Redemption time. Last class.

Well, this was my redemption time since I had an awful time on the last class. This time I did so much better, but I owe you the pictures :/. My classmates filmed my class again, so no pictures today.

Where do I start? Ah, yes! Well, I started the class by greeting them as always. My warm-up was the one in the lesson plan. I divided them in two groups and explained: Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and bought some bananas... they had to continue the structure and add an item. They had to say the complete sentence, say the food previously mentioned and add a new noun more. I also presented a new topic: Countable and Uncountable Nouns. Some of you already worked wiht that topic, but this group is a little behind. Nevertheless, I worked on it. I asked them few questions such as: Do you have plans to go out and eat? Just to introduce the new vocabulary. They answered, and then, I started my job. I wrote on the board some words such as: Seafood, Meat, Fruits, Vegetables,  Candies and Drinks. At first, I wrote seafood and asked them what they knew about it, so they told me words like: fish, shrimps, squid, oysters, etc... I saw that they knew some words. I continued the same way with the other words just to teach some vocabulary.

Later, I had some pieces of paper with the names of food. I wrote 5 groups of food on the board and asked them to take a piece of paper and paste them where it belonged; for example: orange belonged to the group of fruits, and so on. Later, I showed some flashcards using the target vocabulary, and I started to explain that there are some nouns that cannot be counted and provided some examples using the flashcards. They understood well. Moving on, I provided some sheets of paper to develop a written activity. Later, I had them describing their favorite food in pairs. They really enjoyed the activities and had so much fun. At the end, I just said goodbye to all of them. I felt glad to have overcome the previous experience.

So people, this is it. I want to congratulate you all for having finished successfully the teaching practicum. We just miss the last activities, and we are free! ☺. I also want to thank you all for commenting me. I wish you all the best. ☻

Last period, 2nd class.

Gosh! I do not know where to start... well, I must say that it was a terrible class hahahaha. This is the first time I am aware that I screwed my class. Why? The lesson plan I got was of the unit 10 while the unit studied was the 9. So I got confused, and prepared activities according to the unit 10. Before I started the class, the teacher checked my work and told me: "WHAT THE....?" hahaha just kidding, she told me that my activities were wrong since she was teaching unit 9. In that moment, I just thought: "Oh God why?" And she helped me with a quick warm up. All my work was not the right one, and I did not have any idea of what to do in that moment, but well, I improvised the activities just a little bit and had the warm up I had prepared for the other activities.

This was a very bad experience for me, but as I say, I always learn from every single situation without caring if it was good or bad. Learning is learning. Anyways, my class was awful and somehow, I improvised the activities. From all of this, I could see that the students had fun with the activities, but I felt so ashamed in that moment. My classmate filmed my class, so there are no pictures for this entry. I did not like the video, so I will film it next class hahaha. I hope you did have a very good class :). Take care folks!

Last period, first practice

Well, I am in a new class which is Basic English with teacher Karina. To start telling my experience, I want to share another quote of mine:

"To enjoy something, you only have to do what you like"

Well, let's get into business. I introduced myself, and gave some directions to establish respect and commitment with the content and myself as well as my respect to them. I will not lie; I was not so eager to teach because I had a bad night, so it was a problem for me. Nevertheless, I tried to do my best. I provided different activities to reinforce the previous classes about the simple past tense. To start the activities, I provided them a word puzzle to solve in ten minutes. They did very well, and they somehow liked it. The second activity we performed was a song. I am using the lesson plan of Elizabeth and Sara, so the song was "Killing me softly" by Roberta Flack (1973). In my opinion, I do like that song, and it is very nice, but the students knew it was an old song, so they did not enjoy it that much. Anyways, the purpose was to teach the past tense not to make them like it :P. hahahaha. We practiced, and it was nice. The last activity was to perform a roleplay using the past tense. The time was not enough, so only one group participated. I liked the group because they participate, and even though they are few students, they get along well. My expectations are high, and I know that I will enjoy the following classes.

Last second period class.

Well just to start the blog, I want to share a quote with you:
"Love what you do if you want to do well." (I am the author :P )

Well, my class was very nice. I did enjoy this class more than the others I taught. I am not sure if it was because it was the last one this period or what, but I enjoyed it so much. I started the class by reviewing the countable and uncountable nouns by using some flashcards bearing images of food. With that warm up, I practiced with the speaking skill because besides asking them if it was countable or not, I asked them to use a quantifier with the noun. They did very well.

Secondly, I gave them a piece of paper with some sentences in which they had to rewrite the wrong ones, and if the sentence was ok, they had to write a C. The activity lasted for 10 minutes because we checked the answers. I heard some words that they pronounced wrong, and I told them the right way :). I could see that they understood the topic that my classmate explained, and it was very nice. The third activity I applied was a reading comprehension in which they had to underline the correct word between parenthesis. It took 10 minutes too because we checked the answers and read the paragraph. At the end, my last activity was a song, which is the one that you are listening to in this blog. I gave them a piece of paper with the lyrics of the song, but I deleted some nouns that they had to fill when listening to the song. I played it three times so that they could check and tell me if the nouns were countable or uncountable. They liked the song, and all the girls were singing it! The boys did not sing it exactly, they just moved their lips to sing as if they were ashamed of singing that song hahahaha.

Anyways, I enjoyed the class because I applied the four macro skills with different activities, and it is a very good way to vary the activities. I really enjoyed the class, and I was glad to see that the students liked the activities. I can see a great potential in all of them. Now, I just way for your comments.

Second class. II Period

Well, this class was a very good one for me since I had to teach some grammar on the future forms: "Will and going to." I really liked it because it was the first time for me to teach grammar, but there was a bad part: the weather. Incredibly, the weather was so hot that I was sweating while teaching and it was not for being nervous.

