I finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, this was my last class in this subject. The topic was subject and object questions. I must confess that I felt kind of nervous at the beginning because I did not remember that topic very well. I had to teach from the beginning, so the grammar notes were included; I arrived early to the classroom in order to prepare my material; I started my class with a warm up as always. In that activity the students had to make three lines in front of a desk where they had a piece of paper; one representative from each group had to go out the classroom to read some sentences that I had pasted on the outside wall. The students that were inside the classroom had to listen to their classmates that were out because they had to dictate the sentences to them and they had to write them on the piece of paper. The activity was nice; my tutor liked it because it promoted the communication skills in the students. After the warm up, I continued with the presentation of the topic; I started by explaining what a subject and an object are so that students had a clear idea of what they were about to learn; I did it very carefully since this topic can be confusing. After that I explained the rules to identify or to distinguish those kinds of questions. The teacher told me that  my explanation was really nice. After that I pasted a chart on the board where they had to identify the sibject and the object questions. During my explanation some of them came up with some questions that I clarify and that consumed some of the time I had planned to perform other activities, so my time was up and I finished my class at that point. In my feedback session, my tutor told me that he had liked the warm up and the grammar explanation; I just had some pronunciation mistakes. At the end my grade was not as good as I expected; now I accept that teaching the grammar part in the practice really sucks. Anyway, I finished and I feel less stressed now.

Class and video

Hi, this was my second chance to teach. Uff, I'm almost done. Also, I decided to record my class because I think I have to be prepared in advance. I was worried because the part of the lesson plan I had to teach was really short and easy to be covered by the students. 

I arrived ten minutes before to the classroom in order to prepare my material and to look for  a place where to put the camera. The classroom is small, so I had to put the camera on a window; it was OK in that place because it had a good angle of vision. The teacher arrived and it was my time to start. I started the class with "The broken telephone"; I chose that game because it helps the student to exercise their communicative abilities. I got really surprised because the second message I sent got intact until the last student! I guess that has never happened before... jejeje. After that, students had to work in some fill-in-the-blanks exercises; I was worried because they finished very fast; actually, the exercise was sooooo easy. Well, after that my planning included another exercise of that kind, but I prepared it different. I made them stand up and make two lines in front of the board; I had pasted some papers on the board; in one of them I had written "Have" and in the other I wrote Has, but in addition I pasted more papers with words and drawings related to the sentences they had to complete. I showed the incomplete sentence to them and they had to pick up either the paper with "have" or the paper with "has" and also the drawing or word related to the sentence; I assigned 3 points to the first paper and 1 point to the second. It was a nice activity because it was a different way to present a fill-in-blanks exercise; also my teacher liked it. Then I still had 10 more minutes, so I made them work on the book. I can say I enjoyed this class although I was about to finish early. Also, I got my video and that is very important because I don't need to worry about that anymore. My grade was good.

The last period

Well, I'm almost done!! Today was my first class in the third period. Honestly, I must say that I've learned a lot this year. The topic for this class was job and occupations; it was focused on the use of can and can't. I arrived ten minutes before to the classroom and I prepared my material. At 7 AM, the teacher arrived, so I started my class. I began with a nice warm up. I pasted some papers on the students' back with names of jobs written on them; then I made them go around asking Can I...? They had to guess what was their profession, so they had to make questions to their classmates and practice the structure they were about to learned. They had fun and they practiced a little bit. After that, I present the topic using a reading. I read the paragraph first, and then I made them read portions of it. I used the activity of the ball; I gave a soft ball to a students and he had to read; when I said "next", he/she had to throw the ball to another student and he/she had to continue reading; that way I made them pay attention and participate. Later on, I explained the grammar part, that is, the uses of can and can't. For my explanations, I made them participate. I gave some sentences written on a paper to each student. As I was explaining the rules I made them analyze the sentences they had to determine if they belonged to the category I was teaching; For example if the sentence used Can to express ability, or to express permission, etc. They participated and demonstrated that they had understood. After that, I pasted on the board some flashcards about jobs; they hag to write sentences using can based on the abilities people have in their professions.
In the feedback, my tutor told me that he had liked the warm up because I had made the student speak; also, the reading was nice because they were paying attention. The grammar explanation was excellent also because I involve students in the explanation. Among the things I can improve, he told me about pronunciation; they were some words that I didn't pronounce well; my grade was not bad at all. I liked this class.

