THE LAST, LAST, LAST ONE!!! :D

WOW!!! L(*o*)_/  I feel so happy for having finished my teaching practice!!!

I’m very happy and thankful with GOD, with my tutors, with my teacher Melendez and with you my commenters and friends for all your help and pieces of advice. It was a great experience and it has been great to have shared it with all of you.

My last class wasn’t so good, I have had better ones but it was good.

What went wrong? Well, I had little problems with the laptop and one of the two videos I was going to use didn’t work, but thanks God I used the chart in which the most important information of the video was summarized. This experience reminded me the importance of having a plan B; and this is not just when you are going to use technology, but also with certain activities that take less or more time than the expected, for example.

What went well? Well, I liked the development of all the activities because ss understood and responded very well. They are a pretty nice group; they are humble, hardworking and eager to learn.

This is the lesson I developed:

As a warm-up, I did a Chain-Story activity; we created a story orally by using the first type conditional. I started with this clause: If I go out tonight, I’ll go to a party. Then, a student continued: If I go to a party, I’ll… Ss did it excellent!

As a presentation, I used a listening from the student book. Then, I gave each student a matching exercise which they solved by listening to the previous listening. The matching sentences were future time clauses.

For the grammar, I used one video which explained what a clause is and the used of future time clauses; take a look to the two videos.

As a practice, ss solved an exercise in their books which I checked orally.

Finally, I did an activity which is named: Live political debate. Unfortunately, my time was not enough to complete it and my tutor couldn’t give me more time because his ss were going to do presentations. But at least some ss formed two groups, chose a name and drew a symbol for their political party, and wrote the promises by using future time clauses; for example, “As soon as we become the leaders of El Salvador, we’ll give you better job opportunities”. And the rest of the ss were the voters who wrote questions such as: “If you win the elections, will you give us scholarships for collage?”

So that was my lesson.

Guys, thanks for all your comments and fellowship, you are a beautiful group. And I hope to continue having the chance to share my life, somehow, with you. J

God bless you all. And remember that this is just the beginning of more unforgettable and great experiences… :**********

Second Class (Third period)

Good afternoon my siblings  :p

Today, I taught the second class of this period and thanks God it was very, very good despite of the little mishap I had before to arrive to the class and for which I actually got late there.

I began the class with a “Find someone who…” activity, I know that all of you know this activity so I won’t describe it. The grammar used in this activity was the present perfect simple in order to remind ss about it. Most of the ss seemed to enjoyed the activity even while I was checking their answers orally; I guess that it was not only because they stood up and interacted with each other, but also because of the questions since they asked each other questions such as: “Have you eaten frog legs, tattooed any part of your body, cheated in an exam and been to another country?”   

Next, I developed a listening activity which was on the student book followed by a review of the present perfect simple and the target grammar explanation: The use of “Since and For” and “The Present Perfect Progressive”.  First, I explained the used of “Since and for” with “the present perfect” with the help of a chart and extra material, which I gave to ss; then,  I asked ss to solve two short exercises from the book, and after some minutes I checked them orally and I gave feedback. Second, I explained “the present perfect progressive” with the help of another chart and extra material; then,  I asked ss to solve an exercise from the book and after some minutes  I checked them orally and I gave feedback.

Finally, I developed a competition game which was challenging for ss at first, but at the end of it they were very happy because they reviewed the target grammar and learned a lot. For this game, ss formed two groups, the butterflies and the stars; I asked each team to choose one member to compete with a member of the contrary team. Once both ss were in front of the board ready to write a sentence by using the present perfect simple or progressive with since /for, I pasted on the board a verb which they had to use as the main verb of the sentence. Both ss wrote their sentences as soon as they could, but both sentences were wrong so I checked the sentences and everybody learned from their mistakes. The same mechanic was repeated till everybody participated. The last two sentences were correct for both teams, but only one team won because they wrote the sentences first. 

We all enjoyed this activity because it was a great way to practice and review the target grammar; it was useful for me as a teacher to know the student’s mistakes to help them to improve by reviewing the target grammar, the spelling of the verbs in past participle and the verbs with dynamic and stative meaning as it was useful for the ss inasmuch as they learned from their own and their classmates’ mistakes.

