Group 2 - ( Lesson 6)

 

After a hard week planning our lesson, preparing good materials, and looking for interesting and funny activities here we are again, teaching our second lesson for Teaching Practicum I. As you remember, we are group number 2 and  my team is compunded by Nancy Membreño, Yaneth Argueta, Gloria González , Jacqueline Martinez and me, Brenda Ayala.

First of all, planning a lesson sometimes may result stressful for language teachers. However, my teammates and I really enjoyed planning them. We got together in order to expose our ideas about the objective for our lesson, the activities and games we could use in the class, and to help us to each other to prepare and  the materials. At the moment to think about materials and activities many ideas came to our minds. Even though, we had not had previous experience working with children, we tried to be very creative in order children feel encouraged while the lesson is being taught.

This time, we tried to improve some little details that were skept in the previous class. As well, in this lesson, we made use of many and different materials. For example, for the opening/closing song we gave a puppet to our students in order to increase their interest from the beginning of the lesson. Besides, we integrated different materials which were catchy for students.

In the Warm-up stage teacher Nancy used a basketball hoop and students had to throw the ball. If the ball did not enter in the hoop, a question was asked to the students to review the previous class. I could notice our students really enjoyed this activity and enthusiasm was noticeable.

In the Pre- listening stage, teacher Yaneth used a flipchart and flashcards to explain the topic which was  Household objects , prepositions and possessive adjectives. The flipchart resulted interesting and catchy to children’s sight. Students were focused on what teacher Yaneth explained. I think she has a great attitude when she works with children.

 

 

Moreover, the During-listening stage was divided in two different activities. The first activity was delivered by teacher Gloria. In this lesson a new resource was included, a CD-player. She gave students some flashcards and they had to listen and showed the correct image according to the sentences students listened from the audio. The second activity was developed by teacher Nancy. She has pasted some colorful charts on the board with a possessive adjective and an object studied in this lesson. Each students throw a “Crazy dice” and according to the number they got a chart was assigned. Then students had to said a sentence with the information from the chart. At this point I noticed students had already encounter the structure and vocabulary. As well, the activity resulted funny for children. They seem excited with the activity.

 

After the During-listening stage, came the Post-listening stage which was delivered by myself. To be honest, I really like working with children. They are very enthusiastic, intelligent, and they are always excited about each of the activities performed because of the interest and energy they have. To develop this activity, I asked them to sit on the floor by forming a circle. I explained the instructions to them. I could notice them interested in the activity by the time they saw the materials I had prepared for them (flashcards and  a bedroom model).

 

They were more excited when I turned a “Magic hand” on the floor to choose the students who had to pass at the front. They had to put the object (flashcard) according to the prepositions I told them. Then I asked a question to the student in front, and one more question to the rest of the students. Personally, I really liked to develop this activity because as teacher I could interact with my students, and at the same time they demonstrated what they had learned in this class. Another activity children really enjoyed in this lesson was in the Wrap-up stage which was developed by teacher Jacqueline. She had marked with small cones the space that children had available for the “Mica” activity. Students had to touch a classmate in order to ask him/her a question to assess what they had learned during the whole lesson.

 

In general, my teammates and I felt really comfortable and satisficed because of the work we did. In my opinion, there was a remarkable difference between the first class and this one. We improved many things. For instance, the materials we used were interesting for students, the activities were funny and meaningful, and the most important point is that students learned new things about the language.

In the feedback session, we receive good a positive comments by our classmates and teacher. As well, some classmates gave us some suggestions we need to take into account in order to improve for future classes. It is clear we did a great progress; however, my teammates and I will be working  in some small details that we did not notice when we taught the lesson.

 

"Teachers who love teaching... teach children to love learning"