SECOND MISSION IS OVER...

I cannot believe I already finished this teaching period. I feel satisfy with my work. I proved to myself nothing is impossible. At the beginning I thought this was going to be a very hard time, but it was not so hard; however, it was kind of demanding, but I think that helped me to improve a lot my teaching performance.
Today I went to the intermediate class by the last time. I arrived kind of late because there is a class before mine in the same room, and they always leave a little bit late. I get worried when I entered the classroom because some students were already there, and I had to change the position of the desks, paste the objective, write the date, etc (I had many things to do) I asked a student to help me with the desks, and without noticing all of them were helping me with all I had to do (that was great since I finished faster). It was already time and the teacher had not arrived so I had to wait for him around five minutes more. Finally he arrived and I began the class.

Well, it was my last class so I thanked my students for being so kind and for had participated with good attitude in all my classes. They said: "No teacher continue coming, your classes are funnier than the teacher's" I felt great with that expression since that meant they enjoyed my classes.
Then, I continued with the warm up which was a mimic game. I needed my students to work in teams for that activity so I did something different to group them. I brought to the class some candies (two different kinds) I gave them the chance to choose one candy and them they had to make teams according to the color of the candy. In that way they could work with different people since at the beginning I did not say the purpose of the candy, they might thought it was just a nice act of politeness.

After the game I had to check some homework about a reading passage on the book. I tried to improve the activity so I brought some pieces of paper with words from the passage which I pasted on the board. I asked my students to continue working with the same teams they worked with at the beginning. They had to choose two representatives who had to pick up the pieces of paper as I read the passage. They got very excited with this activity. Then, we continued identifying "used to" and "would" sentences on the passage. I pasted on the board all the sentences that they found which I had already identified and wrote on pieces of paper. I explained the grammar part giving examples from my childhood and adolescence so they could easily understand. Finally, I gave them some pictures from my childhood for them to continue working on teams. They had to create sentences based on the pictures by using "used to" and "would". They got really entertained looking at my pictures and they created very nice examples using the target structure. That was my last activity since time was over. At the end I said thanks again and they gave me a huge clap.
The last feedback was not so bad. I had some pronunciation mistakes, and also the teacher suggested me that I should have asked some of the students to read the passage since I did not do it. In addition, he told me I had made a great job.

I hope my last grade could be better... Thanks for reading my blog guys...
I think that’s all for this period.

It is nice to see the way you improve as the time is passing.

At the beginning I felt kind of worried because my first grade and feedback were not so satisfying for me, but now in my third class everything seems to have changed. I have noticed how much I have learnt from my tutor's feedback, my grades have improved, and that makes me feel good since that means I am also improving.

Today, I arrived to the classroom early and I arranged everything I was going to use to develop my class. I started with the warm up, the one that was on the lesson. We made a circle, I threw a ball to a student and mentioned a category (food, animals, countries, etc) I explained that the student I threw the ball had to mention six words belonging to the category I chose; said student had to pass the ball to his/her classmates and start mentioning the words, but they had to pass it very fast so it could be difficult for the students to say the words.

After that I continued with the presentation. I had to give copies of a picture to the students, but to avoid a waste of money; yesterday, I asked Sonita to help me with the drawing. In that way I did not spend too much money. I pasted the chart with the draw, and I started with some questions. The draw was about a man on the supermarket with some groceries on his cart. I asked them what things the person had on the cart, what other things they thought he was going to buy, how much money they thought the man was going to spent, also if they like to go to the supermarket, etc.  They got interesting very fast because of the topic.

After that I had to present a reading related with the previous activity with the drawing, but I was bored of that simple "listen to me, and then repeat" phrase, so I prepared something different. I wrote the passage on bond paper, big enough for them to read it. I split the whole passage into small pieces which I gave to students. I asked them to paste the stripes on the board as they listen to the reading. In that way they were paying attention so they could identify a part of the reading. Then, I had the whole passage pasted on the board so I could read it for them to listen to the pronunciation. I asked for new vocabulary, but there were not new words for them and that was great because I did not have to spend time on it. The strips were in two different colors in a mixed way. I asked boys to read the green parts and girls to read the blue ones, and then, they did the opposite. Then I gave some collages of groceries for them to look for expensive and cheap products. We also talked about how expensive everything is in our country nowadays. After that I still had some minutes so I started to introduce the grammar part (countable and uncountable nouns) using the passage.  I also used some flashcards to check if they could differentiate countable from uncountable nouns which they did very good.

As always, I waited for my feedback until the end of the class. This time, it was better. I felt happy when I saw the page with only three lines written. I have had problems with the use of indirect questions while I am speaking, but today I had just one mistake. That's great because I can see I am improving. The only observation my tutor made this time was that I spent almost 15 minutes in the warm up, but he told me the rest of the class was nice.

Great! I feel very proud of myself.

Improving...!

Today in the morning I taught by the second time in this period. 

I think this time I did it better than the last one. I did not feel nervous. I felt as if I have been their teacher since long time ago.

