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.