Elka’s Final, Revised-by-Me & Approved-by-Her Internship Report

Final Internship Evaluation

Ginna Allison

By Elka Todeva

May 8, 2010

I supervised Ginna Allison during her winter 2010 internship in Pachuca, Mexico, where she taught adult and youth learners at the ABC Escuela de Inglés, a small private language school with a long history of offering language courses. While Ginna has tutored immigrants in English, and has designed and taught numerous media classes, she did not have direct experience in teaching English to speakers of other languages in a classroom setting. Nonetheless, she had a successful internship experience, demonstrating that with thoughtfulness, creativity and good preparation one can offer pedagogically sound experiences at the same level and above that one witnesses in the classrooms of very experienced teachers.

Below, I will briefly summarize how Ginna met each of the five internship competencies:

  1. Professional Conduct:  Ginna conducted herself in a highly professional manner. She was always well prepared for her classes with lessons that were age, level, and culturally appropriate, well scaffolded, and designed to challenge her students while giving them a sense that they could succeed at the tasks she gave them. She clearly worked very hard to give her students the best possible support, care, and educational experiences. Ginna always made them feel welcomed; their time in class was both enjoyable and valuable. Ginna spent time observing some of her peers and, from what I could see, she brainstormed and shared her ideas and lessons with the other MAT students in Pachuca. I believe she could have worked a little more closely with her ABC colleagues. There were some missed opportunities that could have been avoided with more trust and with Ginna being more proactive.
  1. Professional Knowledge: Ginna prepared very thoroughly and, by simply observing her, one could never tell that she hadn’t previously taught English in a formal classroom setting. She is also a very fast learner. In her teaching, I could see how she was trying to apply some key pedagogical principles we had explored in SLA in the fall; she knew how much material the students could absorb at one sitting; she understood their need for variety and multiple ways of approaching a task; and she was skillful at sequencing lessons that recycle information while continually adding new challenges. She was quite polished in her presentation of materials, engaging her students right from the start, and keeping them focused and on task during lessons. In the lessons I observed, students were able to complete the assignments in the allotted time, and feel successful in doing so. She showed an ability to incorporate feedback provided by her supervisor right away. Two areas of demonstrated growth were timely error correction and more visual enhancement.
  1. Classroom Management: Ginna was supportive and gentle with the students while maintaining a positive authority as the teacher. She started each class by laying out the plan for the day and as the lesson unfolded, she provided gentle reminders if necessary. She was able to deal with individual issues as they came up without getting sidetracked from the task at hand – keeping everyone focused, engaged, and productive. Even in more challenging classes of easily distracted students, of which she had one in particular, she seemed for the most part to be able to work with the students in a way that brought them to successful completion of the lesson. She provided ample amounts of positive reinforcement which the students seemed to appreciate, and an effective balance of challenge and support that allowed her students to experience success during each class.
  1. Lesson Planning:  Lesson planning was a big strength of Ginna’s. She knew what the students needed to further their academic work, and she was creative in designing lessons that were at the appropriate level, engaging, provided variety, and were well paced. Her lessons included artistic expression, movement, and visual supports, as well as regular practice in reading, discussion, writing, etc. Ginna was very well organized and well planned. She knew exactly what she was going to do for each lesson, yet was flexible when she needed to be. She planned a very exciting project with her students that allowed rich cultural sharing and honed people’s presentation skills and ability to work with computers.
  1. Reflective Practice: In pre- and post- observation discussions, Ginna demonstrated a keen ability to reflect on her lessons, and her students’ abilities and achievements. She was very skilled at assessing what worked and what didn’t in our post-observation discussions. She was continually assessing her students’ abilities and needs and how well they were grasping the material she presented. Ginna’s written reflections on her lessons were in-depth, straightforward, and objective. She was able to see both what worked and what might have worked better in a lesson, analyze why, and make plans based on this analysis. Not surprisingly, given her background, she is a great reflective writer.

Ginna had a successful internship. She is a caring and creative teacher with a bright future ahead of her in the classroom. She has my best wishes.