Last teaching on basic... The farewell

Hello dear bloggers! First of all, let me congratulate you because you have also finished your practices. I think we all have done our best. I’m proud and glad of being with a group like you (Teaching practicum I).

Well, getting in matter, in this last practice of the last period, I had to make a review on the use of There is/ there are, and also the use of some, and any. To start, I developed a warm up activity called “hangman”, which everybody knows what it consists on. I took into account the previous topic, which was furniture, to develop this warm up. After developing this, I began to ask my students what they remembered about the last week and the themes they had been seeing. Some of them said “there is/ there are”, and at that time I pasted the same chart I had used in my second practice, so that they remembered even more. (This is the chart I used)

Later on, I asked my students when was that we used those words, and at the same time, I asked for some examples. They gave me many examples; nevertheless, I only used 3. With those same examples, I invited them to form the negative and interrogative form. I saw they had no problem, and since it was a review I did not provide a huge explanation, but I made emphasis on the usage of each of them. The following point to be developed was a review of “some and any”. For this, I made use of the same dynamic of asking my students when was that we used “some” or “any” (I asked this, because, again, it was a review so they already knew). I pasted a little chart with very concise information so that they could remember well (this is the chart)

They provided me some examples, and, in this part, I wrote on the board my own example with a mistake to see if they noticed it. I realized some of them did and some others hesitated about it. I had spent like 20 minutes of my class by that time. Afterwards, I “passed the ball” to my students so that they could practice. For the practice of there is/ there are, I pasted on the board the image of the house I had used in the previous class, and ask the class to elaborate 4 sentences using  “there is” and 4 using “there are”. This is the image.

 After having done that, I asked them to pass the sentences to the negative and to the interrogative form. I monitored the class all the time. As they had developed a written activity I varied in the next one, being this a speaking activity. For this, I gave some copies to my students with some questions, so that they used the target structure.

 I asked these questions
1.   how many rooms are there in your house?

2.       Is there a TV in the dining room?

3.       Is there an LCD screen in the living room?

4.       How many chairs are there in your house?

5.       Is there a second floor in your house?

6.       Is there garage in your house?

7.       How many bathrooms are there in your house?

The activity was a success, and I was very satisfied with what I had done. All the things worked the way I had planned them. I had some other activities that I could not developed because of the time, and also the SS had to present homework later. So, to finish my class, I just thanked them and talked about the good characteristics that they have as a group. I left the class clapped.

Special thanks guys to all you who were following my blog and were commenting it during these 6 months. Your comments are highly appreciated. Thanks for everything, and, again, congratulations for you too. Undoubtedly, you all are great teachers, and I wish you the best as always. Blessings!!

Grammar is not always boring!

Hello everyone! Hope everything’s good. It was on Monday 6^th that I taught my second class in Basic English. Let me tell you that before performing, I felt excited because I had put a lot of effort in this class. The content to be taught was there is/ there are, and also prepositions of place. Though the class I developed was just about grammar, I did my best to make it simple, nice and varied. I did not do it in a traditional way.

To start the session, because it was Monday I started with a warm up called “rabbit, arrow, wall” in which the teacher asks students to stand up and make two lines in front of the board; in this opportunity, each team had to choose the character they wanted to be; they could either be a rabbit or arrow or wall. All the team members had to be the same character. Both teams were given 10 seconds to decide what they wanted to be. After 10 seconds both team faced each other and do the respective action. Students really got animated. I really enjoyed the activity. Everybody got fun. I prized the winner group again. To get in matter with the topic, I asked the class a couple of questions so that they got familiarized with a reading called “The house of the future” which was like an introduction to the topic. Here it is the image.

 I proceeded to read the image and made emphasis on the words “there is/there are”. I underlined them and extracted some others examples from the same text. After giving some examples, I continued explaining the negative, and the interrogative form. I could see that students did not have any problems understanding this. I kept on giving even more examples using realia. After giving examples with realia, I projected an image of a house. (This house specifically) 

This image helped me a lot to keep on providing even more examples. Examples such as : There is a tv in the living room. (Affirmative form)

There isn’t a tv in the bathroom. (Negative form)

Is there a tv in the living room? (Interrogative form)

I gave and asked many questions like these above mentioned; thus, the whole class was involved in the explanation (They are clever).

