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: