Group 2: Lesson 3

This time I would like to write about the last lesson imparted by group number 2, conformed by Nancy, Jacky, Gloria, Brenda, and Janeth. This lesson was developed on October 11th, 2015 and I personally believe, they had an outstanding performance.

 I would like to star by saying that I loved the material they used for this lesson, it was really colorful and it was definitely appealing to students' eyes. They managed to make a very created variation of both the Welcome and Good bye song, they provided students with material somehow related to the lyrics of the songs, and students evidently enjoyed that.

Their topic was an extension of the topic we had presented in the previous class, "My Dream Job", this time the customs were given to students who represented a profession during the whole lesson. They had prepared a wide variety of activities to practice the content being studied, and their goal was to prepare students to be able to write sentences stating what they wanted to be. Something I really liked is that they took advantage of the fact that the classroom we were using is really big, and they created activities in which students could move around the classroom and have some fun. That is something I would love to do, however it is important to know that not always will we have the chance to have a room as big as the one we were using during our Teaching Practicum. Nonetheless, the idea was lovely, and it would be a matter of adapting those activities to the classroom that we have available.

Of course, there were minimal details that could be improved, one of them was the pronunciation, in my opinion, we need to be really careful when introducing vocabulary, and we need to emphasized in the pronunciation of words that are unknown for our students. Also, I noticed that some of the group members were not matching the level of energy of their partners, and it is important for us to maintain a good energy, and a positive attitude during the whole lesson.

At the end of the class, students seemed really satisfied with the lesson, and during the production staged, it was clear that they had reached their objective. Overall, it was a great experience to see this grouop present their lesson.

Group 1: Lesson 3

It was our turn to teach again on November 9th, 2015. This time our topic was "My Dream Job", and we had to prepare a Listening class in which students were expected to identify professions and say what they want to be when they grow up.

This time we needed to be really prepared, since this was our last lesson and we could not afford to commit the same mistakes we had committed in previous lesson. Because of this, we took more time to prepare ourselves, we had more meetings and we took the time to get material as a team. The first thing we decided was to take advantage of the topic of the lesson, and we decided we were going to wear customs of professions, and we were going to prepare some for our students as well. It was really funny to pick our customs and to wear them. However, we needed to be careful not to distract our students from our lesson. 

Once we had our lesson plan, and materials prepared, it was time to teach. It was so gratifying to see how much kids were enjoying our lesson, they were clearly excited about the customs we had prepared for them and for ourselves. They showed an amazing willingness to participate in all the activities, starting from the welcome song. This positive attitude lead to positive results, since they easily acquired the vocabulary and the structures being presented to them. This was evident during our Post Listening, and our Wrap Up stages, in which they easily performed as requested. At some point, however, we needed to be careful since their excitement could cause them to distract and lose their focus from the actual lesson. However, this did not happen and I, personally, felt satisfied with the results at the end of the class.

Feedback session this week was conducted differently, we received direct feedback from the teachers observing us, and we were expected to have worked on everything we needed to improve from lesson one. Among the things mentioned during feedback, we were told not to be afraid to use our body language and to model instructions whenever needed, we were told to be careful with the level of excitement of our students, and to use activities to help them calm down if the it is required. Our material was better this time, flashcards were big enough for students to see them, and they were bright and colorful.

It was our last opportunity to teach a class to that small group of kids, and I can say that I really enjoyed the time we spent together. And I appreciate all the feedback I received, This was a very satisfactory experience.

Worksheet prepared by the group for our last lesson

Group 3: Lesson 2

On October 26th, 2015 group number three, conformed by Vanessa, Wanda, Yennifer, Deyanira and Luis, had their second opportunity to direct a class for our students. It was evident they had taken into consideration the feedback they received on their first lesson, and the result was a very good class.

Their topic was "My Town", in which students were expected to be able to talk about places in their community. Overall, the members of the group seemed very confident and comfortable performing in front of the students, and that always results in a positive attitude from students as well. This was not the exception as students were really engaged in all the activities the group had prepared for them, and were willing to participate.

I liked the material the group had prepared, it was very colorful and bright, catching students' attention, I also liked the activities they did since they were not common and students seemed to enjoy them a lot. For example, they introduced the new vocabulary with a game that simulated a city, and students had to decide what to place to visit. It was a very creative way to introduce the vocabulary and to warm up the class. Peronally, I was surprised about how fast students were able to master the structure that was being presented by Luis, and then they were able to practice it using a spinning wheel, which was a very creative resource used by the group. At the end of the class, students were excited to practice what they had learned, and it was clear that the goal had been reached succesfully.

