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!!