5.

SHARED TEACHING

The main purpose of this section is to describe my experiences as a trainee teacher in

co-participating in in-class activities and extra materials along with the host teachers of
Thales de Azevedo State School and the monitors from the PROFICI extension course
from UFBA.

I will also describe the process of developing activities, planning review lessons and
correcting mini tests, and also my general ideas concerning how I decided to cope with
the different demands, how I evaluate such activities and my conclusions on the
effectiveness of each activity.

This section, therefore, will be divided in two, in order to cover my shared teaching
activities for both host teachers from Thales de Azevedo and PROFICI.

5.1 THALES DE AZEVEDO STATE SCHOOL

One of the best known public schools of Salvador, Thales de Azevedo State School
holds a god reputation when it comes to public schools: most people I know who have
had good opportunities at the university and who have come from public schools have
studied there.

The school is big, and the principal staff is big, which makes it easy for teachers and
students to contact each other if students have any doubts.

Most students there are somewhat engaged and interested in the classes and in learning.
When it comes to English, in most classes I have had the opportunity to have contact
with the students, at least half of the group could understand and answer questions in
English with almost no difficulties. There are also many engaged teachers in the school
who encourage students to learn and develop their fluency in English by coordinating
many different projects during the course of the school year.

The main methodology used in the school, however, is mostly grammar-repetition or

audiolingual, almost with no communicative approach, and also very teacher-centered.
Most ludic activities in class are movie worksheets or movie reports.

5.1 a) Host teacher: Eneida – planning of extra activity | Length: 30 minutes

The very first co-participation activity performed was a planning of activities along with
the host teacher Eneida. We sat together to plan the activities to be done by the end of
the semester. Since the school was hosting a black consciousness week on the following
month, the teacher wanted new ideas on the activities to be performed.

I advised her to use black lecturers as part of the activity, especially Chimamanda
Adichie’s “the danger of a single story” lecture on TED talk. It could have been used as
a review for the simple past form, and as a guiding material for a debate towards racism
in Brazil. I later on found out that, even though she seemed to like the idea of using
such video, she didn’t use it.

If the activity had been used, I’d consider it very meaningful for the students, since
they’d be able to review and use the contents they’ve previously seen in class (since, at
the time, that was the subject to be presented to the group), and students could have
practiced the verb tense previously learned in a more contextualized way.

5.1 b) Host teacher: Carla | Elaboration of mini test for 1V7 group | Length: 50
minutes

In this activity I wasn’t well guided by the host teacher: her mother lives in a different
city and had a seizure, which had Carla travel to see her.

All I was told was to elaborate a mini test that would be graded by only a point. She
didn’t mention any kind of content necessary, so I chose to use the simple past tense as
the subject of the test, since it was the subject I had taught them as a trainee teacher.

I wanted to design a simple mini test in which students could feel comfortable to answer
without any further difficulties, since it was only worth one point and they would use
the simple past tense in a fast, deductive way.

With that said, I went on www.busyteacher.org to see if I could find any “fill in the
blanks” activity that would be helpful. Since I couldn’t find an activity that would fulfill
my needs – most of the activities were long and needed too much knowledge of
irregular verbs, I decided to create my own activity, using sentences that have been seen
by the group during the classes I’ve taught.

This activity took me more than I expected because I thought it would be easier to find
an activity that would fulfill my demands. Since on the last semester I took a subject
about evaluating the learning process and how to properly elaborate an evaluative
instrument that would be useful for the teacher and meaningful for the students, it was
hard for me to find a balance for both meaningful and contextualized test.

I honestly asked for help from my father, who’s just got a teaching license in History
from UFBA, and who I also helped create his own test while he was a trainee teacher to
check if the mini test was okay. I decided to have ten items on the test, so the students
would be more able to make mistakes without getting a low grade.

As a trainee teacher, I have never felt comfortable with creating tests, since I don’t feel
properly prepared for such thing, especially by the university I study at. After this
experience, I feel a little more comfortable and happy about the outcome of this activity.
5.1 c) Host teacher: Carla | applying of mini test | Group: 1V7 |Length: 50 minutes

Before this activity was performed, I had taught a review class to the group. Since I was
asked that this test was done in pairs, I asked the students to organize the desks so they
could do the mini test in a regular test classroom arrangement.

Curiously, some students who I’ve never seen interacting with one another sat together
to do the mini test. Some students who are, apparently, “weeker” and “less interested”
(according to the group itself) chose to be pairs with the students who usually speak
more English in the classroom. Those pairs, however, took a very short time to have the
test finished and were the first ones to leave the classroom.

It took me only five minutes to explain the test to the group, since it was a short mini
test. I also checked the student’s comprehension of the sentences written on the test by
asking them to translate them into Portuguese. Most of the students could understand all
the sentences entirely.

Other pairs took longer to finish the test and seemed upset about it, since they wanted to
go home earlier. Most of them didn’t mind it, and kept shushing their classmates
because, in their own words, “I’ll score this test because I want a 10”.

The last students left two minutes before the signal rang (at 6 p.m.). They didn’t try to
cheat in the test, nor asked questions during the test time.