In order to introduce prepositions, I did it along with there is/ there are. I said that if we say that there is something, we have to say where that something is located. “There is a marker” Where? I said and put the marker “on” a desk, so they said “the marker is on the desk”; then, I put it under the desk, and then in my pocket so that they follow the same pattern; I did this just to prepare them to see the preposition. Afterwards, I showed an image containing the majority of prepositions.

I used this image.

 To explain each of them, I used realia again; Even, I put myself as example for prepositions like “in front of”, “next to”, “behind”, and also I put some students, if it was the case, to make the examples even clearer. I noticed the students got the meaning and use of the preposition quickly and with no problem. This made feel satisfied and happy. To make even clearer the use of prepositions, I did use ,again, of the image of the house (the one which is above) to checked if students had gotten what I said; I put an emoticon called “Tiburcio” on that image in different places; then, I located Tiburcio above the roof and asked my class “Where is Tiburcio?” Tiburcio is on the roof, they said. Is Tiburcio on the floor? (With Tiburcio still being on the roof) No, he’s not. He’s on the roof. I did that using all the prepositions as the image allowed me to do it. To close, I showed a video in which all of the prepositions were depicted; I could see the students really enjoyed it. Here I leave the video in case you want to see it. 

In this way, I consider that though it was a grammar explanation class, it allowed me to do develop it in an interactive and creative way. It took me a lot of time to prepare this, but now I can say it was worthy. I am really happy with what I did.

First teaching practicum of the 3rd period- Basic level

Hello bloggers! Thanks for reading my blog. In my first experience with this group (basic level), I taught a little bit about adjectives of feelings and the other part about the past tense which was my main aim. In the observation I had done, I could notice the group was pretty active and participative, so I did not have any problems with their participation and collaboration. As it was the first class, I started it by introducing myself and, again, I also made clear 3 important points for a class to be developed with no difficulty. I briefly talked about discipline, respect, and participation. I tried to give confidence to my students so that they felt comfortable with me. 

To get in matter, I began the session by asking my students how they were feeling by that moment (as the first part of the class was about adjectives of feelings) and then, I developed  a warm up activity called “barnyard” in which each person is given the name of an animal with approximately three-five people having the same animal. I spread the group across the room and no one was allowed to tell which animal he or she was. At my signal, each person had to make the noise of the animal that he or she had been given. The first group that found all of their animals and sit down were the winners. I rewarded the winner group by giving them some candies.

Having done this activity, I, again, asked them how they felt when making the noise of the animals they had. Some of them said they felt nervous, some of them embarrassed; some others were happy, and so on. When telling me their answers, I pasted different emoticons which showed those emotions (here’s a picture of that moment so that you get a better idea).

Keeping on with that part, I asked my students how they usually felt when being in different situations as for example, when someone passes away. I asked them how they felt when they watched Real Madrid and Barcelona lost in the champions’ league, so that I could get their emotions; in fact, some of them said they were disappointed; some others were sad, angry and so forth. Afterwards, I asked them to take their books out since I worked with a speaking activity. It was pair work.

After finishing that activity, I asked my students some questions. I asked them what kind of music they liked; who their favorite singer was, and if they liked Michael Jackson (MJ) music. After listening to different opinions, I gave some copies with a reading containing general data about MJ. The purpose here was that they identified the verbs in past tense. Then, I read along with them and they told me the verbs they had found. I wrote them on the board, and also I wrote some words which were mispronounced. The next step of the activity was for them to respond some questions with the information of the reading.

They had to use the target structure. I must say that I did not explained any grammar point; however they got the message as the teacher told me when giving me feedback. At last, I checked the answers and some other aspects, and I could see they had done everything and that they had not had any problem. It was in that way that I finished my first class. It was nice. It was a communicative class. They are pretty active and we as teacher must turn that energy into our own favor.