I feel very happy with this class and with the student’s attitude too because they are a nice group.

First Class ( 3rd Period )

Aloha my dear friends!!

I hope you be doing great, by this moment I hadn’t had time to check your blogs, but I will as soon as I finish writing mine ok ;D

Well, first of all let me tell you that this time I’m teaching Intermediate I again, but with a different group. This group has only 14 students and they seem to be nice and kind as well as kind of shy.

My class was good, but not so good as I would have liked it because at the beginning of it I was very nervous which was very strange because I didn’t feel like that; maybe it was just a reaction for being with a new group after 5 weeks without teaching as a practitioner inasmuch as 15 minutes later, I started behaving pretty much as normal.

In regard with the lesson, it was very good; the ss, the teacher and I liked the activities because they were interactive and interesting. The target grammar was the modal verbs “Must and have to”.

The warm-up was cool and fun, I asked ss to stand up and make a circle in front of the board in order to play “the hot potato”; the ss knew the game so I didn’t explained that much. We played the game three times and the student, who had “the hot potato” in their hands when the music stopped, gave a piece of advice for a problem given by me; I helped ss to imagine the problems by showing them flashcards; these were the problems:

1.        The child really needs to do “number 2” 

      in the toilet, but the toilet is too high 

      for him. What would you advise him?

2.       The little pig is sad because he went 

      with his mother to the market and he 

      got lost. What can he do now?

3.       Whenever this guy is in front of the girl 

      he likes he starts to stutter. What does 

      he have to do in order to solve his problem?

The next activity was a brainstorming about all the modal verbs the ss listened in the previous game and the ones that they knew; this helped me to introduce ss in the target grammar.

The grammar explanation was interactive and interesting, for it I used a video and two charts; the video helped me to explain how to use and when to use the target modal verbs as well as their forms in the different tenses. I played a part of the video; then, I reviewed that part and CCQ ss by using the charts, and I felt glad when they responded correctly. I did the same with the other two parts.

Next I continue with the control-practice, for the first exercise ss worked individually in order to fill in the blanks with “Must or Have to” and for the second one they worked in pairs in order to fill in the blanks with “Mustn’t or Don’t have to”. I checked them both orally and I felt happy because almost everybody had all the answers correctly.  

As a wrap-up, we play another fun game for which ss formed two groups and I gave to each group a little package containing scramble sentences which they had to unscramble and paste them on the board; in addition, they had to analyze the sentence and choose whether to use must/have to, or mustn’t/ don’t have to in each sentences inasmuch as two of these choices were in each package and they were highlighted with red color to avoid confusion. The team who pasted most of the sentences first and correctly won claps from the other team.

Finally, I thanked the ss for their participation. They were nice.

MY THIRD CLASS (SECOND PERIOD)

Greetings!!

Thanks God, this class was a pretty nice experience because all the activities went well.

In this class, I only developed activities to practice the target grammar of the unit which was “Comparative and Superlative Adjectives”. I developed one listening activity by using a song, two recognition exercises and at the end, a game which was called “The Superlative Award”.

I used the “Survivor’s” song by Destiny child as a warm-up. Ss worked in pairs and filled in the blanks of the lyrics with the comparative or the superlative adjectives in brackets and according to the ones they listened in the song.  I played the song three times; the first time I played it all, the second part till the part which ss needed to listen to it to fill the blanks in, and the last time I stopped the song just after each blank so that ss could check their job. Finally, I checked the activity by eliciting answers orally and by asking ss to say a sentence with the comparative and superlative of each adjective in the song.

For the next two activities ss continued working in pairs. For the first one, ss fill the blanks in with the comparative or superlative adjective in brackets. For the second one, ss fill the blanks in with the comparative or superlative adjective they considered appropriate for each sentence. During both exercises, I monitored the class and I clarified their doubts. Finally, I checked both exercises orally by eliciting answers from each couple.

The last activity was my favorite because it was pretty nice and sweet; as I wrote before it was called “The Superlative Award”.  

