Student Teaching: Practicum in Education

Practicum in Education is an educational internship in which students combine the study of second language acquisition (SLA) theories with teaching methodology while developing important cultural perspectives on the field of education. Students work as Teacher’s Assistants and teach English to Spanish children aged 4 to 12 enrolled the Playschool program at Spanish Studies Abroad (SSA). The purpose of this course is to explore the question:  What is teaching a foreign language?  We will do this by investigating different theories of SLA and approaches to foreign language (FL) teaching.  During the course, you will gain practical knowledge to incorporate into your everyday teaching, as well as an understanding of which approaches to teaching might be more effective than others in various classroom contexts and why.  Among the topics we will discuss are:  teaching methodologies and approaches, theories of SLA, the National Standards, teaching the four skills and grammar in a communicative FL classroom, teaching culture, and assessment.

This is a very hands-on course and will require active participation. The sessions will be highly practical featuring brainstorming and workshop type activities; micro-teaching; peer evaluation and feedback; video-based materials; debate and discussion. In addition students will be expected to keep up to date with background reading and complete a series of tasks.