There are still details that could be improved by the members of this group, like classroom management, and voice projection, but at this point, we are all still learning, and in my personal opinion, they did a great job last class.

Group 1: Lesson 2

It was October 19th, 2015 and it was our turn to teach our second lesson. This was a particularly hard week, however, we got to learn how to deal with unexpected situations. Due to climate conditions in our country, the Ministry of Education decided to suspend classes in all public and private institutions, and this impacted our Teaching Practicum course too.

First of all, things got complicated when we lost most of our material due to the rain. We had to prepare new material minutes before the class, and because of this, we started our lesson a couple of minutes late. Besides this, we were really shocked when we saw that only two students had presented that day. However, we had to value the effort this two kids made to get to class that day, and we had to teach our lesson to them.

Our topic was "My House", we prepared a lesson in which students were going to learn vocabulary about household objects, and also the Possessive Adjectives, and the Demonstrative Pronouns. It was hard to adjust the activities we had prepared to only two students. Specially, since they were one girl and one boy, and the boy was clearly shy to work along with her. Nonetheless, we found the way to adapt or even improvise during our lesson, and in our Production stage, we noticed we were able to achieve our goal. 

After the class was over, we had our usual feedback session, in it we were told to be more prepared for unexpected situations like all the ones we experienced that day. We were advised to have a back up plan, and to always maintain a positive attitude no matter what. We took care of the things we were told to improve the previous week, we created bigger flashcards and we gave students enough time to see them during the lesson.

After all, I am glad we had the opportunity to go through this situation, since this is something that every teacher will face sooner or later, and now I know how to deal with it when it happens to me again.

Group 1: Lesson 1

October 5th, 2015. It was the first time our group had to direct a real class in front of our young students. Our topic was "In My Classroom".

First of all, we had to pick a welcome and a good bye song, these two songs were going to be sung by our students throughout the whole course. We decided to use the "Hello - Hello", and the "After a While, Crocodile" song, both of them were taken from the YouTube channel Super Simple Songs. It was amazing to see how much children enjoyed these two songs, it was clear that the songs had caused an impact in them, since they helped them feel more comfortable, and at the
end, they left the classroom with a positive attitude.

During our lesson, students showed a very nice attitude, some of them were being shy at the beginning, but they ended up participating and showing a clear engagement in our lesson. As a group, we prepared our lesson plan and our materials, as well as a warm up, and wrap up activities. Children paid attention during the whole class, and they had a very good behavior. Similarly to the previous week, when my time to participate had come, I felt nervous, but being in front of the classroom and seeing the positive attitude that my students had, helped me to feel more relaxed, and I really enjoyed what I was doing.

60 minutes later, it was time for students to go home, not before singing the second song we had prepared for them, and picking up a snack we gave them. Once they were gone, it was feedback time.

During feedback we received several observations that will be more than useful, not only during the rest of this Teaching Practicum, but during the rest of our career as English teachers. I found out that my classmates and teacher had noticed I was feeling nervous at the beginning, they said it was reflecting in my body language, and I needed to relax so that students can feel relaxed as well. We were also advised to improve our material, since our flashcards were not big enough for students to see from their spots. Furthermore, we were told it would be more convenient to post our material in the wall, instead of just holding it in our hands. By doing this, students will be able to take a look at the material at any time they need it, helping them remember the content studied.

I received all the feedback with a positive attitude, since I know we are still learning, and we need to know what thing we can improve to be better teachers.

(Hello - Hello song)

(After a While, Crocodile song)

Diagnostic Class

On September 30th, 2015 we had the first experience leading a class in the Teaching Practicum I course, it was the Diagnostic Class.

This was not a regular lesson, in that day we had the chance to get to know the kids who would be visiting us for the rest of the course, and who would become our students. As in every other course, we had to diagnose our students to know what they already knew and the things they needed to learn. In order to achieve this, each group created a series of activities aimed to find out how well students mastered a specific topic.

I have to admit that I was feeling nervous, not only because it was the first time we were going to direct a class in front of our students, but also because we were being observed by our classmates and teacher. However, when the time to start the class began, there was no more room for nervousness. As group number one we were the first ones to develop our activities, and after all, I felt very comfortable performing in front of the students. As the evening went by, all of the groups developed their activities. Then, at 4:30 pm, when kids were gone, it was time to conclude what we had observed during our Diagnostic Class.

