Task Accomplished... November 09th, 2011.!!!

Heyyyy everyone today I am so excited because I just taught the last class of my teaching practicum.  It feels so nice to know that I finally accomplished the challenge I considered so difficult at the beginning.  I always tried to give my best, and I am proud to look back and say that the result was better than I expected (I mean for a person who does not want to be a teacher hahaha Just kidding… You know what I´m talking about).

To start I want to say that I videotaped this class, so I felt kind of nervous at the beginning but later on I just got relax. I started the class the class by greeting the students and explaining to them the contents for the class: “Going to” and “Stative and Dynamic verbs”. When I told the students that it was my last class with them, they told me that they did not want me to leave because they had liked my previous classes. Their words made me feel so pleasant because I knew they were sincere.

For the warm-up activity I pasted some pictures on the board and I divided the students into three teams. Then, I explained to them that I was going to describe a situation; after I finished describing, they had to associate one picture with that situation and run to the board to pick up the picture and say a sentence. For example one situation said: Mark is going to London, but he doesn´t have money to buy gas. The picture related with that contained a bus on it, so the student who picked up the picture said: Mark is going to take the bus. This activity was nice because students had a great time as they practiced the target structure.

Later on, I asked the students to complete a similar exercise that was on their handouts, but this time they will do it in the written way instead of orally. I helped the students with their doubts by the time I was monitoring them, and at the end we checked the answers together.

After that activity, I pasted some charts on the board to explain the use of Stative and Dynamic Verbs. Luckily, the students got the idea easily, and just to emphasize the topic I asked them to provide orally some examples for the two cases.

To finish the class, I asked the students to form three teams because we were going to play Hangman; they were so excited when I mentioned the name of the game. For the game I used some verbs instead simple words. I started the game asking the first group one letter, and then the second group continued and so on, until one group guessed the verb. The students liked so much the game that they didn´t want to stop, but my time was already finished. They asked me to teach them the two hours but my tutor teacher did not allow me to do it…

At the end, I felt so satisfied because I could notice that I had developed a great relationship with the students, and in my opinion it was the best thing of everything.  

Almost the last one... Octuber 27th, 2011.

Today I taught the second class of the last period, and I’m so exited because I’m about to finish; just one class left.

I started this class with a warm-up activity called “Crazy chain story”. It consisted on making the students stand up and form a circle. I started the activity by inventing the beginning for the story, and then I asked one student to continue. She had to continue inventing part of the story, but the challenging matter was that she had to include into his narration a verb I had provided; for example: I provided the verb “open” and the student had to create at least one sentence using that verb in the past form; a sentence like: “And suddenly I opened the door.” And the activity continued until all the students had participated. 

This activity in particular was so useful because the target structure of the class was the correct use of the present perfect and the simple past. I really liked the activity because students were inventing some crazy and funny stories at the time they were having a good time and practicing the target structure.

Later on, I verbally explained the main use of the present perfect and simple past. During that I was providing a piece of paper containing a reading with some blanks in which the students had to use verbs either in present perfect or simple past. I asked the students to read the paragraph once and look for new vocabulary. When the students finished reading, I asked them to fill in the blanks, and fortunately they did it very well. The last step for this activity was to make the students read aloud in order to check their answers and pronunciation.

Some minutes later, I asked the students to work into two groups because I was going to play a song. I provided to the two teams some words that were part of the song´s lyrics, and I asked them to pick the words up as soon as they listened to them while the song was playing. After this, I asked the students to underline the sentences in which the singer used simple past and present perfect. The song I used was “Have you ever seen the rain?” and students really liked it because at the end they wanted to sing it.

For the last activity, I just provide some extra practice in which they had to form sentences using the two target structures; for that purpose I wrote some verbs on the board. I could not finish this activity because was over by that time, so I stopped teaching and my tutor teacher finished it… At the end I was satisfied because I got a good grade. 

Teaching with terrible weather conditions… October 12th, 2011

Today I taught the first class of the last period, and it was kind of interesting. When I woke up in the morning I did not want to go to the university because it was raining a lot, and I thought that the classes had been suspended, but they were not… So sad for me  L but anyway I got up, took a shower and got ready for the class.

