Self Reflection 1 (School Practice)

I conducted a CLIL lesson about Brazil. At the beginning of the lesson, in order to activate the students' prior knowledge, I showed them some pictures (car, ship, plane etc.) and asked them the names. Then, I showed them the flags of 3 countries and asked them to tell me the names of these countries - Poland, Spain and Brazil. Then, I showed the world map and asked: "Today we are going on a trip, do you think we are going to Canada, America or Brazil?" Here, instead of Canada and America, I had to say Poland and Spain, because the students could not make a connection between the flags and the countries I mentioned, and there was no point in showing the flags. After getting the students' thoughts, I circled Brazil on the map, wrote "Rio de Janeiro" and told the students that today we were going to Brazil. I showed the students the travel bag I had brought to the classroom and asked them what we could take with us before we travel to Brazil.

First, I showed the students the Brazilian flag. I asked them about the colors of the flag and the shapes on the flag (circle, diamond). The students knew the "circle" but most of them did not know the "diamond" shape, so I taught them. Then, I showed them Brazilian food. I showed the two most popular dishes, Açai Bowl and Feijoada. Some of the students had tried Açai Bowl, but none of them knew about Feijoada. We talked about the Brazilian foods a little, I mentioned their ingredients and asked, "Which of these would you like to try?" We had a little discussion.

Then, I showed the students "Christ the Redeemer". I asked them if they knew the name of this statue. My mentor teacher mentioned that there is a statue similar to this in Poland. This was new information for both the students and me, so I kept it in mind to share with the students in my next lesson. I talked to the students about the height, length and weight of the statue.

Then, I asked the students if they knew about the Rio Carnival. I told them about the carnival, showed them photos and videos. I said, "Do you want to go to the carnival? Let's go!" and opened a website where you can buy fake plane tickets. We bought tickets together. I told the students about the Brazilian currency, wrote the equivalent of 1 Euro in Zloty and Real on the board and asked them to calculate the price of the ticket. My aim here was to include some math. Then, I wrote on the board 1 Açai bowl = 15 Real, 1 Feijoada = 30 Real, 1 magnet = 5 Real etc. and asked the students, “You came to Rio and you have 60 Reals. If you eat 1 Açai bowl/feijoada/buy a magnet, how many Reals are left?”

At the end of the lesson, I gave each student a postcard template and asked them to write a postcard to anyone they wanted. I gave the writing sample with spaces. In this activity, I used Past Tense without considering the students’ English level, so the students asked what the words meant and got a little confused.

Overall, it was a lesson that I enjoyed. The students’ interest in the subject motivated me a lot. It was also a lesson where I learned a lot and realized my mistakes.