Only one period left!!!!!!!!...

My last class in this second period is already over. Today I arrived earlier to the classroom; it was empty, so I started preparing my stuff. At 7:00 AM some students arrived.

I started my class at 7:10 AM; I guess you already know why. I started with a warm up activity; I made the students work in groups; they had to send a representative to the front to pick up a paper and then they had to write what the paper said; for example: "6 clothes we wear in winter", etc. They like competitons, so I like to do those kinds of warm up activities. They had to write and when they finished, they had to shout "stop" and the other teams had to stop writing. If they had written the requested things accurately, they got a point.

After that, I started the lesson by presenting the grammar notes for the use of simple present and present progressive. I pasted two charts about the grammar rules on the board so they remembered those topics which they saw in basic English. After explaining that, I made them work on an exercise in the book. They had to match some names of clothes with the correct adjectives; It was kind of confusing, but I had studied that in my planning so I was prepared for any question. I monitored the activity and of course they had a lot of questions which I answered easily.

Later on, I made the students work on a conversation that was in the book. They had to complete it with some useful expressions related to shopping. They are very participative, so I didn't have any trouble to complete that exercise collectively. Once we finished, I made them repeat after me the pronunciation of some words and phrases. Then, I had them build up their own conversation in pairs; they had to use some of the useful expressions they had learned. I finished with that activity because my time was up.

I received a nice feedback from my teacher; she told me the things that she liked from my class, and after that she told me the things I could improve. My grade was good, so I feel satisfied with this second period that now is over. We are almost done, congratulations to all of us; keep it going!  

A forty minutes class

Today I taught my 3rd class; as always, I arrived early to the classroom and I started to prepare my material. I must admit that I did not feel well prepared for this class; yesterday I went to bed late, so today I did not feel OK; I felt very tired. The teacher arrived at 7:10, so I started my class at that time.The topic was not difficult; it was about direct and indirect objects, and also about verb patterns. I got a copy of the lesson plan yesterday, but the problem was that I confused the teacher's instructions. I thought I had to make a review of verb patterns and an introduction to the other topic, but it was the opposite. Anyway, I started my class with a warm up to review verb patterns (which was a topic they did not know about), but it was useful to introduce one of the lesson's topics. I had the students make three lines in front of the board; I gave some scrambled sentences to the ones at the beginning of the lines and they have to write the sentences correctly on the board; the one that finished first had to yell: "next" and the rest of the students had to stop writing and give the marker to the next student on the line; they had to continue doing the same until all of them participated. It was a nice warm up because some of them wrote correctly although they had not studied verb patterns before. Well, after that I made them work on a handout they had. It was about direct and indirect objects; they had to identify and underline those parts of the sentences; for some of them it was difficult at the beginning, but after some 2 or 3 sentences they were able to do it. I monitored the activity and some of the students asked for help to me; it was nice because that is a sign that they trust me as a teacher. After that I introduce the other topic, verb patterns; I made them work in their books. It was very easy because they had a list of verbs they could use to fill in some blanks to complete a conversation. After that I had to play  that conversation on the CD player but the teacher told me that there was no more time. Well, she arrived late and took 10 minutes from my time. Anyway, I'm just a practitioner, so I finished my class.

What did I learn? Well, I learn that I must pay more attention to my tutor; yesterday she told me what to do for today's class, but I forgot it and I did it in a different way; second, I learned that using a warm up about a new topic is not a bad idea at all; students may work with new things using their cleverness. It is a good idea to expose them to unknown things (obviously you have to explain later); and third, the time for a practitioner's class is not 50 minutes, it is the minutes they have available until it is time for the second part of the class. Good night.

A nice class!

