Lesson 3

And the time for giving our class arrive. 
My teacher compound by: Yeniffer Avalos, Wnada Carranza, Deyanira Castro, Luis Oyarbide, and me, Vanessa Aguilar.

I expected to have more students, to integrate them in all the activities and make them feel comfortable and part of the class, but even if we have few students, I can say that they learn what my teacher colleagues  and me taught.

We started with the hello song, but we make it different, this time we sang it with the students, we were arrange in two lines so we could face each other and sing the song as a whole group, we made the mimics and we played the song, so they get familiar with the rhythm. It worked perfectly and I felt that make students enjoy it even more!

We were encharged to teach playground objects and prepositions, and since I started the class, and want them to feel enthusiastic and into the class, I decided a very unique and dynamic activity that includes realia.  The activity was that each of the students have to pass a real playground object, but when they have the object in their hands, they had to say the name of the object. The object pass twice in their hands, so they repeated the word twice.
Some of the objects were: Skateboard, baseball, basketball, rope,  soccer ball.
I think that  students enjoy the activity, and something that I really like was that, they were very enthusiastic at the moment of participating and saying the name of the object. 

After that, teacher Wanda started to present them the prepositions: next to, behind, in front of, and between. In order for Teacher Wanda present this, she used some visual aids where she was demonstrating them where and how were the objects arranged to be in that specific place. Teacher Wanda did an excellent job, she made  students repeat, she explain it with the playground objects also so students were in touch with the vocabulary and the prepositions, and also the pronunciation of it.
It was a good explanation because the students acquired  and they were enjoying and participating when teacher Wanda asked them something.

Teacher Luis came out with some commands, integrating the prepositions with the playground object using the realia. He said different commands and the students need to perform the command. He performed and example before the activity starts.
The commands were like: Touch the rope behind the soccer ball.
I think this activity was a good practice for students, because they had already seen the playground objects, and then the prepositions, but now they had to integrate them both, and actually the students were paying attention and were participating when he was doing this.

But we wanted t to see how much students were understating, and  teacher Yenifer made students feel more comfortable, when she said that they were going to play a competition game. Since it was a competition game, they were asked to make two groups, each of the groups took their turn to perform the action. Group A was the first, they had to read the command to group B, hence they had to perform the action, and voiceovers. since the groups were not complete, teacher Yenifer asked me to join group B, so we were 4 and 4. I think this is one of the best strategies a teacher can use without make them feel stressed, because she notice that students really acquired when she asked them to start playing.

When its almost time to go, teacher Deyanira concludes the lesson with The musical chair game, the purpose of it was to review the whole class. The game started when the song started, they had to walk around some chairs, and the music stops, they had to find a seat, the one that has no seat, was asked to answer a question. She used realia in order to asked students. So, the students were asked to say a preposition or a playground object depends on what the teacher asked them to say. I really like this activity because its how you know students had acquired the knowledge of what they were taught.

And now its time to say goodbye.

I enjoyed this first experience, and having my colleagues make it more meaningful for me, of course at the end of the class we received some feedback, which will make us improve next class. 

One of the most insightful comments that we receive was that all the activities were really good, they had a good idea and they were well developed, but we had to made some changes in the moment of the practice, we were giving command like: “Touch the soccer ball next to the baseball.” and the suggestion was that we could have said: “ Touch the playground object that is next to the baseball.” Another comment we receive was that the name of the object should have been pasted on the object rather than on the floor, but we didn't make it like that because since the first activity the students had to pass the object around the name would have provably fallen. But those things make us grow as teachers, and know that we receive that feedback, we know how we can improve for our next lessons.

Lesson 2

During this lesson, I was expecting the class to be more creative and more catching, not only for the students, but also for the other teacher that was observing the class. 

The class started with the the  hello song, as all the classes will start, but the way that the teachers did it was really fascinated, they decided to sing the song along with the kids, they include mimics that make it even more interesting, and they were arrange in a circle so all of them can see each other. And in fact, even if the song was sang by them it was very interesting they way they arrange it and the mimics they did. I think the next group of teachers, including mine, will include the same mimics as this group did.