I gave ss instructions:

1.        1.   Think about a positive adjective which best describe one of your classmates.

2      2.   Don’t repeat the adjective with another classmate.

3        3.   Don’t give the award to the same person.

Then, I modeled the activity and finally I started it with the teacher; I said “The Superlative Award” goes to: the wisest person in the classroom, everybody clapped him, and the teacher continued with it. Finally, my co-worker gave me “The Superlative Award” for the most generous person and I shared the candies, which were in the award, with the whole class.

Finally, I thanked ss for their behavior and participation because they were very nice as my tutor.

SECOND CLASS(SECOND PERIOD)

Greetings!!

On Wednesday September 11th I taught my second class and it wasn’t as good as the previous because I was tired and I had some problems with the computer and the game I used in the class.

Mental fatigue caused me troubles to think fast and remember some examples I had previously thought as well as to speak English correctly; during the class, I found myself committing many grammar mistakes, which I immediately self-corrected them.

For being honest, I wasn’t nervous neither worried because these things were happening to me inasmuch as I understand that as humans we can’t control everything so I tried to handle things with humor. Nevertheless, I felt kind of a shame with the teacher in a moment when I couldn’t remember an example for what I was explaining; it was awkward, this never happened to me before but I just said, as “El Chavo del 8”, -“But that’s the idea” so we all laughed and I continued as if nothing happened. Some minutes later, I found in the game we were playing the example I couldn’t remember so I remind ss about it and they understood my explanation better.

But…what went well?

Well, my lesson in general was good; it had three dynamic and interactive games and one speaking activity at the end.

As a warm-up, I did a common speaking and TPR game named “Swap chairs” for which ss had to use the adverbs of definite and indefinite frequency to make sentences.

Next, I numbered ss from 1 to 2 to make two groups; I did it in this way because the teacher told me that the newest ss, who always sit near the windows, don’t socialize with the former ss, who always sit near the door, so in this way I could have them all working together to play a game named “Jeopardy”, which I made. Take a look to it:

https://col125.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855#!/mail/ViewOfficePreview.aspx?messageid=10f1706a-1aa0-11e3-aad1-002264c197ee&folderid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&attindex=0&cp=-1&attdepth=0&n=1734851000

After the Jeopardy game, I gave each group a worksheet containing 10 sentences for which they found the Direct and the Indirect Object and the team who finished the task first and who had all the correct answers won candies; take a look to it:

https://col125.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855#!/mail/ViewOfficePreview.aspx?messageid=10f1706a-1aa0-11e3-aad1-002264c197ee&folderid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&attindex=1&cp=-1&attdepth=1&n=178695148

Finally, I did a speaking activity for which ss stood up and formed two lines in front of the board, one line in front the other one; then, I gave each ss a picture which their classmates used to make sentences with two objects and by using “for” and “to” in the prepositional phrase in which they included the indirect object. The mechanic was this: Each participant of line one moved to their right after having done a sentence of the picture of the classmate of line two, who was in front of them.  The activity finalized when the first person, in line one, did a sentence for the last person’s picture of line two. And finally, I checked the activity by showing some pics to the class and by asking them to share the sentences they made for them.

By the end of the day, it was a good experience because I learned from it; I especially learned the importance of resting at least some minutes before teaching.

Ok, that’s all….Once again, thanks for your comments beforehand. J

FIRST CLASS (SECOND PERIOD)

Salutations everyone!!

On Wednesday September 4^th, I taught my first class of this second period in Intermediate I; it was in the afternoon and with the group I was recorded teaching last semester.  The groups’ behavior is very good because they are very respectful, easygoing and they also work and participate in class.

Thanks God, I had a very good experience with this group; my tutor liked my lesson and the way I developed it. Nevertheless, we are still learning and we commit mistakes, aren't we? Well, what the teacher told me that I should improve was regarding the shy ss' participation...Mmmm...this is the second time I was told, so I'm going to do my best to be more aware of this situation in my next classes and I'll try to avoid it. 