Well, today I gave a class that I really enjoyed. The topic was adverbs of frequency, so I felt happy because I consider that as one of the easiest topics in English. Also, today I was observed by a classmate, so I had an additional reason to feel nervous.
As always, I had to wait for the teacher; she arrived around 7: 10, and I took advantage on that because I had plenty of time to prepare material. I started with the warm up proposed in the lesson plan; I made the students work in pairs and use some questions to discuss a topic. The topic was gifts, so I presented some realia which was a St. Valentine's gift. It was very useful because the students felt curious from the beginning and that made them pay attention to the class. After they discussed the topic with a classmate, I asked them to share some of their findings. One of the questions was: "Which is easier, buying gifts for men or buying gifts form women?", and almost all the students participated giving their opinions. I liked it. After that, it was time for a reading; I read the first paragraph and made some of the students to help me with the reading. I corrected mispronunciation of some words. Later on, I showed the content of the gift I had showed from the beginning of the class; it was an mp3 player and a necklace because the reading said that men prefer gadgets, and girls prefer jewelry; most of the students agreed with that affirmation.
After the reading part, I introduced some common expressions we use with objects, for example a bunch of, a pack of, a bottle of, etc. The students got the idea very fast. The next step was the grammar part which was a piece of cake. I explained the rules for using adverbs of frequency and I dictated some examples. I like those students; classroom management is easy with them.
I finished my class with some practice they had on their handouts. It was time for feedback, then.
The teacher told me that she had liked the way how I presented the activities, especially the warm up and the presentation of the topic. I knew I had done it well because at the end I felt good with my work. The weird thing this time was that I got a 6 in pronunciation; she showed me my mistakes which were 5 words only!!!!!
I guess my final grade was not bad at all, but the important thing is that I feel satisfied with the class I gave today.

A lesson learned. Second Period.

I had to get up very early today; I had to start my class at 7:00. Last night I went to bed early because the lesson was kind of easy, so I did my planning in some minutes. I arrived to the classroom at 6:45 with enough time to prepare my material; I had to wait around half an hour for the teacher (she lives in Ahuachapan like me; however, I came earlier; I do not understand), so I had extra time to review what I had prepared.
The teacher arrived, and I started my class at 7:15. I started with a warm up I did the last period with teacher Yesenia; students had to tell their names and the title of their favorite movie. That was very helpful because the number of students is around 25, so I had the opportunity to get familiar with their names. After the warm up, we worked on a listening; I had a student read the description of what the reading was about and then we listen to a TV show in which the participants had to answer some questions about their partners. Then, the students answered some questions about the listening and work in pairs in the next exercise in which they had to identify the tenses of the verbs in some extracts from the listening I had pasted on the board; it was easy because they are very smart and got the idea very fast. The topic was past progressive vs simple past; later on, I had them write sentences using the past progressive based on some pictures I showed. They did it very fast and had few mistakes. My final activity was a reading; I learned a couple of good techniques to work with readings in the last period, so I made the students read parts of the story; I gave a student a soft ball and when I said "next", he/she had to stop reading and had to throw the ball to another classmate who had to continue with the reading (I like this activity because it makes the student pay attention to what is happening). Then I finished my participation and it was time for feedback.
The teacher showed me the paper and I just had some observations regarding to pronunciation; besides that, everything was apparently fine. My grade was acceptable; however, I know I did it very good.
In this subject, I have learned so far that not only our skills, but also our courage are being tested. I say this because in the peer observations I have made I have noticed that we prepare our classes in a nice and very creative way. Yesterday, I observed the class of "XYZ" (a teacher) and it was one of the worst classes I have observed; it was full of improvisation; also, that teacher almost always arrives late to the classroom (I confirmed that with the students). We are being evaluated rigurously by some of the teachers that never start with a warm up, that never use visual aids, that never stimulate the different macro skills and learning styles, etc.; and according to what I have learned so far (referring to didactics, pedagogy, and all that stuff), those teachers would not "survive" if I had to grade their performance according to the same criteria they use to evaluate ours. I just mention this as experience I have acquired throughout this process. At the end, this will be useful in one or another way.
I had to mention this; I could not help it. This has been my today's teaching report :-)

Whatta...????!!!!!