Together, we conclude that our students were not true beginners, most of them had a basic knowledge about the topics we presented, such as animals, colors, classroom objects, etc. Because of this, we decided that we were going to use a syllabus that would result challenging but fair for them. After taking this decision, we were given the dates in which we were required to teach, and the topics to develop. Once the Diagnostic Class was over, it was time to start preparing for the real experience. An experience I will share with you in the following entries of this blog.

Workshop: Body Language & Stage Fright

The last two weeks of this course we had the chance to attend to a workshop where we had the opportunity to learn about our body language and how to deal with stage fright. I must say that I really enjoyed these activities, and I found them extremely useful.

On the first day we learned how to walk properly around the classroom. I had never thought about it, and that is because we do not really think about walking, we just do it mechanically, however I realized that many of us walk without confidence and we were not aware that we were not moving correctly around the classroom. Moreover, we did an activity in which we had to talk in front of our classmates, and the instructor let us know the areas that we can improve in order to express ourselves in a better way. We also learned how to project our voice. All of this activities are going to be useful at the moment that we teach a class to our students.

On the second workshop we worked a little bit more on the things we were discussing on the first one, but we also learned that it is important to relax and have fun sometimes. Again, we had to present a story in front of our classmates trying to avoid the mistakes we identified on the first session. Personally, I saw a great improvement in all of us. However, sometimes we made the same mistakes unconsciously, but Giovanni helped us to work on that.

In conclusion, I found this two workshop sessions very useful and funny. I will definitely remember the things I learned there at the moment of teaching my classes.

Materials

In the last class, we had the opportunity to share with our classmates different ideas of materials that we can use with our classmates in order to support our lessons. Some of the materials that were presented are:

• Flash Cards:

In my opinion, flash cards are one of the best materials teachers can use in their classes, since they can be used in many different ways, at any stage. Moreover, the colors and images on them can help teachers to get the attention of their students.

• Modeling Clay:

With this material teachers can help their students to develop their fine and gross motor skills. Moreover, while creating figures with modeling clay students show their creativity, and teachers can use those moments to practice the language while reviewing colors, or shapes.

• Grouping Techniques:

We also learned about the different grouping techniques that teachers can use in the classroom. We learned that they all have some advantages and disadvantages, and teachers must learn how to use these techniques appropriately,

• Puppets:

Puppets can be used to get students attention, and they can be used at any moment of the lessons. Moreover, it results very easy and cheap for students to create them.

• Musical Instruments:

Learning with music is one of the techniques that teachers love to use, and musical instruments are essential for this, In our class we learned different ideas to use them, and even ideas to create our own instruments.

To conclude, this was a very useful workshop because we learned several ideas on what materials we can use and create, and how to use them to support our lessons.

Songs and Chants

During this workshop, we learned how we can use songs and chants in our lessons. They can be used to get our students' attention, to make the class more dinamic, and more importantly, to practice the language and the contents we are teaching.

The first things I learned is that songs and chants are different. Chants are more repetitive, with few and similar sentences. Songs, on the other hand, have more complex phrases and melodies.

It is important for us to know the stage and the ages in which we are going to use a song or a chant, we need to think carefullty on how it will help our students.

Here are the two examples of songs that I shared with my classmates:

Creating Lesson Plans

During our last class we had the opportunity to create a lesson plan for children between the ages of 7 to 11 years old. Before creating the lesson plan I felt very excited since I have always wanted to to learn how to create a good lesson plan, I started to think about the activities to include and I thought it was not going to be very challenging. However, while creating my lesson plan I realized that it is actually very challenging, since we have to think carefully about the activities we will include and the time we will give to each activity to make it apropriate for out students. After creating the lesson plan we had the chance to receive feedback from our teacher, and I had the chance to identify the areas that I can improve to create excelent lesson plans.

Here is the lesson plan I created:

Don Bosco University

Teaching Practicum I “Teaching English to Young Learners”

Teacher: Bryan Stanley Melgar Rodríguez. Date: August, 26th / 2015.

Topic: What’s your name?

Objective: By the end of this lesson SWBAT identify the letters of the alphabet in order to spell their names, and introduce themselves using basic greetings.

