Second period!!!

Every beginning is kind of hard. Today, I felt so nervous that I even felt sick. I don’t know what happened to me; I think I was worried because the topic I had to teach was a little bit confusing for me, and also because I had never taught on an Advanced English class. There was no lesson since the person in charge did not send it on time, so my tutor told me to look for activities to introduce the new topic (reported speech) that’s why yesterday, I had a hard time preparing today’s class. I wanted to link all the activities with the target structure so I look for some good ones on the internet; however, I did not find what I wanted. Then, I just tried to adapt some activities I had.

Well, even though I did not feel so comfortable with the topic, I arrived very early to the classroom so everything could be ready before students and my tutor arrived.

I began with a very common warm-up (the whisper game) which was perfect to introduce “reported speech”. Students made a semicircle, and I whisper a funny message (“yesterday, I saw a green monkey and a blue cat dancing on the moon) to the first student on one of the sides who had to pass the same message to the next student up to the last one. The last person had to write the message on the board so everybody could read it and checked if their classmates had told them the same. Then, I paste the original message on the board and everybody was laughing about it since they were pretty different, and the original message was so funny. My tutor told me she really liked that warm-up since it was very appropriate for the topic.

Then I continued with the presentation phase for which I used a nice reading that contained many sentences on the target structure. I split the passage into five parts. I asked students to work in pairs and I gave them a set of paragraphs to each pair. Before they checked it, I wrote the topic on the board (“the worst unsuccessful rescue”), and I ask students to make predictions about it so they had the opportunity to give their opinions and to put into practice their speaking skills. After that, they had to order the paragraphs chronologically. Then, I read the passage for them to check the correct order. Everybody did it well. In addition, they had to underline the sentences in which someone was reporting what others had said.

The grammar phase was not so difficult to explain as I thought it would be. I used some adjective flashcards in which a person was showing different expressions, and I made a bubble for each flashcard with a quotation inside (direct speech). I explained the rules using the flashcards as examples, and students perfectly gave me the reported speech for each example. My time was up, and my tutor continued with the rest of the class.

My feedback was great. I have always said I love the way teacher Yesenia gives the feedback. It is not because she tells me good things, but also because she makes me notice my mistakes in a very kind way.