For this class I had to check a homework the students had. It was a reading, a long reading; the teacher told me that I had to prepare some activities to use with that reading, so I used my creativity last night and I prepared some cool activities to use. I arrived early to the classroom and I started to paste a lot of pieces of tape on the board. The students arrived and I started the class with a nice warm up; students had to make three groups and sit together; then, they had to send a representative to the front and that representative had to pick up a strip of paper with some instructions written on it (for example 5 sentences using verb+infinitive, 5 sentences using verb + gerund, etc.) they had to finish and the first group that finished had to shout stop! and the rest of the teams had to stop writing. If they had their sentences OK, they got a point; at the end there was a winner of course. That activity was for them to review the use of patterns in English. The teacher liked the warm up because all the students were involved in the activity. This group of advance 1 is very difficult; they know a lot but they are lazy; sometimes, they speak Spanish in class and that is something that annoys the teacher a lot.
After that, it was time to work with the reading. This time a prepared some very cool activities because I learned the lesson from my second class in this subject. First, I gave two paper strips to every student; those paper strips contained extracts from the reading; also, I included some distractors. The dynamic was simple but efficient. I read the paragraph and the students had to go to the front to paste on the board the paper strip they had, but they had to do so when they heard that specific part, so they had to pay strict attention  because at the end there was a penalty for the one who did not paste his/her strips. The teacher was surprised because all of them were paying attention to the reading. After that activity, it was time for them to read the same paragraph and practice their pronunciation. I gave a number to every student and number one started to read; after some sentences, I just told number two or another number and that student continued with the reading. After all of them read at least a part of the paragraph, I made them repeat those words that they had mispronounced. Once again, the teacher liked that activity. Well, I continue working with them in the post activity. They had to match some expressions with their meaning in formal English; it was easy, they had an idea so they did it fast. I finished my class by making them work in the next appendix of the handout they had.
Feedback time.
Well here comes the unbelievable part of my day. The teacher told me that she had liked the warm up because it was nice that the students were involved in the activity. Also, she told me that she really liked the activities I used for the reading; she even told me that she was going to "steal" that activity because she was surprised that the students were paying attention carefully when I was reading even though they are a big group. Some observations she did to my class were that I had made a mistake with the pronunciation of three words and that some of the students went out during the class and that affected my classroom management (they are 28 students and not even the teacher is able to manage the class, but she was expecting I did it); I said OK, that's true, they were mistakes. The thing that I consider incredible was that my grade was 7.5!!!!!! In other words, she told me "I really liked the activities you prepared for the class but your grade is 7.5". I said in my mind: "what a f... reak!!'" I still wonder why those comments about my class and why that grade. I'm totally disappointed.

Reivindication

As I mentioned in my last post, my previous class was not so good; actually, it sucked. Anyway, today I had the opportunity to do things better. The teacher told me that I had to make a review of the previous classes, so I started my lesson with a nice warm up. I had the students make three teams. I gave a set of words and they had to work as a team to order those words and form coherent sentences using the pattern verb + infinitive and verb + gerund. They had 2 minutes to write as many correct sentences as they could; then, they had to move to another desk and start working on another set of stripes; at the end, the team with more points (correct sentences) was the winner. The warm up took more than 10 minutes but the teacher liked it because the students were not only playing; they were learning something related to the previous class, also.

After that, it was time to check the homework. In the previous class the teacher had assigned them to complete two paragraphs with the correct form of the verbs. to check that homework in a different way, I gave a sheet of paper with one verb to each student (the verbs were written in the infinitive and in the gerund form); as they read the paragraph, they had to raise the papers with the correct answers. To check the second paragraph, I gave a soft ball to one of the students; he started to read, and when he got to the blank where they had to write the correct answer, he had to throw the ball to another student; that student had to tell the correct the answer and then continue with the reading. The activity was very nice because they had to read aloud and to pay attention, if not, they were in danger of receive a ball on their faces. After reading the paragraphs I made them repeat the words they had mispronounced. Later on, we worked on a practice in which they had to write the correct form of the verb in some sentences -a piece of cake for them, and for me- I feel I did it better this time. The teacher congratulated me at the end, and I improved my grade which was the best part.