Remember the last group taught classroom activities right?. Hence teacher Yaneth  started the class with a review of classroom activities with a very unique and dynamic activity.  The activity consist that students needed to make a human chain, and they had to pass through them a hula hoop with out braking it, it was very challenging because the students didn't have to separate their hands, but despite that they enjoy it a lot. When teacher Yaneth says “Stop” the student with the hula hoop needed to answer a question about last class, they did it great they remember the classroom activities they studied.
 Students enjoy the activity, and something that I really like was that, they were very enthusiastic at the moment of participating in class. And since teacher Yaneth had a great energy, the students adopt the enthusiastic mood she transmitted.

After that, teacher Gloria started to present them the key structure that was: “ There is/There are.” In order for Teacher Gloria present this, she used some visual aids where she was demonstrating them where and how they needed to ask for classroom objects. Teacher Gloria did a great job pointing out the differences in when they needed to use “is” and “are”.
It was a good explanation because the students really acquired that for two or more object they need to use: “There are” rather than “There is.”

Its time to practice, and teacher Nancy came out with two different activities, both of them were really interesting. I really enjoy both of the activities, but for me the best of them was the first one, because if they know how the words of a question are arrange, they will know how to use it, and so does with the answer.

The first activity was  really interesting for cooperative learning, the group of students were divided in two,  the first group needed to arrange a question and an answer of it, and when it was turn for the second group, they did the same. What it was interesting for me during this activity was the constant monitoring that teacher Nancy had for the students.

The second activity was for each student, they were asked to pick a piece of paper, it has a number, so when each of the students had their number, they needed to go to the chart that matches the number.  Some of them were asked to write an answer, and some of them were asked to write a question.

  

When it comes into the production part, teacher Brenda made students feel more comfortable, she asked them to sit on the floor to reduce anxiety; what for me was the exact moment to do that. When students were on the floor, teacher Brenda gives them a flash card to each of the students, she asked them to write one sentence and to look for another two classmates and write two more sentences, so at the end they had 3 sentences. When they were done with the sentences, they were asked to pass in front and read one of the sentences.
I think this is one of the best strategies a teacher can use, because she notice that students really acquired when to use “There is” and “There are”.

It is almost time to end the class, and teacher Jackelin concludes the lesson with a game, the purpose of it was to review the whole class. She used realia in order to asked students. So, the students were asked to pass a ball and when she says “stop” the one who has it, needs to answer a question. Some of the answers were:
-There is a computer.
There are 3 notebooks.

I really like this activity because its how you know students had acquired the knowledge of what they were taught, besides that it was more meaningful for them because real objects were used to carry on the activity

And now its time to say goodbye.

I really like this lesson, and even I was observing the class, I felt part of it. It starts with a good energy, and it ends with a great energy. The hula hoop  was something really different, and something that I really enjoyed, I think that in the future this might be an activity that I will incorporate, it brings such a good energy to the class, and since its something different it reduce the stress and let the class carry out with an enthusiastic mood.

 I really like the way each of the teacher monitor what students were doing. And it is something very crucial in the students learning process.

Lesson 1

During this first lesson, I was expecting to see more kids, but the 7 students that attended to classes even if they were few, it was really surprising how they were eager to learn, also I expect this class to be very dynamic.

The class started with the the  hello song, there were some troubles with the audio, but the way that teacher Brian solve the problem was good, they decided to sing the song. they include mimics that make it even more interesting. And in fact, I would like to do something similar, rather than singing it only with  our voices, I will have the song and we will sing it aloud integrating mimics, as they did.

