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.