Something to learn

A not so good day. Where do I start from? Well, I received the lesson plan yesterday a night. Today I had to begin the class with a new lesson plan; it was about verb patterns (verb + infinitive, verb + gerund, etc.). The warm up was a joke (literally, a joke); I had to tell a joke and then some students had to tell their own jokes. That warm up was to promote students' speaking. I decided to change that warm up because I am not good at telling jokes. Another issue I faced was that the presentation of the lesson was a reading that was in the students' book, and I do not have the students' book; anyway, I had to leave like that. Later, I had to teach the grammar notes, and if I had time, I had to start with the controlled practice.
Today I arrived early to the classroom (as always) and the previous class had not finished, so I did not have much time to prepare the classroom. Students started to arrive one by one. The teacher got there on time and I started my class.
I started with a warm up. The students formed three groups and each of them sent a representative to the front; that person had to sit down in front of his/her group and I put myself behind that person; I showed a flashcard to the rest of the group and they had to mimic what they saw; the representative at the front had to guess the word, the object, the fruit, or the musical instrument I was showing up. each group had 2 minutes to do it and at the end there was a winner. They liked the activity because they had a lot of fun.
The bad part of my teaching was the presentation part. I made them go to their books and make some predictions about the reading based on the pictures. I tried to figure out what the reading was about because I could not get a copy of that part on time, so I was practically "blind" in that part of the lesson. After that, I made the students read the paragraph in pairs because most of them did not have the book. I was not able to plan a good activity for that reading activity and the teacher told me at the end that I had wasted that reading session. Actually, I think she was right without a doubt. I just made them read and discuss the paragraph; the good part was that they participated providing ideas, but I could have done something more to take advantage on that important resource.
Later on, I explained part of the grammar notes. That part was easy and they got the idea really fast. I explained the use of verbs followed by infinitives and verbs followed by an object and an infinitive. My time finished and my class was over.
Feedback time. Teacher Yesenia do know how to give feedback, I insist. She liked my warm up, but the presentation (the reading part) was awful.
What did I learn from this new experience? I learned that I must plan in a different way; I must be prepared in order to face any unexpected situation. Also, I learned that I have to get prepared with a variety of activities to do with readings.
I did not get an excellent grade, but I learned an excellent lesson.

A new class

Today's class was really nice; i enjoyed it a lot.
Yesterday I did not have the lesson plan, so I was kind of lost because I had not had time to get in contact with the teacher. Later on, I got her phone number and I called her; she is very nice. She sent me the lesson plan via e-mail and gave me the topics. I had to prepare some controlled and free practice for the "so", and "neither" structures. Actually, those topics were kind of difficult for me when I was taking Advanced English. Well, I had some hours to get ready; i looked for the grammar part and reviewed that "forgotten" topic. I prepared some good activities and today I performed them.
I arrived early to the classroom; some students were out of it. I prepared the room for the class so that everything was ready.
The teacher arrived to the classroom, and I started the class with a warm up in which they had to tell her names and the name of their favorite movie. It was nice because i could know their names in advance. Then, I made a review of the previous topic -"so" and "neither"-; the students made three lines and I pasted some sentence strips on the board; for example, there was a strip with "neither can I" and when I read "I can't ride a bike", they had to pick that strip up, etc. The activity was nice because they had fun and they showed that they had understood that topic in the previous class. I had worked with that group in the last term, and they have a lot of energy.
Later on, I introduced the topic about Indirect questions; I explained how indirect questions are formed and they got the idea very fast; then, I gave them some sentences or questions as a practice; they had to check the correct ones; they did that in pairs. When we all checked and compared the answers, most of them did it correctly, so I just had to help those ones who had done it wrong. It was easy, for them and for me.
To finish my class I made them role play some situations in which they had to use indirect questions. I asked for volunteers and they were willing to participate. The first situation was a man that wanted to ask for the location of the subway; the second case was a boy who wanted to declare his love to a girl; it was really funny. The class was nice; I enjoyed it. My feedback  was really nice because teacher Yesenia knows how to do it. I learned a lot!

The recorded class

Today was my last day in the practice. I had to record this class because I didn't in the previous classes. I arrived early to the classroom. The teacher was already there. I arranged the desks in a semicircle. Something I learned (by experience) in this subject is that we must be early and get things ready if we want everything to be OK. I prepared some masking tape for a chart I was going to paste. Also, I was thinking in a way of recording my class because I didn't have any person to do it for me; I just put the camera on the window and it had an incredible angle of vision to record a big part of the classroom. I started my class with a nice warm up that came to my mind last night; I made them play volleyball with a balloon; they made two teams and each team had the opportunity to throw the balloon to the other side of the "field" saying a verb in its base form. The other team had to tell that verb but in the participle form before hitting the balloon to the opposite side. Each team had the opportunity to tell ten different verbs, and then they switched turns. It was an activity that they enjoyed a lot.

After that, I started the class with a reading activity. They had to read, identify, and convert all the sentences in past perfect they found into Wh-questions. It was a simple activity, but they did it easily because they had gotten the topic in the previous class. Later on, I explained the second part of the grammar notes; it was about of modals of deduction, and when I was explaining that, I remembered the camera recording my acts and I suddenly got nervous. I started to explained the things in a different way... I corrected myself and ordered my thoughts as fast as I could and then continued with the practice I had prepared. I gave them some copies and they solve the exercise quickly. They had gotten the idea.