And the moment for introduction the vocabulary of the class starts. Teacher Thomas started to introduce the vocabulary, and in order to choose the student that had to answer, he decided to play something like hot potato, students started to pass the ball and the one that had it at the end when teacher Thomas said stopped, was the one who answer it. The visual aids were the ones that students needed to fill, there was a letter missing for each of the words they were encountering, for example: scissor / sc_s_or.
Students enjoy the activity, and something that I really like was that, one of the students had problems to write the word “scissor”, he was just confusing the letters, but teacher tomas used cooperative learning and he asked to students to help their classmate.

After that, teacher Eunice started to teach them some of the classroom actions they perform in their daily basis. In order for Teacher Eunice introduce this, she used some pictures, and she was asking around for students to repeat the classroom actions that were in the pages.  Teacher Eunice was asking around, and I really like it because she was encouraging  students to participate, but something I would have made different, is that i would have pasted the visual aids so students had it for help.
Some of the classroom actions that were presented were:
-Coloring a picture.
-Gluing shapes.
-Listening to a story.
-Using the computer.

Teacher William introduced the present continues in the question: What is she/he doing? and What are they doing?.  In order for teacher William introduce this, he used the classroom actions Teacher Eunice presented. Teacher William, first  make students repeat each of the questions, and then he starts to convine questions and answers based on classroom action, for example 1.What is she doing? She is gluing shapes. 
Something I really like during teacher William activity is that he make the other other teacher perform a classroom action and student had to guess, it was very interesting how this motivate the students.

Teacher Eduardo continues practicing the questions and the classroom activities, he point out aging the pronunciation of the questions and the answers  and he made a competition game in order for students to practice more on classroom activities.
I think this is one of the best strategies a teacher can use, because we know that kids are motivated just when they hear the word game.

And for the end of the lesson, teacher Brian concludes the lesson with a game. He gave some pieces of paper with some sentences like: He is using the computer. She is gluing shapes. They are listing to a story.  And with those sentences, students had to match it with the pictured they had in the wall.
I really like this activity because its how you know students had acquired the knowledge of what they were taught.

And now its time to say goodbye, teacher Brian close the class with the song “After a while crocodile”.

This first lesson was very significant, and I am saying this because it was  the first real class that students had with us, and starting from this class, students will know what they expect and how they expect clases to be. They might be kids, but since they are learning a foreign language they might expect it to be interesting, and it  might be because is now where we as a new generation of  teachers need to show them that English is very interesting and fun language.

I really like the activities they chose, the class was well developed, and students were encourage to participate, the only thing I would have change is to have more visual aids, since they are kids, I think they play important role in the learning process of students.

Diagnostic class.

It is really important before we start teaching and start planning our lesson, it is really important that we as teachers make sure about the previous knowledge students have in the language.  And that is the first thing we have to do.  It is the first class  of a course or a semester to measure the understanding, the vocabulary or the skill of the target langua we will teach.

In order to gather that information, we divided the class into some basic topics such as:

• The alphabet.
• The numbers.
• The colors.
• The personal pronouns.
• Family members.
• Animals.
• Classroom objects.
• Action verbs.

We created some different activities to know the previous knowledges about this topics. Even if we face some problems with the number of students; because we were expecting 20, and we had just 5 students, it was really interesting to see how  some of them have already some knowledge about each topic.
Even though i thought on how we were going to arrange the activity just for 5 students, or if we needed to change the activities to the one we had presented, it was a nice and rewarding experience because we interact with our students and they felt confident while we were with them.

Each team start their activities, and some students knew not all the vocabulary but  part of it they already had some knowledge. As the purpose of the diagnostic class was to identified what students know in some specific topic, the activity were aim to show that, somehow it was successful, but of course they had some troubles with some little things.
For example in numbers and alphabet, students knew most of the letter and number they just have some problems with some letter that they tend to confuse, such as G, J and Y, while in number the one that cause the problems was the 17.
Also they had some troubles with the pronunciation and meaning of some words, even if they knew it in spanish, they were doubting on how to say it or if it was correctly, for example words like: sharpener, sun, uncle, swim, and some words like: pencil and pen, G and J were confusing for them.