I arrived early so I could prepare the enviroment for the classroom, and also to interact with the students before the class started.

As it is normal, I began with a warm up which in this case had nothing to do with the topic. It was just to review vocabulary and to make them get interested in the class.  Stundents made two teams, and they chose a representative who had to choose a piece of paper with some requests on it (five names of pets, six famous movies, etc). The representatives had to show the papers to their teams so they write down what the paper asked for. When a team finished, they shouted "stop" and the other team had to stop writing. They got very excited with the activity. One of the writing categories was "six famous movies" so after the warm up I continued talking about that topic. I asked which their favorite movies were, the kinds of movies they like, etc. That was an interseting topic so everyone wanted to share their likes about movies. I knew movies had nothing to do with the topic, but my purpose was another. 

I had to work with the free practice this time, and the activity I had to cover was a role play. I did not want a simple role play activity so I planned to make a kind of simulation. I asked my students to imagine they were actors and that I was an important director looking for creative people who I could incorporate to my new movie. They were supposed to be in a casting showing a piece of movie they had created. They even chose a title for their movies. I carried that thing directors used to say "action" (I do not know its name) I gave time for them to write the conversation and also to practice it. At the end every pair went to the font to perform their "movies". Everybody was enjoying what their classmates were doing. Some of them were good at acting even when they did not have enough time to get ready. I really liked this activity.

This time, I had less mistakes so I hope my grade improves.

A new challenge...

Today I began the new challenge, a difficult one. For those who are enjoying this period congratulations. I hope you do not face the same luck I had this period. I am not telling that I am not enjoying the new challenge, but this one is very hard and not because of the level but because my new tutor is kind of demanding. This time I don't think my grades are going to be so good, and now I can understand Sonita.

But I am still thinking this could be a great oportunity for me to know how capable I am to face adversities. My grades may not be so good but I am sure that there are going to be many things to learn from this experience.

Today, I felt very sick, but anyway I had to teach so I arrived one hour earlier to the classroom.  I wanted to prepared everything, but it was kind of impossible because there was another class before mine on that classroom. I  had just 15 minutes to arrange the desks and all the stuff I was going to use for my class. Students started to arrived and I was still pasting the material. Then, the teacher arrived and some minutes later I begam. 

I used a warm up to review the grammar explanation the teacher had gave them previously. I notice everybody liked it since evrybory was laughing, even the teacher (and I thought: "Great! the teacher liked my activity, one point on my favor". Then I continued reviewing the topic, but the teacher told me that I should not make  too much  emphasis on the explanation because then students may get confused. After that, I carried out a chart with the practice. We started resolving the exercise together, and then I ask them to copy it on their notebooks. The teacher told me that I should have done it differently. He told that it could have been better to make them write the exercises first in thei notebooks, and then we could resolve it together. I think both ways are ok, but anyway he is the boss right now, so I can only say  "AMEN"

This time I was not nervous. I was worried because I got the lesson yesterday night and I had some doubts. Fortunatelly, the teacher arrived some minutes before the class so I could ask. 
I hope next time will be better... 

Using Blogs to Integrate Technology in the Classroom

 

What is a blog?
A blog (sometimes referred to as a weblog) is a Web publishing tool that allows authors to quickly and easily self-publish text, artwork, links to other blogs or Web sites, and a whole array of other content.

In a blog you can also write your everyday life or any nice thought you may want to share with your friends or classmates.

Blogs have one standard characteristic, however: the posting. Blog postings are text entries, similar to a diary or journal, which include a posting date and may include comments by people other than the author, photos, links, or other digital media. Postings are often short and frequently updated. They appear in reverse chronological order and can include archived entries.

Blogs work well for students because they can be worked on at virtually any time, in any place with an Internet-enabled computer. Hence, they can be used by computer savvy teachers to create a classroom that extends beyond the boundaries of the school yard. 

Blogs are very useful to make students interact with their classmates in a different way. They can comment on their classmates' posts and in that way they are practicing and improving their writing skills.

User-Friendly Technology
Fortunately for teachers, blogs are surprisingly easy to use. They require minimum technical knowledge and are quickly and easily created and maintained. Unlike many traditional Web sites, they are flexible in design and can be changed relatively easily. Best of all, students will find them convenient and accessible via home or library computers.

Educational Benefits of Blogs
In addition to providing teachers with an excellent tool for communicating with students, there are numerous educational benefits of blogs. Blogs are:

• Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms. Using blogs is an innovated techniques to make those shy students to write what they think about any topic without worrying of sharing their ideas in front of others..
• Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.
• Effective forums for collaboration and discussion. Students may find excellent solutions for different problems through others pieces of advise.
• Powerful tools to enable scaffolded learning or mentoring to occur.

Using the Blog in the Classroom
As an educational tool, blogs may be integrated in a multi-faceted manner to accommodate all learners. Blogs can serve at least four basic functions.  

1. Classroom Management 
2. Collaboration 
3. Discussions
4. Student Portfolios

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/47