In regard with the lesson, it wasn’t challenging at all to create it or develop it inasmuch as it was about “Adverbs of definite and indefinite frequency”. So, I began the class with a speaking activity which helped ss remind their previous knowledge about the target grammar. It was a “Find someone who...” activity for which I wrote on the board “Do you…?”,the question structure that ss used to make questions and complete a chart which I gave them in a piece of paper like this:

Find someone who…	Name
Usually watches T.V. at night

 After ss finished, I checked the activity orally by making questions in general; for example: “Who usually watches T.V. ….?”, and finally I asked ss to tell me the adverbs of frequency they recognized in the chart and they did it.

Next, I continued with the grammar part for which I used a PowerPoint presentation; take a look to it:

https://col125.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855#!/mail/ViewOfficePreview.aspx?messageid=a23cfb78-1537-11e3-b29b-00215ad85762&folderid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&attindex=1&cp=-1&attdepth=1&n=2019189893

The topic was easy, so I only explained it twice and they go it; the first time was with the presentation and the second time during the general practice. For the practice, we did an interactive exercise for which they had to find the mistakes in a very short reading, which was in the presentation. Then, I gave ss a worksheet containing some statements and “Adverbs of definite and indefinite Frequency” in parenthesis which they had to put in the correct place in each of the statements.

Finally, I asked ss to work in groups of five and I gave a picture to each member of each group so that they could use them to make questions by using this structure: “How often do you…?”. I modeled the activity as always and after some minutes I checked it by asking one participant of each group to share his/her question and the answers his/her classmates said.

To sum it up, the class was cool; I liked it, I enjoyed it, we laughed and I think my ss liked it too, and the most important thing: we all learned from it.

Thanks for reading my blog and for your comments beforehand ;D

THIRD CLASS (FIRST PERIOD)

HELLO!!

Thanks God I'm done with the teaching practice of this period! Yuju!

I’m not only very happy because I’m done with this period, but also because I did it very well and I also gained new and valuable experiences in regard with the classroom management.

About this experience:
What went well?
Thanks God, almost everything went well since the first activity till the last one.
For the class, I developed a PDP listening about UFOs and aliens, so it was very interesting.

For the pre-activity, I pasted a chart on the board with a few questions which ss discussed in pairs 
and later I checked them by eliciting answers in general.

For the during-activity, I gave ss a multiple choice questionnaire, which only had 5 questions, and I asked them to read it silently so that they get familiarized with it and find the new words; then, I explained the ss the new words and I played the audio three times while they underlined the answers. Finally, I checked the answers orally.

For the post-activity, I put some pieces of color paper (red, purple and yellow) on a desk and I asked ss to picked one of them in order to have the ss performing in pairs different role-plays. Then, I pasted on the board a chart containing three different role-plays, one for each color; thus, the ss who chose the red color would act out a different situation from the other two colors. Take a look to the pic:
ROLE-PLAYS

I gave ss enough time to create their “sketches” as I helped them with their vocabulary.
Finally, just four pairs performed their situation because of the time.

What didn’t go so well?


Thanks God, almost nothing; the only thing that the teacher told me was that I should have the shy students participating inasmuch as in all the activities that implied participation, especially in the role-play, only the extraverted ss participated.  
And I’m totally in agreement with that nevertheless when you are a practitioner you have your time limited to developed different activities; thus, it becomes time-consuming trying to have shy ss participating because you have to tell them a few times and be patient till they decide to do it, in my opinion. 
On the other hand, as a teacher I know that it’s a must; it’s my responsibility to have all my ss working hard and participating equally.  


Ok that's all. hanks for all your previous comments and for the new ones beforehand :D

Second Class (Second Semester, First Period)

HILARIOUS EXPERIENCE!

Konnichiwa my bloggers!

Yesterday I taught my second class with the Intermediate I group and it was a nice class because we all have fun and learn at the same time.

As I told you in my previous entry, most of the students are boys who are so outgoing and who like to joke around, which is good when you need their participation and to have a fun environment in the class. Nevertheless, you have to lead them correctly; you don’t have to be “so tight neither so loose” otherwise they may feel and behave inhibited or they may do a party in the classroom! Thanks God, the teacher told me in the feedback that she liked my classroom management.