My time run out, but I finished with everything I had prepared. I checked the camera and it had just recorded around 30 or 35 minutes because the memory wasn't enough. Anyway, most of the class was recorded and I will see my mistakes jejejeje.

Listening and reading practice

This class was a little bit different because I had to prepare a listening practice. The teacher sent me the lesson plan where the link for the listening was, and it didn't work. I was worried because I was preparing my lesson plan at night. I googled for a listening practice and lucky me! I found the same listening I was supposed to use. The problem was that it was not a downloadable audio script, so I decided to take a laptop and some speakers to the class. The reading was easy since it was included in the lesson plan. I only had to prepare a warm up activity and a role play activity for the end of the class.
I started the class with a warm up. I decided to paste some word strips on the board; I made the students form two teams and stand in lines in front of the board. I started reading a short paragraph and they had to pick the words from the board when I mentioned them. I included some distractors, so at the end they pick them up, but they were no valid points (jejejejeje it was funny). My tutor liked the activity because it was a kind of listening practice but in a funnier way. Then I started with the real listening practice. This time I arrive very early to the classroom, so I had enough time to prepare everything. When the time for the listening practice arrived, the laptop, the speakers and the webpage were ready. I made them listen to the audio script for the first time; then I gave some questions to them and played the audio script again. The activity resulted easy to them. My tutor told me that it was OK because it was a short audio script, so it was a nice idea to play it once only. After that I gave them the reading practice, it was about passive voice, and was kind of long. They had to read the story and then they had to transform the passive sentences they found into active sentences. Some of them got confused, but we solve the task as a group; we didn't finish, so it converted into a homework. For the last practice I prepared a part of a dialogue; I pasted it on the board; then the students had to work in pairs and had to invent an ending for the dialogue. The activity was nice but at the end they all didn't had the opportunity to pass to the front and perform it. Two or three pairs passed to the front and they did it very well.
My feedback session was nice this time. The teacher did it the way it is.

Grammar notes

In this opportunity i taught the grammar part of the lesson plan. The topic was Passive voice, and I have to admit that I was worried about it because I had never taught that before. The lesson plan the teacher gave me was horrible. The teacher had made a lot of corrections on it, so he suggested me to present a different warm up, a different presentation, and a part of the grammar notes. Yesterday at night I prepared my own lesson plan. I found a cool activity as a transition between the warm up and the grammar part.
Today, I started my class with a nice warm up; students made two groups and two lines in front of the board; I called out a verb in its base form and they had to write it down in its participle form, so it was a nice activity to review the past participle form of the verbs. After that, I threw the keys on the floor and asked the students to write a sentence about what they had just seen. As I expected almost all of them wrote: "The teacher threw the keys on the floor"; then I asked them to write a sentence about the same action, but this time they had to start with "The keys...". Surprisingly almost all of them wrote: "The keys were thrown on the floor by the teacher". They did it using intuition because they had never studied passive voice. The teacher liked that way of introducing the topic. After that I felt free to teach the grammar notes. The students got the idea very fast; I gave them some practice and almost all of them were able to transform active sentences into passive ones.
I feel that I made almost everything OK, but... (here comes the "but part") the teacher told me that the passive form of "I will be the drinks" is not OK because it is not used frequently in spoken English. My face was with an expression of "Whatta f..." I was teaching grammar, not "useful expressions used in English". Grammatically the sentence "The drinks will be brought by me" is OK and it emphasizes the action that will be performed, but according to the teacher I shouldn't have taught that.
Whatever... I've got a 8.5 as a grade which sucks because I think this was the better class I have taught in this subject. Even the students liked it and I got a 100% of classroom management. Anyway...

Third Period

My first teaching experience on this period was interesting. I planned my lesson the day before. I had to work with the students in some exercises in the book, but I added my personal touch. I started with a warm up the teacher liked a lot. Students worked in groups and had to write a list of some things (5 names for pets, 7 famous movies, etc.). My teacher liked this warm up because all the students were engaged on it. Also, I had to review some time expressions, so I made a chart with a calendar on it. Students had to circle the dates I told to them, for example they had to circle the day after tomorrow, cross out a week from now, etc. It was a nice activity because they had to follow instructions according to what they had seen in previous classes. After that, they compete in groups and wrote on the board the holidays I mentioned; they had to write correctly the dates. It was a nice way to practice the writing of specific dates, students liked that activity.
This practice was different because in this class it is difficult for them to pay attention, sometimes they have to work on specific tasks, but they do other things. That's something that hindered my practice and took some points out from my final grade.
As a feedback, the teacher suggested me to make the students work on the specific tasks I assign to them. Classroom management was my problem this time. I hope to make things better in the second practice session.

