Answers From Chile

This are the answers from the teacher in Chile.

1. Describe your students at school. (this means social class, if they speak any other language besides spanish, where do they parents live, wich cities or towns) talk about your students in general.

students`s families are from a low class level I mean most of them don't have a regular job. Due to most of them work at part time jobs and they haven't got a professional degree, some of them haven't even finish their primery education. Their parents are craftmen/women, fisherman/men, shop assistants, waiters/resses, etc. Their higher money income occurs during summer, due to tourists and this income is their main families' economic support for the rest of the year.

Half of families have lived here around 50 years, yet the other half have come from Cartagena (a city located in the cost, quiet poor) looking for better job expectations to different cities as Santiago (Chile's capital and also the biggest and nearest city).

Students interests are regaeton music and music in general, dancing, fashion, to party and follow some urban styles. 5% of students attend to some sport, music, art and language workshops after class in the same school. BUT most of them show openly their great adiction to tv or video games. I thing there are 5 to 10 students in the whole school who can speak English, and there are some others interested in French.

Anyway non of them are their main goal! They expect to go to university, or college and I think a 30 % from the students will really do it this year.

Our students are considered vulnerable, since social and cultural sorrounding (non standard family group, drugs problems, delinquency, etc) and it's also worth telling that there's a rising number of students with special needs or in integrated school program...

ANALYSIS.

The school social class, is not homogeneus, this means most of the students belong to a low social status. So they have the same family background. Research says, that this is not a very good scenario, since classrooms should be homogeneus, with different kinds of students backgrounds, and social classes. Students share the same interest, such as: music, fashion and dancing. There is also a few percentage of them who likes to practice sports, or do something different. And only 30% of them are able to go to college. If the classroom, would have different students backgrounds, it would increase students interesnt in many more areas, or issues related to college, life, beliefs, etc.

2. Describe a learner you have in your class it could be a good or bad at English

There is a student in particular, who is not very good at English. Most of the time have he has a terrible behavior, although when he feels he can do something he makes it happen. A very interesntig feature about him is that, in contrast, there are some students, who fail before starting anything and need a lot of support from teachers... that is why they are considered lazy and there've been some situation when they're are diagnosed with some intelectual disability or syndrome....

ANALYSIS

The student description talks about a boy, who is no interested or motivated, the teacher also says that he has a terrible behaviour, BUT at the moment the boy know he can do something he has no problem, so he starts doing it. And the teacher points out that compared to other students in the same class, he is willing to do things, so my guess is that this student is asking for the teacher's attention so he feels important, is not that he is a bad or lazy student, his behavior is an issue that could be explained because of his family issues. One of the bad things about this, is that teachers never know what is really happening in student's houses, so many times, students behavior is related to emotional issues, or just maturity.