I began the class by playing an Bingo of Adjectives…

      

Then, I did a quick grammar review about Adverbs of Manner; I wrote some of the spelling rules to make adverbs of manner from adjectives and I used some of the adjectives of the Bingo as examples.

Next, I asked ss to form two groups to do a competition game for which I gave each group 12 of the Bingo’s flashcards so that they could write the correct adverbs of manner by using the given adjectives. The group with fewer mistakes would win candies…

…I checked each group’s answers on the board so that they could learn from their mistakes and group 2 won the candies!

The next activity was a mimic game in which participants were chosen by playing the hot potato…And here is when the HILARIOUS MOMENT comes…

                   

To begin, the teacher didn’t take the CD player to the class so I asked the students if one of them could sing and one of them agree, so he went to the board and started singing while the rest of the class passed the CANDIES…yes :$ CANDIES…I thought it was going to be a good idea that the object that students will pass were candies…for sure that was a bad idea because they eat them! …

While the game I heard ss laughing, but I thought they were laughing because of their classmate’s voice…I didn’t get angry, I just started laughing and I said: Come on! The people who ate the candies should come to the board to do some mimics. And some of the students stood up and did it.

While the mimics we all continued laughing with these boys…the words they mimicked were adjectives which were used in the final activity, which was a fill in the blanks.

All in all, every group I have taught at the University has been different, but any of those groups have behaved as this group; I hope you don’t misunderstand me because they are participative, friendly and respectful, but if you give them the opportunity to do a prank they will. So Warning with them! Ha-ha

  

First Class (Second Semester)

Hello my blogger’s friends, welcome to my site again!

On Thursday, August 8^th I taught my fist class of this semester and thanks God it was a pretty nice experience; I only got nervous the day before but not the main day neither during the class, I guess the previous experiences helped me to feel more confident and it was also a good day for me.

This period I’m teaching Intermediate II and they are a large group of students; most of them are boys and it seems they like to joke around, but they also like to work in class.

In regard with the lesson, I didn’t spend too much time creating it because I only added a song, “You’re beautiful” by James Blunt, as a warm-up and I took the rest of the activities from the teacher’s lesson; the activities were from the controlled practice and they were nice, easy and quick to develop.

At the beginning of the class, I thought that only a few students were going to be in class because only a few of them were there on time, the rest of them were late.

While I was introducing myself, some of the students were not paying attention to me and they were kind of noisy, that never happened to me before; it wasn’t that bad, but it was rare.

During the development of the first activity a few students were with their cellphones so I asked them to keep them, that either happened to me in the previous classes. Nevertheless, after checking the first activity, I felt they started changing their attitude; they were paying attention to me and to the activities, they behave and were participative. Thus, by the end of the class, I could feel the connection I usually feel with my students; something that can be described as mutual sympathy, and that was nice  :).  

My LAST Class!!!

HELLO and welcome to my blog!!!

OMG this is my final entry of this semester because I’m done with the teaching practices and it feels So great, isn’t it guys?

Thanks to my lovely God, I didn’t get nervous in this class which was amazing because I could enjoy it more and I record it too. However, in comparison with my previous lessons this one was not so good as the other ones because it wasn’t so interactive and dynamic; I had to teach grammar and make sure ss understand the topic with a controlled practice and that reduced the time for me to do more active and fun activities.

Nevertheless, I began the class with TPR; we played a game that many of you may already know it by this moment because some of us have done it in our previous classes, the game is called: “Rabbits to your house, Houses to your rabbit and Earthquake!”. It was kind of difficult to explain so I had to explain it twice, but at the end we all had fun. I took advantage of the activity to elicit some vocabulary about furniture, which was the target vocabulary and “Some and any” the target grammar.

The other game that I could do was “The Chinese Whisper” in which the class was split in two groups and each team did a vertical line in front of the board so that the participant of each group who was in front of the board could write the sentence which was sent it orally and secretly by their group. The sentence was given by me to the last two participants of each group at the same time so that they could say it to the person who was in front of them, and this person could say it to the next person and so on till the message could get to the person who was in front of the board. The team who did it faster and without any grammar or spelling mistakes got a point and the team with more points got the prize!!