NGP - See it in action

Technology of the future.

How far will we get?

 You think everything is going to be awesome? Take a look to this video:

 

Free Practice

Today's class was my opportunity to correct the mistakes I made the last time. I went early to the classroom and I arranged the desks in four groups because the warm up I had prepared was for working in groups. I started the class with the warm up. The students work in groups of seven ( the class is too large, that is 28 students); they had to re-arrange some strips in order to form coherent sentences using the simple past tense; they had 2 minutes to do so, and after those two minutes they had to change places with the next group in order to work on their strips. At the end, the group with more correct sentences was the winner. My tutor liked this warm up, but the only thing was that it took more than 10 minutes. I consider that there shouldn't be such a strict rule for warm ups; I consider that if students are learning and enjoying a warm up, the activity may continue without falling into the comission of a "sin". Well, maybe I'm mistaken, but that's what I think. After the warm up I continued with the free practice; students worked in the same groups, they had to write a short composition about Charly (an imaginary guy) describing the activities he did last week. They started to write, but the interesting thing of this activity was that they had to pass to the front to read the compostion and also to mimic the actions they wrote. It was funny because they wrote some funny, embarrasing, and strange things that happened to Charly, so they had to mimic everything. To finish my class, I made them work in pairs. They wrote 10 statements about what they did last week (5 were true and 5 were false) and their classmate had to guess which ones were true and wich ones were false. They liked the activity and they use the target structure to perform it. This was my today's experience. I enjoyed it.

A disaster

Today was not a good day in my practice. Where can I start from? Well, I prepare a good warm up and an excellent presentation; grammar? it was so so. 

I arrived early to the classroom and prepared some material I was going to use in the class. This time, I arranged the desks in a semi circle. I started with the warm up. Students made three lines and I explained the activity. They had to "write" a verb on the back of their classmates, and the person at the front of the line had to write the verb on the board in order to get a point for his/her team. To tell the truth, the activity sucked. Some of the students made a lot of noise and were tricky.

The presentation was the only thing that was nice. I use a reading that was in the student's book. I read the text the first time; the second time the students read along with me and after that I made two teams and asked for 4 representatives from each group. I pasted some strips on the board; such strips had verbs in the simple past tense that appeared in the text. I read the text again and the representatives from the groups had to pick up the words from the board. My tutor liked this activity a lot because it is a good way to have a reading practice.

The worst part of this session of practice was the grammar part. I started teaching about the simple past tense, but my ideas got mixed in my head and I taught (well I tried to teach) a lot of things at the same time; I started with the past form of the regular verbs, continued with the past form of the verb Be, and finished talking about voiced and voiceless sounds at the end of the verbs. It was a disaster! I continue stating that I do like teaching grammar, but this time I don't know what happened. I think I got nervous because of a strange and unknown reason that I am still wondering how could be possible. I guess I don't even have an eight as a grade; maybe I got a seven, a sad seven.

Conclusion... I do have to do it better next time because this time I sucked. That's what I learned.

The second chance

I had my second chance today. Early in the morning, I prepared my class. The topic was "Adjectives of Frequency". The lesson plan was well elaborated; I liked the activities it proposed. I looked for a different warm up and I performed one in which students have to make two teams; they send a representative to the front and mimic the content of the flashcard I show to them so that the representative guesses. The group liked that activity; well, they always like to have "mini competitions" in the class. For the presentation, I had the students  read two shorts paragraphs in the student's book and then answer the questions about those paragraphs. At the end, that activity was not so good because the teacher told me that I could have improved it by adding more to it. I could have read the paragraphs along with the students or I could have made something more creative. I learn a good lesson. After that, I taught the grammar related to the use of adverbs of frequency. I like grammar, so that was a piece of cake; that group learns really fast. They learned the rules quickly. For practice, I made them convert some sentences into their own information by using adverbs of frequency. The activity was nice and I finished my turn on time. After my class, the teacher gave me feedback and I learned a couple of things that I hope to improve for the next class. First, I learned that any activity or game has to be as more well explained as possible, and I need to include a clear example so that students do not get confused. Second, simple readings can be funny if I use my creativity and add extra things that will become them more interesting.
I consider that today I got a very nice experience because I could receive more tips to improve my teaching. 