Anyways, I had to deal with the weather, and I remembered all those days when we studied and the weather was so hot when the teacher explained some grammar to us! SO TEDIOUS! Well, I started the class by greeting them and asking them how their weekend was because my class was on Monday. The class started really well, and then, I moved on to draw a "timeline" on the board to indicate where the simple future and the near future were located to use them well.

Time passed, and the weather got hotter than it already was, so I had them practice a little bit about what we just studied, and they understood as I could see even though they were not so comfortable with the heat. As teacher, you must learn how to deal with the weather and its causes in the students' mood. I know, it is hard, but what else can we do? The first practice was only about the use of will just to check if they had understood what I just said. We checked the answers, and there was a hard one that only one student could answer it right. It was nice because he showed me that I did a good job. Nevertheless, I am sure that I must keep practicing because I want all students to learn.

Finally, we developed the last activity which was about planning what to do in another activity. This was about reordering some sentences. It was a piece of cake for them. I was glad to see them working, but we all were tired for the heat :/. I must learn how to deal with it. To teach in the afternoon is hard because the weather varies... sometimes it is too hot as that day and others, it is raining. The weather influences in the students' mood, as I could check in the class and as I remember when we were students only. This has been my class, and I wait for your comments.

First second period class

Well, I started teaching on this second period with the intermediate English II course. My mentor is Teacher Blanco. To start, I provided some pieces of paper to the students so that they could write their names down and paste them on their shirt or desk. They did, and in this way, I could see their names (I really suck at memorizing names at the beginning). You cannot stop comparing, and that is my case. I compare these students to my previous ones. Obviously, these are more advanced students, but they have the same characteristic: participation. They are very participative, and they are curious to know the meaning of the words.

This time, I learned that there is no need to play as many games as you want in order to have a very fun class. Somehow, I am learning my very own touch for the classes. You all know that when it is about creativity, I am the worst hahaha. Anyways, I tried to make a good impression, but I still do not know if it worked. I think I will see that next class. I am very comfortable with this group too. I know they are learning, but they look like they do and really do want to learn. In class, I worked with some reading activities, and they can read very well, but they still need to practice. The most noticeable mistake I had (Well, the only one I could see by myself) was that I did not realize that the reading was only for reading comprehension. I used it to make them read a loud. Despite that, they did a very good job, and they show that they can improve anytime. I could have the entire hour to teach, and somehow, it made me feel even more comfortable because I had a little bit more of freedom to develop the activities.

Well, this is it for now. I wait for your comments.

Last class in the first period.

Life is a challenge, live and overcome it. (I am the author of this :P)

I started with a phrase because my class was about challenges not only for me but also for the students. Today, the class was about practices such as a reading and a listening practice. I also reviewed the simple present tense with them. They understood that very well, and it makes me glad since they are moving forward in their studies. The reading practice was short but nice, and they are very good at reading as I could observe. Also the listening practice was a little hard, but they did their best. I suggested them to watch movies on English with English subtitles to get used to the vocabulary. I had some problems because as we know, nothing is perfect although we must look for perfection every time we perform or do something. The only problem I had was that some students did not understand so well the recording for the listening; anyways, they are in the Basic English level, but I know they will do their best to overcome that issue. I am glad because the group was very nice.

This time, they were not so participative, and it makes me think that I must find a new way to motivate and make the class more dynamic. So if you have any suggestion for it, let me know please :). Cheers.

Second class.

Well, my second class experience was a little harder than the first one, but as future teacher, I must be aware that unexpected situations will always come up wheter you are ready or not. I cannot complain about it because I know I did my best, and somehow, I liked the adrenaline hahaha. Well, I started with a dictation about family. The teacher uploaded the material for the students in moodle, but they did not get the material, so in my mind, there were so many thoughts at the same time lol. What was I to do? Well, if I had not my classmate and friend in the classroom, I would not have done anything well. I told him to photocopy the material since the students did not have it. Meanwhile, I was dictating them. When I finished dictating, George came back with the photocopies just in time! Anyways, I had to draw a family tree which was in the material that they did not get. I drew it as you can see on the picture. I could have a very nice experience even though it was a quick reflex that I had to continue with the class as if anything happened.

Well, we can never predict what will happen in a class. You give the material to your students, but what if any of them did not take it to class? You have to play with your mind and find a good way to fix and move on. I learned it, and I am proud that I could manage it very well hahahaha.

First class experience

Well, I am in the basic English group with teacher Alex. Today, Friday, February 8th was my first teaching experience. It was a very nice experience for different factors. I would like to point out what they are. Also, not everything will be always perfect, though; I know I must improve in many areas in order to enrich my way of teaching. It has been great to teach in this group for so many reasons, but I will talk about two specifically.

First of all, the group has a little knowledge about English, and they speak English most of the time. This is something that I like because they know what they have to do in order to acquire a very good level of English. Also, there are some students who find English hard, but they do their best in order to learn how to develop themselves in the target language. Besides, the students of this group are doing their best on every activity assigned to them. 

Second of all, they are always willing to participate in every activity. There was no need for me to ask them to participate because voluntarily, they raised their hand and performed with my activity. This tells me that they are willing to learn leaving shyness aside. I really like this because this group is very close and participative without caring about making mistakes, which is common to learn. They performed the activity very well. The activity was a dialogue, which they learned and later performed.

As a conclussion, teaching in the university is a great opportunity since you have the chance to interact with adults who know what they want in life so that they are aware of what studying in college means. I am eager to teach next week, and I hope I can do it even better than I did today.