SECONDARY LEVEL

 

* Teaching Secondary Level Students:

Teaching at Secondary Level is a challange for teachers at this level which requires to be creative, confident, hard-working, persevering, enthusiastic and open-minded in order to be able to recognize students' interests, ideas and viewpoints. It is essential to communicate positively, effectively and to be able to explain with clarity, because students at Secondary Level are good at reading teachers gestures and manners by reading their body language expressions. It has to do with the fact that there is a difference between knowing something and being able to explain it effectively, in order to gain students' confidence and positive results from the teaching process. To reach this purpose, a teacher need to be able to explain tasks in lessons which may be connected to different experiences and abilities, and which involves breaking a topic down into its constituent stages and then sequencing and organizing these stages in an accessible way, so to follow cohesion and coherence. It is also a key point to build strong relationships between teacher and students in order to obtain a successful managing classroom behaviour.

Furthermore, as well as being able to explain with clarity, teachers also need to be able to demonstrate how to develop tasks. Teachers may learn how to teach better by doing things themselves, I mean by writing pieces of literary works, by preparing questionaires, creative tasks and byT providing personal examples in relation to tasks worked in lessons. Modelling is an important skill, as it demonstrates a process and enables the teacher to talk about their actions and decisions in order to benefit the learners' understanding.

Teaching at Secondary Level also implies finding out what areas of knowledge are students more interested in, and to explore on that areas of knowledge in case teachers do not know so much about them, in order to engage learners and drive their learning improvement.

Moreover, it is important to create the right classroom atmosphere to allow students be active learners during lessons, through participating, interacting and expressing themselves.

* DIDACTIC UNIT: "MEMORIES"

The topic chosen to design the Didactic Unit for Secondary Level is "Memories".  The Lesson Plans are focussed to develop students' comprehension, creativity and, as a consequence, to improve their skills. During the development of the activities provided in lessons, students may have to take an active role through listening and reading comprehension, dialogues, development of tasks, description of features, participation and interaction with the teacher and exchange of ideas, experiences and reflections in relation to the topic. The different activities worked during lessons will be developed individually or collaboratively, according to the purpose of each activity, in order to achieve meaningful learning in students.

In addition, technology played an important role to develop lessons, as it helped to enhance relationships between the teacher and students but it also helped to make the learning process more meaningful for students. I used different web tools and digital resources to develop the activities, which were really useful to employ in the lessons, because they make students feel more engaged, motivated and enthusiastic to participate and collaborate with their own classmates. At this Level, students are more used to manage digital tools, so it was an advantage to employ technology during the development of the Didactic Unit.

* WEEK 1:

- During the development of Week Nº 1, I designed activities about Memories in relation to the school year, in which students may share their experiences, memories and reflections during the school year in quarantine, as they may identify and recognize people school year memories and past experiences. We developed individual and collaborative tasks in which we interact and learn from each other.

TPD - Didactic Unit - Secondary Level - Week 1 - buttiglieri micaela from MicaelaButtiglieri

* WEEK 2:

- The Lesson plan designed to work during Week Nº 2, is focussed on Memories connected to Last Birthday celebrations. Students may develop activities in which they have to identify features about past events and activities of people birthday celebrations, and also to describe their Last Birthday celebrations, by providing information about their experiences, feelings, emotions and past events. In this way, students interact with their classmates and teacher by using sentence structures given to develop this topic.

TPD -Didactic Unit - Secondary Level - Week 2 - Buttiglieri Micaela from MicaelaButtiglieri

* WEEK 3:

- During the development of Week Nº 3, we worked with activities about Memories related to Last Summer Holidays, in which students may identify key features about people' Last Birthday celebrations around the World. We also described our Last Birthday celebrations, sharing our experiences in relation to the topic, and exchanging information about past activities and memories (through dialogues and presentations). 

TPD - Didactic Unit - Secondary Level - Week 3 - Buttiglieri Micaela from MicaelaButtiglieri

* WEEK 4:

- The Lesson Plan I prepared to work in Week Nº 4 is focussed on activities based on Childhood Memories. During the development of the activities provided in the lesson, students may analyze people' Childhood Memories and their earliest Memories in relation to this stage, in order to recognize and identify specific features connected to their Childhood. Students may also describe some features about their Childhood Memories and exchange information about their past experiences with their classmates and teacher. In this way, we learn from each other and acquire new knowledge related to the topic.

TPD - Didactic Unit - Secondary Level - Week 4 - Buttiglieri Micaela from MicaelaButtiglieri

* FINAL REFLECTION: 

The Didactic Unit designed for Secondary Level was based on the following topic: “Memories”. During the development of the Lesson Plans, the aims were focused on allowing students to interact with their classmates and teacher, to acquire new knowledge by using structures given; elaborating dialogues; identifying and describing past actions and events, and to improve their learning skills.

The design of the activities provided, were divided into four weeks. Each week was connected to a theme in particular:

-          - Week nº 1 was focused on School Year memories, reflections and experiences.

-          - Week nº 2 was related to Last birthday celebrations, taking into account each one personal past experience.

-          - Week nº 3 was related to Last Summer Holidays memories, experiences and past events.

-          - Week nº 4 was focused on people childhood memories, taking into account each one past experiences, memories and past situations.

I used a variety of resources to develop the activities designed, in order to allow students acquire knowledge through different kinds of tasks resolution, which require students’ creativity and comprehension. In this way, students will be able to explore the topic by developing tasks which include the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking.

During the development of lessons of this Didactic Unit, I used some scaffolding strategies to reach this purpose, such as “show and tell”, in order to allow students identify past situations, experiences and events, as it helps students to understand commands and instructions in a better way and it also allows them to make visual connections which help them to acquire new knowledge.

Other strategies I used are “Instructing” (telling students the way that activities must be developed and the purposes), “Explaining” (providing students more detailed information or clarify key issues), “Questioning” (asking students questions that require active linguistic and cognitive answers), “Giving hints” (providing clues or suggestions but deliberately not including the full solution).

In addition, the use of “Feedback” is an important strategy I took into account to develop lessons, as it helps and guides students to enhance their performances during their learning process.

On the other hand, there are some issues which I consider I must review and change for future lesson plans designs, such as not following similar patterns between lesson plans, in order to provide students different approaches to explore the topic learnt. Furthermore, it is important to promote interaction between students by providing ideas which may students feel motivated and confident to participate and interact with their classmates and teacher. In addition, the fact of encouraging students to take down some notes on their classmates’ answers is a key point to analyze when developing the activities, in order to allow students exploit activities deeply and learn from each other.

To conclude, I would like to remark the hard work and responsibility it requires to develop the different activities assigned for this Didactic Unit, which must follow coherence and cohesion between stages, taking into account the importance of transitions. The advices and feedback given by the tutor were really helpful and useful to be able to perform the lesson plans I designed. It was a great challenge which required detailed analysis and development so as to carry out the proposed activities.