Teaching Practice in Portugal

       A couple of weeks I had to share my teaching practice experiences during the annual international week at UCSJ. It made me reflect in on all the cultural challenges I faced during 3 intensive weeks at Carlucci American International of School of Lisbon. I had the opportunity to participate in three different classes.

Carolina on duty at CAISL 

• Spanish IB: This was my first time teaching Spanish in an international setting. I was surprised of the high Spanish proficiency level students had at this school. My Spanish class have been learning for two years Spanish and I could have a conversation with them, without telling whether they were native speakers or not. I was amazed by the fact that Asian students who usually struggle the most with specific Spanish phonemes were able to say complex words with a good pronunciation. I tried to find an answer that explains the reason why students were so good. Firstly, The teacher was totally committed to her job. She actually was not a native speaker, therefore I assumed that it helped her to understand her students needs because she has been in the same position before. Secondly, there were indeed motivated students, who were eager to learn about Hispanic culture and thirdly the demands of the school regarding the academic level. (IB curriculum)

• American History. This was the second subject that I had to teach during my teaching practice. Wait, WHAT? yes, a Colombian student teacher who had to teach American history to 8th graders from more than 8 different countries. I could say this was the toughest subject I had ever taught. I love history but I never thought I had to teach something that I barely know like American History. Then, two main challenges came across. 

This is the course book I used to plan my lessons
about the French-Indian war

1. How to teach something that you don't feel culturally identified? I don't have any  American cultural background. I never had American history lessons when I was in high school. In order to understand someone else's culture, one has to reflect on how other's culture can be similar and different to your own culture. One has to think how other's culture has an effect on one's life.
2. How to explain a historical content without offending someone's cultural background? The homeroom teacher explained to me that sometimes you have to let pupils to construct their opinions about certain topics. She told me as well that as international teachers, we must always find the balance when giving our points of view. We provide facts and create spaces for discussions but we never give the final answer. In few words, teachers need to play a neutral role. I think this was my golden key to teach history. 

• Learning Support: This subject is also known as Special needs class was "the Spot on" of my teaching practice. I must admit I was really nervous to participate in this class because of my zero knowledge about the topic. However, after three weeks observation and one attempt to teach a lessons for ADHD students I can say this field is more complex that I thought. In fact, I could say that now I got more questions than answers regarding special needs teaching. One of the challenges for international schools in regards of special needs is the language learning. Being an non native English speaker is already a special need in an international setting. That's is why  learning support is an essential class for those pupils that are having behavioural and learning problems. The other challenge is the curriculum for special needs. Since all pupils have different cases, it's almost impossible to designe a curriculum that covers everyone's needs. What impressed me the most was the versatility of the teacher to include everyone in an activity in spite of the fact that they were around 6 pupils with totally different learning problems. I think teachers in this field need not only to develop creativity skills to prepare accurate teaching material but also develop caring skills that allow them to understand pupils needs. 

This was an overview of teaching practice experience. I must admit that this experience was a brand-new for me. The three subjects I taught and observed were undoubtedly fruitful not only for my professional but also for my personal development. In my next entry I would try to link my observations during my teaching practice and the theory given in my university.