ASSIGNMENT Nº 1

Well, I had the chance to carry out my VISE I workshop at the Escuela Naciones
Unidas, which is located on the upper side of Playa Ancha, specifically in the 4th sector. It’s
a mixed school with 950 students approximately and I ended up doing the whole process in
a 6th grade during Spanish classes.

I didn’t have a close relationship with the entire class but there were few students
who used to talk to me and ask me things. In that way, I had the opportunity to get to see
how some of them developed themselves, the plans they had when it comes to work and
some of the goals they’d like to reach in a near future. Their attitude in front of the teacher
was surprisingly positive and they all were commited with the suggested activities.

At that moment, they were reviewing topics such as marketing, publicity and
advertising so one day the teacher asked them to prepare for a presentation with several
weeks of anticipation. This had to be performed in front of their classmates and they were
intended to recreate a “newscast” where the past activities from our national holiday had to
be included and represented as accurate as possible. Since this was a big project, the
instructions were given carefully and no questions were asked for any of the students at the
moment so everything seemed to be clear enough. During the next days, the teacher kept on
reminding everyone about their group task and the responses were full of anxiety and
excitement. When the day of the evalutation came, not all the groups did their presentation.
The ones who did it, made it poorly for no longer than 5 minutes even when the instructions
said they had to spend 20 minutes overall. The students who didn’t perform had no valid
reasons to skip their work and simply refused to be evaluated.

Having in count the strong commitment they always had with all the activities they
did during the semester, I wondered why this one in particular didn’t work. The
coordination seemed just fine and the abilities to carry on with the project were not
demanding. Besides, they were risking an integral grade so later I assumed it was merely
because they lacked reponsability and willigness. But why giving up now if they worked so
hard the whole semester? Maybe it was tiredness, maybe embarrassment or even laziness.
Was the teacher clear enough to give indications to her students? Certainly yes, she gave
them more than once and kept repeating them during the next weeks. Was this presentation
the right choice for a 6th grade project? According to the activities used nowadays in the
classroom, which include theatrical plays, disertations and oral tests even from lower
courses, of course it was a great choice. These kind of evaluations develop vital
characteristics in a student, including ease for future experiences, confidence, voice,
movement, etc.

Probably their inexperience just played them a dirty trick and showed them how
good they need to prepare for future projects. Hopefully, they’d learnt a lesson they won’t
forget and with a bit of luck they’ll forecast from now on.

Charly Cerda
English Pedagogy
VISE II, 2009