environment and asks questions, always questioning what is beyond than
what is seen.

A teacher is always asking questions.

A teacher must see themselves as a researcher with the ability to teach, not the other way around; this, I think, can
only be explained in Spanish as in looking to become an “investigador docente” and not a “docente investigador”
(Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 2016).

A teacher can’t judge or let their prejudices interfere with the research.

A teacher carries out research following methods using tools that serve the purpose, not by making the purposes fit
into methods and tools.

As far as methods and tools are concerned, we analysed tools that would be useful for the first and the rest of the
observations. We used:

Materials related to the objectives of each visit, such as rules and regulations, agreements, curricula and academic
papers.

A timetable to understand the importance to organise the activities, both individually and as a team.

An observation guide to have a set objective which will work as a reference in any project and could be flexible.

A checklist to verify whether elements already established were present during the visit.
o The venue
We visited Escuela Secundaria Diurna no. 136 “Dr. Enrique González Martínez” (ESD 136 in this work) located on the
corner of Av. Talismán and Av. San Juan; the neighbour and benefactor of ESD 136’s: Grupo Sánchez, a company
which makes inks and printing consumables. Their total student population is of 678 students, from which 354 are
women and 324 are men. The school is the best of the school district and it hosts the Inspection department of the
same district, which implies harder work according to the authorities.

o First visit
This first visit was intended to make us have a first encounter with a real secondary school environment, through a
guided visit.

My impressions on that occasion were: I was taken back to my teenage years, I felt welcome and warmly received, it
was overwhelming to see so many teenagers in a classroom or the patio, I was surprised to see all the infrastructure
and financial support the school has, I could realise that a school works better if the staff involves with students
needs and their context and finally I realised how much I feel I am on the right pathway. I eventually got rid of that
nonsensical fear of students.

My findings and conclusions were basically: the school is the best of the school district how important a Principal is to
coordinate the various activities at any school; the importance of knowing human and material resources to put them
together; the importance of active individual and collective participation at the workplace and how setting objectives
can make a school work more focused. I concluded that it was too much information for just one visit, but that fact
certainly would leave me wanting to know more.

o Aim.
Reflect on the importance of observation in teacher training, through an in situ visit, to understand and explain the
role schools have in their community.

Was it accomplished? Not as much as I would like it to but it did, despite of the fact that I got bored halfway through
the talk given by the principal. I identified all at a fairly superficial level but that definitely helped me with a better
understanding of how a school works and what sort of challenges a Principal faces to run a school.

o Second visit
For the second visit, two activities were planned:

1) a survey for students, parents, teachers and other academic or social actors involved in the education process and
the context.

2) a fast-track Microsoft Excel usage for graphs and lists with a teacher from ESD 136.

My impressions: parents are involved as much as they can, I saw both mothers and fathers taking their children to
school, as well as students coming in on their own or in small groups; I even got to interview an uncle who just took
the student to school, with no further care than that. Regarding academic actors, I saw that authorities were slightly
dubious about our aim that very day, possibly due to the Principal’s absence. The teacher my colleague and I
interviewed was especially collaborative, because despite his cough, he shared plenty of valuable information.

My findings: I interviewed a 3rd grade student who was short with his answers, but demonstrated that he had a
genuine interest in sports and learning other language different than English; he was sure about which subjects he
didn’t like and the reasons why, which were basically the difficulty of topics and the teacher’s attitude, meaning the
teacher seemed strict, inflexible and boring to him. Also, I talked to a mother who identified areas of opportunity to
work on with his son and she reportedly worked them out of school, as discipline problems were not solved properly
at ESD 136; she also said she wanted to clarify that both her children, a current student and an alumnus, had reached
a nearly desirable level of comprehension in English thanks to their former education in a private school; she also
made it clear that she had a preference for one of the two English teachers at ESD 136, as such teacher has shown
better strategies, according to her children’s opinion and the outcome of the class.

Concerning the interview with the teacher, I discovered that the context is important inasmuch as the morning shift,
according to the professor, was easier to work with due to the respect and interest students show, opposite to the
violent and undisciplined environment in the afternoon. As well, the teacher shared that he made the most of his
creativity to get students to see the use and benefits of sciences, what he teaches. He said that creating a link
between chemistry and magic has worked well for him so far. He also mentioned the importance of getting into the
teaching career as soon as possible, considering how certain it is to have a job when you are an experienced teacher.

o Aim
Compile information from the different social and academic actors, contexts, institutions, along with social and
cultural interactions, so as to understand their roles in the community and at school.

Was it accomplished? To me, it was. I learnt more than I thought I would from the interview with a teacher who was
willing and able to share information about his teaching career, experiences, strategies and challenges he has been
facing throughout the last 10 years, especially information that I couldn’t have gotten from the Principal or any
Coordinator. I also enriched from interviewing an English teacher whom I was not meant to interview but helped me
as well with the approach a secondary teacher should take for succeeding in class. And, last but not least, I also
enriched from a mother’s and a student’s interview, which undoubtedly gave me a clearer panorama of what they
live everyday respectively. From their answers, I could retrieve crucial information such as what subject is their
favourite, what they know about learning English and how useful they see the subject in their lives, as a student and a
mother.

o Third visit
We only attended a lesson and reported our discoveries as a team. Personally, I observed many important factors
that one never pays attention during their student’s stage. I might also say that I had a clearer panorama of what
teaching teenagers a foreign language is, particularly under certain conditions. Then, I had the opportunity to work
together with my team, and I couldn’t have put together the information I did without all of their kind and sharp
remarks from their own perspective, making it a more complete view of what happened in the class.

My impressions: I was worried about interrupting the class with our presence, but it wasn’t like that, because I felt
students acting as they normally would. At the beginning, the class seemed undisciplined but then it turned out that
the teacher allowed certain indiscipline to allow students to work together. Some students showed certain interest,
some others didn’t, but they were mostly working. They also made a not so bad impression on me, as most were
trying hard to identify the vocabulary in a spelling exercise. By the end of the class, they were all working on an
exercise at a different pace.

My findings: The teacher applied a vocabulary/spelling test related to emergencies and natural disasters. Students
had to find out the word by counting the letters, as they normally do in “hangman” and also by listening to sounds
made when those disasters happen. Students seemed to have difficulties learning English as a second language, as
they could barely identify the vocabulary they were studying, along with the correct usage of the alphabet for
spelling. The teacher’s effective way to have students participate was giving points for their participation. Also, the
exercise which seemed like a test, could only be answered using their books, as students were referred to the page
and lesson so that they could know the words. They also presented difficulties with pronunciation, which the teacher
addressed by correction and drilling.
o Aim.
Using an observation guide, attend a previously assigned 50-minute class to observe how students learn and how
they interact with the teacher, to later report findings and conclusions.

Was it accomplished? Totally. As we worked in teams, we complemented each other’s notes and impressions. We
also discussed in class what we appreciated. I got a clearer view on what happens in a classroom during English and
what problems we may face, as well as how they could be solved.

o Last visit
I observed a whole shift with a colleague. It was a first grade class. We observed Spanish, Geography, Maths, Physical
Education, Biology, History and English. I must admit it was a challenge for me, as Biology and History were test
revision sessions and by the last class, English, I was not myself anymore. Even if I broke the rules, I got to take
pictures of the students’ works throughout the whole shift which really helped me get documented with examples.

My impressions: I was very excited to see students during a whole shift, but I was also worried about not knowing
what to do with so much information, despite the observation guide. I was glad to see that the observed first graders
were not as badly behaved as I had thought. I felt comfortable as they were not distracted by my observing the class.

My findings: I felt I had a clearer view than the last one because I could see how they behaved every class and how
they after different class and working styles. I can say students work as long as a teacher shows security, relates to
students at a sensible degree, has a prepared class, monitors the work, sets clear rules, uses dynamic activities that
promote thinking and reflecting and shows there are consequences to their actions.

o Aim
Using an observation guide, attend lessons for the whole morning shift to observe how students learn and how they
interact with the teacher, to later report findings and conclusions.

Was it accomplished? It was, as I observed different aspects from both the teacher and students. I retrieved first-
hand information related to the students’ feelings, emotions, needs, attitudes, behaviours, and reactions to different
stimuli, meaning their classmates, the teacher and what they may be going through. About teaching, I saw different
teaching styles, with different tools, approaches, rules and interactions. It was evident which teachers made an
enjoyable class and which ones didn’t, along with the progress students may have been making.

o My final impressions
Honestly, my performance was not the desired one throughout the course. Despite that, I think I learnt adequately by
analysing how the context influences students and school staff. I also learnt why decisions are made in such a way,
since all factors play a decisive role in the daily life of a school.

o Whether I met the aims

I met them empirically, as I decided not to adhere to the theory. I can say I have a clearer first view on teaching after
experiencing individual and collective reflection in the classroom, obtaining information in the in situ visits,
interacting with the environment of a school and benefitting from the guide of teachers.

o What I learnt
I learnt at different levels:

Personally speaking, I learnt to develop but also trust my observation skills more. I also learnt that teamwork truly
serves research purposes, under the provision that everyone is committed to collaborate. As well, I can consider how
demanding it is to become a researcher and a teacher at the same time. Another important point I discovered with
the help of the professor was that my personality is close to that of a research professor, since I tend to question
many aspects surrounding me, and analyse my surroundings. That does not mean I do it fully, so I need to work on it
every day, with a reflective and projecting perspective.

Professionally speaking, I learnt that I am able to develop better and better works every time; that I need to read
more on every topic related to education, but also enrich my views from experience from teachers, students,
colleagues and all the actors; I also concluded that investigation is made every day by asking the right questions and
learning to observe what lies behind what one can say. I am aware of the importance or relating with the
environment at different levels to count on worthy information that can be useful any time. Finally, I learned that
there is no worthless idea or thought, as any of them can lead to more and more knowledge every time.

o What I expect to develop now on

I want to focus more on transversal learning, so to say, in order to integrate what I am learning in different subjects
into my daily life, because that’s I will do when I become a teacher. I can say I see myself differently after doing all
this research that I originally thought would mean nothing. Also, I feel more positive about wanting to do further and
“real” research in a school. I can say I want to interact more with in-service teachers and students to know how things
will be changing since I started studying to be a teacher. I also want to know more about the rules and regulations,
the curriculum that exists for teacher training and students at different levels. This is just the beginning of an
interesting adventure.

Thanks for your attention.