Well, that was my class and as I told you what I liked the most was the fact that I didn’t get nervous, and that I could enjoy it more, especially the first and the last activity. It was also nice to see the students’ good attitude in this and in the previous class because in the first one they were like not cooperating, so it makes me think that, in that area, I could do a good job too because I motivated them with my enthusiasm, good attitude and also many gummies! Ha-ha…But it worked!! He-he

To finalized, it comes from my heart this beautiful feeling of thankfulness with God and my family because they helped me to have this opportunity and supported me in the “Ups and Downs”. And I’m also thankful with my co-worker for her support and help as well as with my tutors for their pieces of advice and patient and with you my commenters’ friends who have cheered me up with your positive comments, thanks for your time. God bless you all, love ya. <3

My 2nd Class with the Basic Group!!

Monday, May 6^th 2013

こんにちは！

Thanks God this class was better than the previous one because my students got fun and I could enjoy it too!

Most of the things went well; it helped me a lot the fact that I just had to develop activities during the class, which means no grammar. In addition, I put into practice all the pieces of advice that the teacher gave me the last time, which were more related with the kind of activities; he asked me to include more TPR and more speaking activities and that was what I did.

I prepared three competition games with the aim of motivating students to participate; in each game, each group got points, but the group with more points at the end of the class got “the gummies”. The first game was called “Listen to and go to get it!”; for this one, I pasted 18 irregular verbs around the classroom so that one participant peer each group could go to get the verb, which I have mentioned in present tense, and paste it on the board. 

My second activity and game was a Bingo of adjectives, in which winning depended on luck. Taking advantage of the Bingo’s vocabulary, I focused students on the adjectives of appearance and their opposites, and I also provided them a copy with extra vocabulary that had some pictures. Then, I took advantage of the flashcards that I used in my previous class, flashcards of dead famous people, to describe them using sentences in past tense. It was great to see my students participating this time!

Next...


I asked students to make groups of four in order to describe a picture of a dead famous person, this time the flashcards were not the same. Each group wrote 5 sentences and they chose a member of their team to read them aloud.

Finally, we enjoyed the last game, it was a writing game; I pasted a picture of Selena for one team and a picture of Princess Diana for the other team so that each team could write as many sentences as they could in three minutes. The students’ adrenaline was high at that moment, and each group just wanted to win so the girls who had more fluent ideas took the control of the marker and they wrote most of the sentences! It was difficult for me to control that because they were so excited, they just wanted to win, I mean, it was fun, but I didn’t expect that. So, next time, I’ll try to give each student some pieces of color paper which serve as a participation ticket to make sure everyone participate and to avoid having the same students participating J

Well, this was my class and I feel very satisfy of having reached my goal which was: Have fun and learn at the same time, which is great!

私のブログを読んでくれてありがとう。^J^

(Thank you for reading my blog)

1st Class at Basic English (3rd Period)

Monday, April 29th 2013

Salutations everyone!!

Hope you being doing great.

This period I am teaching Basic with a totally different group of students from the ones that I had taught before inasmuch as this group doesn’t like to participate in the speaking activities; I guess, it is because they are still in a receptive stage in which the listening and the reading activities are easier for them in comparison with the activities that require production such as: the speaking and the writing activities. In addition, there’s something particular about this group; most of these students have failed at least once and actually most of them are about to fail, so this contributes to have a demotivating environment, increasing the lack of confidence in the students by the time of speaking or writing on the board. But thanks God, I have noticed that they definitely enjoy playing games that involve TPR as well as music, so I’ll try to go for that way in my next class.

About my class:

In my opinion, I planned a nice lesson. I used flashcards of dead famous people to have students talking about the past as a warm-up. Next, I split the class in two and had both groups collecting the verbs mentioned in a song (Don’t you worry child – by Swedish House Mafia) 

Then, I explained the grammar with the help of a video which provided many examples and one practice that I developed in general. Next, I gave each student a copy with some exercises to solve: a short reading with some blanks that they had to fill in, some comprehension questions, sentences which they had write in negative, and some unscramble questions. I provided instructions and examples for each exercise as well as I checked them orally. Finally, I did a speaking activity with the unscrambled questions in which ss stood up and interviewed a classmate for one minute. After that minute, they changed roles; they did it three times and my time there was over, so I couldn’t do the last activity which was a TPR game.

