November 11. Lesson

This lesson was given last Wednesday and it was given by Nancy, Yan, Brenda, Jaqueline and Gloria.

I like the way how they create an appropriate environment for learning. They are really creative and that is something that I admire from them. Their visual aids were great. Their activities were really nice. The feeling that they have while teaching is fantastic.

The kids could feel their enthusiasm and they feel encouraged to learn, to participate in the activities.

We as spectators could see that the kids were learning and they were enjoying the class.

Everybody has the capacity for teaching, but we have to improve our methods because when we are teaching, we are giving to our students something that they could use in their daily life. They will use that information, that knowledge in the future.

We are giving to them the base of something. And we have to do it in the best way we can.

The Fifth Lesson

This was our second lesson as a group. Our topic was about possessive adjectives and demonstrative pronouns. Because of organization we had some problem with the lesson.

The visual aids were a little bit late in the classroom. However, our classmates improve at the moment of starting the class and the visual aids were not necessary at that moment.

The class was a little sad, there just were 2 kids because of the weather.

In my personal opinion the kids understood the lesson. I think that they will not forget how to use this, that, these and those.

The activities that we chose to develop with the kids were effective because the kids did them and in some cases they looked that they were enjoying them. The most important aspect is that they enjoy while they are learning.

In this day, we could see the importance of having a backup plan. We as teacher should be prepared for everything. We should know how to improvise when it is necessary. We have to apply our knowledge about the kids, about different strategies that we could use for our kids.

The Fourth Lesson

The fourth lesson was given by the group of Xunaxi, Olmes, Josue, Kriscia and Susana.

Their class was really good. My classmates and I could observe that they explained the topic in an excellent way. I think that the visual aids were really attractive. In my personal opinion I could perceive that the kids liked all the pictures and the flashcards that the group used. I could see that kids understood the topic, and at the moment to show what they have learnt, they did it. The lesson was about activities that students like to do. They were talking about pronounces and they were learning and practicing present tense.

In this class I could understood the importance of creating an attractive environment for learning. Pictures, activities, and attitude of teachers are really important factors that encourage students for learning.

Other thing is that in some cases is necessary the use of the native language, but we do not have to abuse of it. Students are learning something new and it is necessary to involve them in this new adventure.

Second Class

The second lesson was in charge of the second group. This group is formed by Brenda, Nancy, Gloria, Yaneth and Jacky.

This class was really entertained. The visual aids and the decoration were really flamboyant. They inspired to learn. I really enjoyed the warm up activity. It was really funny and I saw that the kids enjoyed it too. I think that I could use it in the future while giving a lesson. They refresh previous knowledge with this activity and in my personal opinion all of us would refresh knowledge from the last class in the warm up.

The material that they presented to students was appropriate because they were big enough to notice them. I like the activities to pass to the front and complete the statement or the question. Students could practice what the teachers had taught them in the class.

The interaction of teacher-student and student-student were applied properly in the development of activities. I really liked that because our duty as teachers is to encourage our kids for learning English. I think that with the activities that we developed in the lesson, our students feel comfortable and they want to participate.

Every teacher has a different method of teaching, but the objective is the same, that our students learn something. We have to focus in our objective and give the best of us because only in that way we could reach our purpose. 

Our First Official Class

This day was officially the first day of classes of our children. We are group number one, so we give this first class. In our first class with them we developed these topics: The present continuous and also activities in the classroom. We started with the song that we chose as a group to start the classes.

  First we did the activity “sharks are coming”. This activity had the purpose of choosing a child to complete a word. These words were related with classroom objects. We did this because in the diagnostic class we could see that they know some classroom objects. However we wanted them to write in the correct way the name of those objects.

After that we were explaining about the present continuous. Most of the things were practice in an oral way. For some activities we were acting in order to reinforce what students saw in the pictures that we presented to them. My activity was about to make groups and the group ‘A’ has to make mimics about the activities that we explained in classes and the group ‘B’ had to guess what they were doing. This activity was really nice. I really enjoy it because all the children were willing to participate. All of them give ideas and all of them speak and make mimics. I could see that they enjoyed this activity. After this activity they did the wrap up activity and then we sang the song for the end of the class.

In the feedback part we listened to our classmates. They had some observations. For example they notice that some visual aids were a little small, so they told to us that we could improve that part the next time.

Our first class was successful and I think that the kids learnt something that they. We have things to improve and we will do it. Teachers have to look for the best way for teaching because it is in our hands if our students learn something or not.

Diagnostic Class

The first class was a diagnostic class. This was our first meeting with the children that will be in this last period with us.

There were only five children. We were expecting more children to work with. I think that only five children is not that challenging as if there were twenty children. Maybe we are going to work better only with few children.

In this diagnostic class we just have to develop some activities with the children in order to know how much knowledge they have of English. We just test how children were about vocabulary. For example. We were the first group and we did two activities. The first activity was about animals, domestic and some wild animals. We could see that children know about animals and colors. They know about the pronunciation and also they know how to write them. This was pretty impressive for me because on Saturdays I am giving classes to children about the same age. One Saturday I asked these children what they know about colors and they told me some colors, but when I asked them to write the colors they wrote them in a wrong way. Maybe in their school they have not had enough time to assimilate the correct spelling of these words. My group and I could see that the children in the diagnostic class already have knowledge of vocabulary and some structures.

With the other activities that my classmates did, we got the conclusion that our children are not basic, they need something more challenging to learn. After the diagnostic class we were talking with our teacher and we agreed about what units and topics should be taught to them.

Here are some topics that my classmates used for their activities.

·     The numbers
·         The alphabet
·         The personal pronouns
·         Classroom objects
·         The family members
·         Action verbs, and some others.

This first class was really nice and at the end of the activities our nervous were gone. There was a point in which we felt comfortable with the situation. I think it was a good experience to all of us.

Workshop With the Drama Teacher

In the last two Wednesdays we were working with a drama teacher. The drama teacher told us that there are some important aspects that we as future teachers need to take control of. These aspects are about how to treat with children and people in general.

This activity was really funny. My classmates and I had a really good time doing all the things that the drama teacher told us to do.

Those activities had a purpose. For example: One of them had the purpose of showing that we had to give the best of us without the fear of looking ridiculous. If we are going to work with children we have to be like a child. We have to do all the things that they do. Why do we have to do that? We have to do that because in that way we can create an environment that is cool for children. They will feel comfortable with us and they will learn better because children identify themselves with the teacher.

  

Also the drama teacher told us that we have to project our voices, we have transmit confidence through our voice. We need to have a good attitude any time because in that way people will feel good with us. People will see something in us, and maybe that something will inspire them to learn or to give their best while learning.

Also we identify some toggles that we have when we are speaking in front of people. All of us have some aspects that we need to improve. And the drama teacher helped us to do it. In the second wednesday I could not attend to the activity, but my classmates were practicing about focus in things but they had to perceive what was happening around them.

There is another thing that I would like to mention and it is that the drama teacher gave us some advices about walking around the classroom. We do not have to let any space without passing there because we need to know our environment. We need to be in contact with our children. We need to transmit our desires of teaching because children feel that.
All the things that I practiced and I learnt in this workshop will be useful not only in the future, but they will be useful right now for me. We are learning and we have to put in practice what we learnt in order to get better results in our daily life.