I arrived at 07:05 in the classroom; some students were already there, but my tutor teacher was not. She arrived some minutes later, and I took advantage of that time to set up all the things I needed for the class.

I started the class by introducing myself to the students; fortunately almost all of them knew me already. I started the class with 15 students even though they were 23 in total.  

For the first activity (Warm-up activity) I asked the students to stand up and form a circle because we’re about to play a game named: “How good is your memory?” I started the activity by saying my name and something I could do, and then I threw a little ball to one student. That student had to repeat my name and my ability and then continue with her own. The other students had to remember the names and abilities of the previous students and repeat all of them by the time they got the ball. When one student did not remember one name or ability he/she had to sit down and the game started over again. I liked this activity because I could learn the students´ names as they were practicing the target structure which in this case was the different uses of can and some other English modals.

The second thing I did was to paste on the wall some charts containing the uses of can. I explained the grammar part of this modal, I provided some examples and finally I asked the students to work on an exercise that was on their handouts.

Later on, I continued explaining the use of “Have to and Don´t have to”. When I finished explaining and providing some examples, I ask the students to form two teams.  I provided some sentence strips for each group for them to form five sentences per group. Students did it very well as they got the idea easily.

The last modal I was supposed to teach was: “Should”. Once again I used some charts to explain the use and meaning of it. When I finished explaining, I gave to each student a piece of paper containing an exercise for the correct use of should. The last thing I did was to check students´ answers with the whole class.

When I finished, I stayed in the classroom to receive my feedback. At the end I received a nice feedback and a good grade, Thanks God…

Finally, second period is accomplished… September 21st, 2011.

Hello people! Let me tell you that this week was terrible for me because I had to perform too many things in the same week, but I am so happy because at the end I did everything successfully.

My last class was kind of difficult because teachers did not have the lesson plan for unit five, so my tutor teacher lend me his book for me to plan the class. He told me to start teaching unit five from the textbook, and at the beginning I had some problems because I did not know where to start since unit 5 had many topics. Finally, I decided to start talking about sports and some vocabulary related to it; later on I focused my class in explaining the grammar part for the correct use of “How + Adjective/Adverb”.

For the warm-up activity I provided some questions in a sheet of paper, and I asked the students to form a circle with the desks. What they had to do was to through up the ball and ask a question to one classmate. The questions were formulated with the grammar structure and the vocabulary was focused in sports and exercising; for example: How often do you exercise? . The activity went excellent since the students could talk and participate by asking and answering questions.

After that activity, I asked the students to work on a test in their textbooks. The test was for them to check how healthy they were according to their lifestyle. The students finished very fast, and at the end some of them shared their results with the rest of the class.

Later on, I start explaining the grammar part by pasting some chats on the board containing some common questions using how + adjective / adverb; for example: How many…? How much…? How far…? How long…? How often…? Etc.

I also had pasted some charts containing the uses of those questions around the classrooms, so I asked the students to stand up and match the question with their proper use. For my fortune, students did it excellent and did not commit any mistake when matching. After that, I paired the students and asked them to provide an example per each question.

For my last activity I just asked the students to complete an exercise that was on the textbook, and when they finished my time was over....

 ...At the end I said goodbye and thanked them for being so cooperative in all my classes.

Third class of the period!!! September 14th, 2011.

Hello people! Here I am again to describe you my personal performance toward my teaching practice. This time my tutor teacher assigned me to make a review about the proper use of “Gerunds and Infinitives”.

As a warm-up activity, I divided the students in two teams and made them form sentences using some sentences strips I had provided at the beginning.  There were four sentences in total per each group; students did it very fast, and almost all the sentences were correct.  This activity was funny because students were sitting on the floor forming the sentences, and was useful for me to introduce the target structure.

Later on, I had to check a previous homework the tutor teacher had assigned in the previous class. This homework checking did not take too much time because almost all the students had already done it, so I just provided the correct answers and made them repeat some words they were mispronouncing.

My third activity was a listening.  First, I asked the students to look a table that was in their student´s book; they had to complete it with the correct form of the verbs as they were listening to the conversation. I played the conversation twice, and the students completed the whole table really fast. I guess this topic was not so challenging for them because they studied it in the basic level.