Ways to use weblogs in education.

Technology is part of our lives. We use a lot of different tools that help us to improve our abilities. The use of technology in education is an excellent way for teachers to keep themselves up to date. 

Blogging has a lot of advantages, and the uses of this online tool are awesome. 

You might like to create a reflective, journal type blog to:

• reflect on your teaching experiences.  

• describe what worked for you in the classroom or what didn’t work. 

• write about something you learned from another teacher.

• share ideas for teaching activities or language games to use in the classroom. 

• explore important teaching and learning issues.

 What can I post in my blog??

• post class-related information such as calendars, events, homework assignments and other pertinent class information.
• post assignments based on literature readings and have students respond on their own weblogs, creating a kind of portfolio of their work.
• communicate with parents if you are teaching elementary school students.
• post prompts for writing.
• provide examples of classwork, vocabulary activities, or grammar games.
• provide online readings for your students to read and react to.
• gather and organize Internet resources for a specific course, providing links to appropriate sites and annotating the links as to what is relevant about them.
• post photos and comment on class activities.
• invite student comments or postings on issues in order to give them a writing voice.
• publish examples of good student writing done in class.
• show case student art, poetry, and creative stories.

 

You can encourage your students to blog:

• their reactions to thought-provoking questions.
• their reactions to photos you post.
• journal entries.
• results of surveys they carry out as part of a class unit.
• their ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class.
   

I'm back!

Today  I started the second period practicum. Honestly I felt kind of nervous. I received the lesson plan on time, so I read it. First, I  have to mention that the activities in that lesson plan are nice. I prepared some material and I got ready to teach. The class started at 11:00 am. I arrived early (as always jejejeje). Some students were very early in the classroom waiting for the class to start. My tutor teacher arrived there and I started my class. The group is kind of large; they are around 28 students. I was afraid because it is difficult to work with large groups. I started my class with the warm up proposed in the lesson plan,. I was glad since the students were eager to participate; they liked the activity. My nervousness started to dwindle; I felt more comfortable in the classroom. I taught the grammar part and I got surprised because all of them understood quickly; it seemed as if they had a background knowledge about what I was teaching. We practice a little bit the use of the simple present tense to talk about daily routines; they participated a lot. I like this new group I have at this moment. I consider that I will have good times with them. I hope so.

My last class

This was my last day of class in Technical English and I really liked it; everything went OK, and the class ended almost perfect. The day before, the teacher told me that I had to prepare activities to practice the modal verb "can". I had few hours to do that, but I started to plan and I could prepare some cool activities. I started my class with a review of the things they had seen with the teacher in the previous class. I did that because most of the students were not in the classroom on time. When all of them enter the classroom, I started the class with the warm up I had prepared. We made a circle and we started practicing the verb "can" with some actions. The activity resulted funny and entertaining for them. They and the teacher liked it. After that, they worked in pairs and made a list of some things they can do. I asked them to write about things that only they are able to do; a student wrote that she could imitate some funny voices and she did it; it was hilarious. They liked this activity because they noticed that they are able to do different and unique things; they explored their talents and practiced the structure the teacher had taught. At the end, the teacher congratulate me and I felt satisfied with what I had done.

The second class

My second class was kind of different because I felt more comfortable. I started the class with a Warm Up and things were not so good because they started to make a lot of noise and I was not able to control that. After that activity things were OK; the students participated and were willing to do the activities I had prepared for them. I help the teacher with the practice and she liked the activities I had prepared for the class. I liked that class because I felt better with the students; they had problems with that topic and I was able to help. I consider these classes as a great opportunity to learn about our capacity and talents.

My first Day

Today was my first day of practice; honestly, I felt nervous. A class of 20 female students of Liceniatura en Parvularia and a subject that is practically new for me. I started my class with a Warm Up; the students participated and helped me to deliver the class normally. I had prepared some group activities and they performed them as I desired. At the end, the teacher was satisfied because, according to her, the class behaved better with me than they did with previous practitioners last year (I am not boasting, that´s what the teacher told me).

As a conclusion, I can say that I feet satisfied with what I did today. I was nervous that´s true, but at the end it was a great experience. My tutor is a nice teacher and I am eager to see what the next experience has prepared for me.