Target skill: Listening Planning Framework: PDP

Time	Stage	Activities/Procedure	Details
5 - 7  min.	Warm-up	- Students will play a memory game using small cards with some of the letters of the alphabet. - The class will be divided in two groups, and after planning among them their own strategy, each group will send a different member per turn to try to match a pair of cards. - The group with more pairs of cards will win.	Aim of activity: Introduce the topic. Break the ice. Materials: Cards with letters. Type of learner: Vi, K. Interaction: T-S, S-S.
15 – 19 min.	Pre-Listening	- Using the same cards from the warm-up, students will be shown the sound of each letter. (5 min) - Students will be presented with the questions they need to ask to have someone telling and spelling their names, and how to answer those questions. (5 – 7 min) -Students will be introduced with greetings. (5 – 7 min)	Aim of activity: Present the topic. Materials: Flashcards, whiteboard. Type of learner: Vi, A, K Interaction: T-S.
17 min.	During-Listening	- Students and Teacher will practice and sing the song “Bingo” a few times. [The word “dog” will be replaced with the word “son”](5 min) - Students will sing the song replacing the word “Bingo” for their names, in order to practice spelling. This activity will be repeated with different students. (7 min) - Students will listen to a short “real” conversation of two persons introducing themselves and using greetings. (5 min)	Aim of activity: Practice the lesson. Materials: MP3 or CD Player. Type of learner: A, Ve Interaction: T-S.
12 – 17 min.	Post-Listening	-Students will play “sharks are coming” the person who is left out in every turn will have to spell their first name. (5 – 7 min) - Students will chose a partner and role-play a very short conversation similar to the one they listened in the previous stage to introduce themselves. (7 – 10 min)	Aim of activity: Produce language. Materials: Students’ notebooks to plan conversation. Type of learner: K, A, Ve Interaction: S-S

Case of Study

Santiago Melendez
Subject of Study

After having studied the different theories about child development, we can easily identify each of the stages stated in them by observing the way children behave. In order to probe this, I performed a few experiments with my three-year-old nephew, Santiago. Besides the experiments, I also took the time to observe his behaviour in his natural environment. In this entry you will find the information about this study, including the profile of the child I worked with, a brief description of the experiments we performed, the conclusions and results of this study, and also pictures (which you can click to enlarge) that evidence such results.

Santiago Melendez was the subject of this study, he just turned 3 years old a few weeks ago on July, 30th. He lives with his mother, and his grandparents. Despite not having any siblings, and not going to school yet, he has a lot of interaction with children of different ages that live near his house. Of course I know my nephew very well, I am very aware of the things he is capable to do, and the activities he can easily perform. However, in order to get the most accurate and detailed results, I studied him for a couple of days, trying not to interfere with his regular development. Thanks to this, I realized that he is capable to do many things by himself, and he prefers to perform those activities without any help. Just to mention a few, he can eat by himself; in fact, he uses a fork and a spoon in a very decent way. Moreover, he is capable of driving his bicycle with training wheels very well, and he can go up and down stairs alone. However, there are many activities that he is not able to perform without external help yet; he does not go to the bathroom alone, he is not capable of getting dressed by himself, and he needs help to take showers. Nonetheless, he shows an autonomous attitude towards everything he does, trying to learn those things he stills struggles with, and trying not to ask for help whenever is posible.

Santiago eating by himself

Besides observing Santiago in a discrete way, I also decided to perform a couple of direct experiments to prove some of the theories we have studied. In the first experiment, I presented him two different towels, and I hid a toy under one of them. He was able to tell me where the toy was very easily. Then, I hid the toy under the second towel to see if his answer changed, and it did. He was aware that the toy was not under the same towel.
 
I also performed a second experiment with him. I placed to glasses with an exact amount of water in them, when I asked him which one had more water, he told me that they had the same amount since the water reached the same point in both of the glasses. After that, and in front of him, I poured the water from one of the glasses into a shorter and wider bowl, and I asked him the same question. He told me that the glass had more water, because the water inside of it reached a higher point than the water inside the bowl.

As a conclusion, I realized that Santiago has reached a point in which he starts to feel the necesity to be more independent. Erik Erikson describes this stage as "Autonomy vs. Shame", something that occurs between the age of 18 months and 3 years. He starts to build his self-esteem as he learns new skills, and he feels proud when he accomplish things on his own. Furthermore, by being able to tell where the toy was hidden in the first experiment, he demonstrated his awareness of the environment around him, showing that he is no longer in the "Sensorimotor" stage, a term presented by Jean Piaget and that lasts from birth to approximately 2 years old. On the other hand, by not being able to tell that the amount of water was the same in the bowl as in the glass in the second experiment, he showed that he cannot use logic to understand certain ideas and abstract concepts like amounts, speed, or weight. This behaviour belongs to the stage Piaget named "Preoperational" and that ranges from ages 2 to 7. 