As I final activity I wrote on the board a question that said: Do you think men and women think the same way? And I asked the students to give their opinion about it. They gave a lot of good reasons to support their point of view. After the group discussion, I asked them to stand up and form two lines. One line was standing in front of the other. I provided some discussing topics about the same issue, and the students started talking about them with the person they had in front. When I clapped the students had to move to their right in order to speak with a different partner.

At the end the tutor teacher told me that he really liked this last activity because it encouraged students to speak more. Well this is all I have to say about this class. See you next week people byeee…

Second class of the second period! September 7th, 2011!

My second class with this group was excellent. I arrived some minutes earlier, and I used that time to arrange all the stuff for my class. The first thing I did was to erase the board and write down the date and the class objective.

When all my students arrived into the classroom, I started the class with a friendly greeting. I asked the students to stand up and form a circle.  I put some pieces of paper on a desk that was in the middle of the circle; I explained to the students that we were going to play the game called “hot potato” (Which in this case was the “hot porky” because I used a little stuffed porky instead of a potato hahaha). I implemented some changes in this activity because the student, who got the little porky when the music stopped, had the chance of choosing two classmates to answer his/her question.  It was a nice activity because students were willing to participate, so they talked a lot, which was the main purpose of the activity.

Later on, I introduced a reading from the textbook. It was about “Gifts”, so as a first step the students were discussing about the perfect gifts for women and men.  The second step was to tell them to read carefully and look for new vocabulary. When they finished reading, I asked them to complete some questions related to the topic. Students did it very well, and at the end I just provided the meaning of some words and made them repeat the correct pronunciation of the words.

After the reading activity, it was time for the grammar notes. I explained the grammar through a game; I divided the students into three teams, and they formed three lines in front of the board. I had pasted some frequency adverbs on the board, so I started giving some clues for the students to pick up the frequency adverb I was talking about. For example I said: It is used when something occurs the 100% of the times. So when the students heard that, they had to pick up the frequency adverb “Always”. At the end the team with more frequency adverbs won the game.

To finish my class, I explained some structures for the use of the frequency adverbs and showed to the students some flashcards, which they used to crate sentences using the target structure.

At the end I received a good feedback and grade… 

SECOND PERIOD!!!! First Class: August 31st, 2011...

Hello people here I am once again to tell you how was my first class of the second period… To start I want to say that it was a nightmare because I had to get up extremely early hahaha. 

I had some problems this week because my tutor teacher was sick, and he did not teach the day I was supposed to observe the class.  I called him in order to know what topic I had to teach, and the next day I got into the classroom without knowing my students at all. At the beginning it was difficult, but in some minutes I felt better because the students behaved in an excellent way toward my presence in the classroom.

The first thing I did was to introduce myself, and then I started with the warm-up activity. The students had to complete a table with their peers´ previous day schedule; for example, they had to ask questions such as: What were you doing yesterday at seven a.m.? What were you doing at 5 p.m.? After they finished asking, they had to complete the table and write sentences with the information their peers provided. I liked this activity because students loved it, and they were willing to participate all the time.

My second activity consisted of making students work in pairs and complete some sentences using the simple past or the past continuous. I provided the photocopies, and for my surprise, the students did it very quickly. They provided just right answers, so I moved fast to something else because that meant that they manage the topic completely.

Later on, I used some charts to explain some grammar structures for the use of Time Clauses, and when I finished, I gave each student an exercise for them to practice this grammar structure. They had some problems, but at the end they got the idea and could finish the exercise. At the end my tutor teacher told me that he really liked the grammar explanation because he never uses charts in his classes.

My final activity was a reading from the book. I implemented the PDP framework here, so as pre activity students had to complete an exercise containing the vocabulary related with the two stories. The second step was to divide the students into two teams and assign a story for each group; they had to read one story and match the vocabulary from the previous activity with the reading. After they finished reading and matching, I asked some students to switch from one team to another with the purpose of making them speak and tell their classmates about their story. The activity went well because students liked retelling the stories to their peers.

I guess it was everything I did in this class. At the end I received a good feedback, and even though this class was improvised my grade was acceptable.