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.