It has been very interesting to observe how this theories apply to the development of children, and how they resulted very accurate, at least in my case of study.

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Learning Disabilities and Disorders

During this week we had the opportunity to attend to a workshop conducted by a psychologist, who talked to us about the different learning disabilities and disorders that we might find in the classroom. I believe it is important for teachers to know and understand about this topic, since our students are human beings, just like us, and not all of them will learn and behave in the same way.

I would like to share with you what I have learned about this topic in the last workshop. First of all, I learned that learning disabilities and disorders are not related with intelligence at all. We cannot say that a kid is lazy or less smart than the rest, just because they have a learning disability. On the contrary, we must learn how to deal with that situation and help them develop their abilities.

I also learned that a learning disability is not the same as a learning difficulty. A learning difficulty is an obstacle, any external factor that might affect the capacity of students to learn, such as emotional problems to mention an example. On the other hand, a learning disability is a condition that students have and cannot be simply ignored, they will need help and treatment to learn to develop in the best way.

In conclusion, I believe it is important to learn how to identify that one of our students is having a learning disability or disorder, so that we can find the best way to deal with them and teach them.

Teaching the Concrete Operational Child

During the first weeks of the Teaching Practicum I course we have studied different theories that exist about physical, psychosocial, and cognitive development of children. With the objective of getting as much information as possible about this topic, we performed a research about the theories of Jean Piaget, Lev Vigotsky, Erik Erikson, and Lawrence Khelberg. Each one of them had a theory about the way human beings develop in their childhood, and I have to say that I found this information fascinating, and extremely interesting and useful.

I believe that most of us give for granted the way that we have all gone through a process of development in different areas of our lives during the first years of our existence, and by studying the theories previously mentioned I have realized that such process is influenced by many external factors that we should pay attention to, to be able to understand the way children behave. For example, Jean Piaget stated that we go through a cognitive development when we are children, and that we must go through different stages: from acquiring knowledge, until we actually learn how to use it.  Lev Vigotsky, did not disagree with Piaget's theory, but he added an external factor: social interaction, and created his own theory about how social interaction influences in one's development. Similarly, Erik Erikson took into consideration social interaction to create a theory that, to my opinion, puts Piaget's and Erikson's theories together; the Psychosocial Development theory. Finally, Lawrence Kehlberg decided to study the Moral Development of people, going through different stages in which humans acquire and develop a sense of morality.

As a future teacher, I believe it is really important for us to know about this theories and to consider them in order to understand the way our young students will behave. After studying each of them carefully I realized that all of them have a degree of certainty. I think we should not try to stick to only one of those theories, because time changes, and so does people, so just one of those theories might not completely explain the way children develop nowadays. I believe that it is important to consider all of those theories and try to get the best from each one. I have really liked this topic, because it is important to keep in mind that we will not be working with machines, but with human beings that have emotions, feelings, and principles. We must learn to understand them, and to influence in a positive way in their development process.

Welcome!

yep, that's me!

Welcome to my blog! It is always really exciting to start a new semester and a new course, specially  one like Teaching Practicum I, where we will have the opportunity to experience what it really feels to be an English teacher. In this blog you will find different posts about my experiences in this course, what I have learned, and what I have liked or disliked about it. However, in this particular post I will introduce myself so that you can get to know a little about me.

My name is Bryan Stanley Melgar Rodríguez, I am 20 years old, and I am studying Languages in the teaching field at Don Bosco University. I do not really like to describe myself, I believe that is something that other people should do. However, I consider myself as a friendly person, I believe that friends are a real blessing, and because of this, I appreciate a good friendship. Sometimes, I might seem a little quiet, but you will realize I am very talkative once you really get to know me. I love languages, in fact, one of my goals is to learn as many languages as possible. I am currently working as a customer service representative at  Capital One, a bank from the U.S, so I get to practice my English on a daily basis. Of course, I also love teaching, even though I have not had any professional experience so far. The most relevant experience I have had as an English teacher was while doing my social work, teaching English for the Science Girls project, a program sponsored by the U.S Embassy for teenage girls.

I have many expectations for this course. I know I will learn a lot about how to deal with children, I expect to get to understand the  way they think and behave, as well as all the things I need to know to be an excellent teacher. But not only that, I also expect to have fun and enjoy this course as much as possible.

I invite you to keep visiting my blog so that you can get to see how the Teaching Practicum I course is being developed, and at the same time get to know me better. Feel free to comment, and once again, welcome!