All in all, I liked my class despite of the mishaps I had with the projector, the students’ attitude by the time of speaking, and my nerves because I got nervous like in my first :S Anyways, I’m happy and satisfy of having this experience which will help me to better. Learning and Improvement is my goal in my professional life ;) J

Third class in Intermediate II (Second Period)

                                                                                                    Thursday, April 4th 2013

Greetings!!

Thanks God, my third experience with this group of students was very good and I enjoyed it.

What went well?

Most of the activities turned out the way I expected and students were very participative this time. Among the activities that the teacher liked the most were: The warm-up because I started the class by activating schema/prior knowledge, the presentation because I used a song in which ss had to paste the most relevant lyrics for the topic, which was about “Countable and uncountable food”, and finally, the teacher liked the fact that I used a PowerPoint presentation to explain the grammar.
In the next link is the PowerPoint presentation, in case you want to check it.

https://powerpoint.office.live.com/p/PowerPointView.aspx?FBsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdownload%2Ffile_preview.php%3Fid%3D505139276218351%26time%3D1365610861%26metadata&access_token=100000164512276%3AAVKtfnPpAa1HWcB-2QMQyatydidFJHoBpJormyQZQmqtfw&title=COUNTABLE+AND+UNCOUNTABLE+NOUN_+presentation.pptx

What didn’t go so well?

Well, I had troubles with the equipment; the projector wasn’t able to show the presentation that I had in my computer so I had to use the teacher’s computer. Nevertheless, once we could see the PowerPoint presentation everything was good and actually helped me to save time since I didn’t have to write too much on the board or spend time pasting charts.

At the end of the class I thanked the students for their participation inasmuch as I wasn’t expecting their good behavior, I didn’t tell them that, but I did thank them for their behavior since the first class and they applauded me, so I felt very happy because I know they did it with their heart :3

All in all, I’m really thankful for all the experience that I have gained during my teaching practicum till now because I have learned many good things from all people around me; I have learned from their good attitudes, how to present the activities better, how to manage the class better, and many other things that helped me to be better not only as a professional, but also as a person.

Second class in Intermediate II (Second Period)

                                                               Thursday, March 21st 2013

Salutations once again my dear peers!!

Thanks God, my second experience with this group of students was very, very good despite of the fact that the lesson that I did and developed was kind of simple since I didn’t include any visual aids or copies, but I developed meaningful activities which were  helpful for the students’ learning.

What went well?

Thanks God, most of the activities went well. My class was based on a brief grammar review about the verbs “make” and “do”, and speaking activities that allowed me to make it more student-centered, which was good!

Among the activities that the teacher and students enjoyed the most were: the famous “Hot potato”, which I used to do a quick grammar review, the role-play and a TPR game “Swap place if you…” in which I said a sentence, for example: “Swap place if you usually make your bed”, and the students who “usually make their bed” changed their sits with another student; students had fun as the same time that they learned with these activities.

What didn’t go so well?

Well, I conducted a debate and there was a problem with the students because before the debate some of them were reluctant to expose their ideas and get in agreement with the rest of their team, and during the debate just a few students participated, which was also because of the time. This doesn’t feel good because you as teacher notice their attitude and try to do something about it, for example, I got close to those students, who didn’t want to work,  in order to motivate them to participate by telling them: "Come on guys, let's work!! :D"  And they immediately did what they had to do in my presence, but when I went to monitor the rest of them, they were just not doing anything; thus, I pushed them to work by reminding them about the short time they had, for example: "You just have one more minute, so let's work guys!" So, this was not likeable, but at the end of the day, it was a good debate and I gained experience on how to manage these kinds of situations since the teacher gave me some tips:

-  In order to push students to do something, change your tone of voice, like showing authoritarianism, and/or tell them that if they don’t work they will get a penalty.

