MDD 1

I.
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS
MDD Standard 1
The teacher candidate collects data regarding the institutional and classroom
contexts, the characteristics of the pupils as a group and its diversity, using this
information to plan and deliver instruction.
1. Community in which the school is located and/or serves, municipality
or owner and school factors:
The institution is called The Pacific School, and from Primary to Secondary education
has a total enrollment of 635 students. The school is a semi-private institution which
receives a grant per capita from the state of Chile, and it is held by a private owner. In
addition, the school is located in Chiguayante, a middle sized county near Concepcin,
the capital city of the VIII Region. The neighborhood in which the school serves the
community belongs to a middle-upper class socioeconomic status area of the county.
Besides, a high percentage of students live in the same area near the school; however,
some students come from Hualqui, which is located about 15km from Chiguayante.
Regarding the socioeconomic profile of students families, according to SIMCE 2014,
there is a high percentage of middle class status students, with incomes that range
from $420.001 to $700.000, and a 32,01% to 52% rate of students in vulnerability
status. These percentages describe an approximation created by the Ministry of
Education and may not represent the real socioeconomic state of students.
The ethnical minorities rate is very low (0,47%) , represented only by 3 foreigner
students. There is not available data of Chilean ethnic minorities.
1.1.
How These Factors May Impact My Lessons:
2. Student Characteristics and Their Instructional Implications:

2.1 Description of First Characteristic of Student(s) in this Class:
This student is a 12-year old girl that demonstrates a higher level of proficiency than
her classmates. Through the development of each class, she shows off her level by
participating and showing interest towards the English class and the topic concerning
the unit. Despite the showing-off characteristic, this student is very open the help
her classmates while performing some of the tasks and explain to them the meaning of
sentences and words. She seems to be very organized having also outstanding results
in all the subjects.
2.1.1 How This Characteristic Will Impact my Lesson:
Helping out other classmates will be a great support for my lesson, as there are some
groups that may not have the level of proficiency to understand and develop the tasks,
this student will be my linguistic connection to students. Moreover, confidence in my
opinion is a key element for students to speak out their minds while trying to produce
in English, and with her it will not be an obstacle but an additional assistance for my
lesson.
2.2 Description of Second Characteristic of Students in this Class:

This student is a 12-year old boy whose level of proficiency is very low compared to his
classmates. During class, he seems to be distracted by factors like talking, drawing or
just not being interested in the English lesson. As I observed, when he tries to pay
attention to an activity, his results do not represent the amount of effort that he puts
into it - something that frustrates him and makes him feel that no matter what he
does, he will always fail.
2.2.1 How This Characteristic Will Impact my Lesson
As this student depends on his emotional status, I will have to be careful at the
moment of planning and encouraging him to perform a task. In this particular point,
the level of difficulty is crucial, as it has to match students level of English, motivation
and provide actual good results for the student. Also, I will have to monitor him in
order to give him support and identify his weaknesses in order to promote his
strengths. As a result, I may have the chance to omit his frustration. For a lesson plan,
I think I should start with a basic and easy activity to engage this student and enhance
his learning process to my unit and lessons aims.
3. Physical Aspects of the Classroom and Their Instructional Implications:
3.1 Description of First Physical Aspect:
The classroom is placed on the second floor of the school and is arranged as four rows.
There are two rows which are organized as one-student-each, while there are two rows
in the middle of the classroom arranged as two students per row.
3.1.1 How This Aspect Will Impact My Lesson
As I have witnessed, it will be difficult to make students work in pairs because of time
and probable misbehavior. In contrast, students are very close to the whiteboard. This
will help me as I may not have to raise my voice too much.
3.2 Description of Second Physical Aspect:
There is a large whiteboard and a data projector available.
3.2.1How This Aspect Will Impact My Lesson
Having a data projector is an advantage to my lessons as I will be able to bring more
engaging materials, such as videos, pictures, etc.
4. Reflects on the importance of knowing about students and the
context to provide quality teaching
Knowing about the students and the context to provide quality teaching are two
important factors that a teacher of English in training must consider at the moment of
learning how to develop teaching strategies.
The importance of knowing about the students: from my perspective, this is a
critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. Students are all different, so do
their learning styles as not everyone learn in the same way. Adapting my lessons to
each student might sound impossible, but encouraging students to use strategies like
Personalization (Chamot, xxxx), could make an impact on their learning and enhance
language learning in this context. Furthermore, emotions are also important. My
mentor teacher told me once that their disposition to learn depends on their mood. As
a teacher, I should be prepared for difficult lessons with students paying no attention.
In this case, I must not blame myself, but think on new strategies to turn these hard
lessons into a success for learning. Knowing their moods, personalities, likes and
dislikes to name but few, can help me to develop interesting and meaningful lessons.
Conversely, I think that we cannot always match students interest, so moving their
focus of attention to important topics might also serve as a good strategy. Indicating
that a topic is important may gather their attentions as they will always be thinking
about the test, which is what there are used to doing.
The importance of knowing about the context: apart from knowing about the
students, their context is also an important issue to consider when providing quality
teaching. Students socio cultural and economic contexts differ from each other; as a
result, for a teacher is also a mean of significance to know their previous knowledge
what they bring from their experiences. Teaching can be totally related to this and set
a context of synchronization between the content, learning and students motivation.
To conclude, teaching not only is knowing what to teach and how to teach, but also
who to teach and what to do when the content is not enough to solve classroom
issues, but most importantly, the way teachers provide a quality content, values and
emotional delivery.

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I.

How These Factors May Impact My Lessons:

2. Student Characteristics and Their Instructional Implications:

2.2 Description of Second Characteristic of Students in this Class:

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