Finally I just want to emphasize on the importance of having interactive activities to enhance and motivate our students learning, and to help them with the visual aids so they can internalize in a better way. material should be an important tool to teach children, this materials should be according to the age of students, and is important to remember the color and the size, they should be catching and interesting for their eyes.

Here I am attaching some pictures of the activities we were doing in class:

Coping with stage fright

Being confident is one of the essential characteristic a teacher must have.
It is really important to be confident because is a key to success and can improve the interaction with our students.
Body language says a lot when we are teaching, so we need to think in our posture, enter to the classroom with our heads up, back straight and walk safely will give us an air of confidence.

Also we need to be prepared, this includes anticipating the challenges we might found in the classroom while managing our students, or potential situations that could arise and how we might deal with them.

As well, teachers need to know that we are not perfects, and we need to set that clear to our students, we all can make mistakes, and we all are here to learn,so we can turn a negative into a positive, and this will help us not only to build confidence but also will really improve our practice to don't fear criticism, and use it to strengthen our strength. 

It is really important to take time and reflect what we are, why we are like that and what we want to share with others, so we can pull out the positives. This will really help to overcome negative self perception and recognize our strengths in the classroom.

 Hence by recognizing this strengths  and celebrating them we will build a sense of self worth and belief, that will lead us to the key of success, confidence.

Materials

Material are one of the most important preparatives to each lesson. The importance of them is that they can be use to motivate student, and keep them active and focus on what they are asked to do.

While preparing materials, there are some aspects we need to take into consideration, specially if we are dealing with children. This aspects are:  

• Materials.
• Color.
• Size.
• Creativity.

When I talk about materials and creativity, its because we can create our own material with some recycling thing we have at home, such as: plastic bottles, cans, socks, wood, cartoon, etc. Hence, at the end they are cheaper, they are unique and catchy for our students.

The size of the material should depend on what we are going to use, but they need to be big enough so student wont force their eyes to see what is in there, and as a teacher says “ The bigger, the best”. And that is why, color take an importan role, because the more colorful they are the better is for the children.

Some material we can create and adapt them to our own teaching are:

• Flashcards

• Modeling clay.

• Puppets.

• Music Instruments.

• Spinning wheel.

• Flip card.

Beside materials is important to considerate some grouping techniques because this is one way to give the opportunity to improve their cooperative learning. There are many techniques that we can apply, as a random technique or  we can adapt our lesson and incorporate it in a way to group our students, for example: if we are teaching colors, we can have a box that will contain different color papers and students will have to take one, and look for the partner that have the same color. Or we can divide an image into two parts and they will have to look for the partner that complete the image.

The importance of having catchy and unique materials is that it will motivate students, and keep them active, focus and interested on what they are asked to do.

Speaking activities.

Speaking is the way that we show how we think, how we organize our thoughts and ideas, also while speaking is a way in which we can process information an remember it.

Vygotsky (1962) sugested that thinking develops into words in a number of phrases, moving from imaging to inner speech to inner speaking to speech. This means that  talking is the representation of our thinking. And that is why a class should be filled with talk.

But we need to remember that, in order for students to talk, they must be motivated to speak. Because sometimes at this age, the learners aren't motivated by the language, so we as teacher need to motivate them by an activity that shows them they are part of the class an they are all learning.

Some activities that were presented were:

• The broken telephone.

• The hot chair.

• The interactive activity with puppets.

• The guessing game.

• The flying balloon.

One of the most important things I learned during workshops is that we need to give clear and concise instructions, if our students are beginner in the language that would be helpful for them to understand what they need to do, and in order for us as teachers they have understand what to do, there are some appropriate phrases such as: “Is it clear?”,  “Is there any question?” or  if students are in a more advance level we should say: “ Did I make myself clear?”.

It is really important to make our students feel confortable and make them feel integrated in the activities, and we are going to achieve that if we motivate our students with our activities, so we need to take into consideration the materials we are going to use, the size, the color, the purpose, specially with kids.