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.