Is it really necessary to assess very young learners?

While working last week and this week my students have been assessed by an external teacher. It is now when I ask to myself if it is really necessary to assess these very young learners and how can we do it. We don’t have to forget that I am teaching kids who are from 2 to 7 years old.

Assessment is the process of finding about what children can do and where there may be difficulties. When assessing children’s learning, the main aspects that are assessed are:

-       - Knowledge and understanding,

-       - Skills,

-       - Attitudes and values and behaviour.

Assessment is important in primary education and especially when teaching languages because it provides information on which to base the next teaching and learning activities; feedback for the learners to motivate them; information to assist in evaluation of teaching; information that can be shared with parents and carers and information on which judgements are made about school effectiveness.

In my opinion, assessing them has no sense because they are very young and especially when is not their teacher who is assessing them, that is why is so difficult and why I don’t see the meaning and the point in assessing such a very young kids or learners.

My thoughts about english and other after school activities.

After being at school the whole day, a lot of students are going to extra activities which means that they don’t arrive home until 7-8pm. There are lots of activities such as sport (football, swimming, handball, gymnastics...) English lessons, music, arts, theatre… that can take place at school or in a private place (sports centre, language schools, music schools…).

As most of you probably know, actually I am working in an English school giving lessons to very Young kids. That’s why I want to write about English after-school lessons today.

A lot of teachers believe that gran part of the parents are interested in English after-school activities.

From my point of view English (and other foreign languages) is very important because it is highly beneficial for everybody and especially for kids because it is reflected in everybody’s cognitive growth.

When kids go to another school to do English lessons they are more motivated because they have a new and appropriated physical environment and it gives them a good impression of the use of a foreign language. And this is one of the basics and most important requirements for kids who want to learn a foreign language effectively. 

At last but not the least, as a future teacher that  I am going to be, I have to admit that all the after school activities are designed for kids to have fun, because after being the whole day at school we cannot expect that kids give 100%, when they are tired after the whole day doing things and activities. 

This is what I want to be!

Hi there!



My name is Sílvia an I want to share this blog with all of you. In this blog you will fins all my evidence while I am learning how to teach languages in primary education.
As you can imagine I am studying to become an English teacher and now in this first entry, I want to explain and let you know what kind of teacher do I want to be.

When I start thinking bout which kind of teacher do I want to be I can't avoid thinking bout all the teachers that I have had during my childhood. Most of them were patient, empathic, professional, funny and all of them had passion for teaching and enjoyed what were they doing. Others were moody, boring and unwilling to teach.

In my opinion, we have to learn of all our experiences and about everything and obviously, I have learnt a lot of all of them, now, I know which qualities do I want to have and which ones I don't want to have. And the qualities which I want to have are the following ones: passionate, patient, professional, open minded and empathic.

Teaching is not a job that everyone can do, although  many people thinks the opposite. As I mentioned before, if you want to do a good job, you have to be passionate and enjoy everything that you do. When doing something that you really like, you always control the situation and you are patient. Teachers should be patient and try to help children with everything that they can, because that's why teachers are next to them, to walk next to them and help them, a part from teaching and hand out with the academic skills.

Being a good teacher means being professional, and professional means being comfortable and natural with kids, parents, job mates and of course in doing your job, which means most of the times being empathic, comprehensive and open minded to help children with difficulties or special needs understanding others' problems  and situations and help them to solve or at least being relaxed in front of hard situations which also means being empathic.

At last but not least, I want to emphasize the point of being affective with children. We don't have to forget that we are going to teach primary students and we are going to be a role model for them, and one easy way of showing them a good model it's being affective with them, because they are not going to forget all we did for them.

And now I want to share you a video with some quotes that I like it very much... hope you like it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KWA0iKh6Cs

Sílvia!