-  In order to make all students participate in a debate, deliver a piece of color paper to each student and take it back when they speak; this will avoided them to speak more than once as well as it will help you to monitor and make sure that all of them participate.  

All in all, despite of the inconvenient in the debate, everything was cool, students participate in the rest of the activities and they were supportive; they are nice guys, what I think that happened for the debate was that the groups were too big, fourteen and fourteen, so I guess that some of them were thinking that their opinions were not necessary, and as you know in every group there are people who really like to express their opinions, so the quietest/shiest guys let the more talkative speak, which is not good in an English class and we as teachers most use strategies to avoid that happen/continue happening.

Well, this was my experience and I am happy and satisfy of have had the opportunity of lived it and acquired it as always. J

First class at Intermediate II (Second Period)

Thursday, March 14^th 2013

Kind greetings!!!

First of all, I’d like to thank God in public too because He’s the one who has helped me to overcome obstacles, to learn from my failures, to move forward and to have such a nice experiences teaching at UNICAES.

Planning this class took me a lot of time because I honestly didn’t remember too much about the target grammar, which was about phrasal verbs, so I had to study it again; nevertheless, all the time spent on it was worth it because the class was very, very productive.

What went well?

Well, I feel bless because all the activities that I developed turned out well, the way that I expected, and I this time I felt less, less, less nervous than the other times. I guess that’s because the result of previous experiences helped me to gain confidence when teaching as well as the fact that this group of students is very kind, they participate, they work and they respect you as a teacher; in addition, the teacher is very kind and supportive too.

What didn’t go so well?

I had troubles with the time, I didn’t measure the time for each activity correctly; thus, I had to omit one activity of my lesson and I also took more time than I should. Nevertheless, that happened too because the teacher allowed me to do it, and he did it because he really liked what I was doing, so at the end of the day the troubles with the time didn’t become a big deal; however, the teacher advised me to measure the time for each activity appropriately.

This is the way that I developed my class:

For the warm-up, I did a mimic game in which some ss acted out some phrasal verbs whereas the rest guessed them.

For the presentation, I provided a reading for which ss underlined the phrasal verbs that were in it; then, I gave ss a worksheet containing the phrasal verbs that were in the reading and their possible meanings, ss just had to underline one of the three options (the possible meanings) for each phrasal verb. Once ss finished, I checked it orally. Finally, ss discussed some questions in which they had to provide their personal information/experience.

For the grammar, I presented a chart and I also gave ss a copy with the same information of the chart so that they didn’t waste time writing it. I provided the grammar explanation, I asked ss if they had any doubt, I clarified doubts and I finally CCQ ss.

For the practice, I used the same worksheet that had the phrasal verbs and their meaning. This worksheet also had a sentence from the reading per each phrasal verb, so for the activity, I provided the next instructions: “Find out if the phrasal verbs are transitive or intransitive and write “T” or “I” in the blanks; if they are transitive, circle their object. Then, write “S” for the separable phrasal verbs and “N” for the non-separable phrasal verbs, according to each sentence.” Finally, I checked and discussed the answers orally and in general. Some ss question the correct answers, they weren’t convince that those answers were correct, so I explained them why those answers were correct and that was amazing because I didn’t hesitate in the explanation, I knew the grammar, it was easy for me to clarify doubts and I felt as a real teacher who really knows. It was really amazing to see that they were really learning and interacting with me. I really liked it!

To finalize my lesson, I split the class in two and I asked ss to do a horizontal line in front of the board in order to do a TPR and listening game in which one student per each team had to go and pick a phrasal verb up from the wall and paste it on the board as fast as he/she could. Before the class began, I had pasted all the phrasal verbs on the wall and around the classroom in order to make the task funnier and difficult. The mechanic of the game: I just gave the meaning of each phrasal verb and ss had to remember/analyze the phrasal verb to go and get it. All the phrasal verbs were separable and were seeing in class. At the end of the game, both teams won because both teams got the same number of points, each phrasal verb were equivalent to a point.

I really enjoyed this class!!