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.

Last teaching practicum in Intermediate level II

It was on Wednesday the day I taught my last class in intermediate English II. This time, I had to explain the use of the quantifiers since the topic was countable and uncountable nouns; it was the grammar part. For us, this might seem something which we get effortless; however, being at that level the situation changes. More than explaining, I tried to exemplify each quantifier. I had words such as much, many, a few/ few; little/ a little; several, plenty of etc. To start the class, I asked the students to tell me general information about countable and uncountable nouns to see how much they knew about it. After that, I invited them (the students) to tell me some count and some noncount nouns they knew; I took like 5 minutes to do this. It was the warm up. 

To get more in depth, I asked my students to take out some material that my tutor had already provided. I must say that I changed and personalized a little bit the lesson. I start explaining the material and, to some extent, it was pretty hard because some students did not get what I was saying. The topic was sort of tough for them because for some quantifiers such as a few/ few and little/ a little, what changes is the meaning and not the structure. So, explaining that the difference is in the connotation/ meaning we give to the sentence was hard as I saw some students that could not really understand it, and, for sure, there were some others that understood the point quickly. Though the material was digestible for them, I tried to make it even clearer adding some other examples. What I also saw was that some of my students were not paying attention and, when giving me feedback, I commented that situation to the teacher and he told me that In that case students have to be aware that there are moments in which they must be there in class and know that they are responsible for their own learning. I had never called the attention to my students, but this time I had to do it. Moving on with the explanation, I also want to say that 50 minutes were not enough to explain a topic like that. Probably, if I had had more time, I would have felt more satisfied; anyways, I think I did a good job in general terms. I organized the content in my own way and I could see students liked that because the way it was established was a little bit complicated for them. I show a chart in which every word was sorted according to the usage. Sometimes it is necessary the fact of making the content the easiest possible to the students; remember that we have to think the way they think. Here I leave you a chart that I used to explain the topic. 

My second experience with the group of intermediate II was nice. Though the weather was very hot, students collaborated with all the activities I developed. Thank God, I did not have to explain any grammar point. If I mention this, it’s because the weather would have not been in my favor to do it; it would have been a difficult session in that sense. However; the class was just about practicing the future forms “will” and “going to”.

To start the class, I greeted the group and asked some questions about the future forms they had been recently seeing. I used those questions as a warm up. I took around 4 or 5 minutes to do it. Afterwards, I put the students to work in pairs; it was a speaking activity. Every 2 or 3 minutes I provided a question so that they could discuss with their partner. The development of this activity took around 15 minutes. I monitored what they were doing all the time, and, at the same time, I got involved with them by interacting with one another. I really like to monitor in that way as you become, to some extent, part of the group of students and the role of being the teacher is not so remarked in the classroom. You take a more passive role so the class becomes student-center. Here's a video of me monitoring and interacting with my students.

As the period of vacation is about to begin, the next activity was a single question. I asked them if they were going to do anything special for these holidays. This was done working in groups; I provided some ideas of what they would probably do. I spent over 10 minutes for these as some of my students share their thoughts and opinions with everybody.

 The next point in the agenda, and the last one, was some role plays. I divided the class in 4 groups and a representative of each group passed to pick up a piece of paper which contained the topic they were meant to develop in the role play. This activity took around 25 minutes as I gave 10 to prepare the conversation and 15 for the groups to pass to the front and perform their work. Some of the topics were planning the next vacation trip, planning a trip to another country, planning a birthday party, among others. All of them using the future forms. While developing their role plays, I took some notes in regards with the mistakes they had committed. At the end, I wrote them on the board and it was in this way that I finished my second class with this group. I think students did not get bored as they all were involved and participating all the time as well as me. Here’s a video of my students developing this activity (the role plays). Sorry for the audio.  

Intermediate English II (First practice)

This time I’m teaching intermediate English II, and I can say that I really like this group. They are pretty active and that makes the teaching-learning process easier, at least for me. In this opportunity, I taught phrasal verbs which is quite a bit challenging for everybody (under my view point). When I was about to begin the class, I found out that a part of what I was supposed to teach was already done; nevertheless, I had an extra activity which anyways I did not use it at the end due to the time.

 To start the session, as I did in the previous group, I introduced myself, and 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. After that introduction, I formally began the class with a matching activity which was the warm up just to see how familiarized they were with the topic. Afterwards, I moved onto the next activity. For this, the students used their books. They worked on the grammar and vocabulary part. I gave a reasonable amount of time for them to solve the difficulties, and some minutes later I checked along with them. 

As the next point, I made some copies for my students since they had to practice phrasal verbs in the written form. They had to complete some sentences; it was a fill-in-the-blank activity. The exercise was sort of challenging as we know that phrasal verbs tend to change the meaning in some contexts. This activity took around 15 minutes since I had to make clear why it is that we used certain verbs; basically, I explained the meaning of some of them. Once that this activity was finished, I put the class to work in pairs; this time, it was a speaking activity about New Year’s celebration. It was the last activity I was going to develop along with a listening. To monitored this activity (the speaking one), I did the same the teacher does. I got closer to the students and started to interact with them making comments about the celebration and what they did. It was pretty cool.

Finally, I had reached the listening part. At first, I just gave some tips for them to get concentrated on the dialogue they were going to listen to. They were already familiarized with the listening since the previous activity (the speaking one) was part of the listening. Then I just solved to questions, and it was in that way that I finished my first teaching practicum with this group. I really felt comfortable, and since I like the teacher’s style, it is not difficult for me to teach there. I think playing is not necessary to make a class active and dynamic though this is something which might depend on the characteristics of the group. I really enjoyed this experience.

My 3rd class in Basic English level

It was on Monday 18^th the day I taught my last class in the basic level. I felt I was prepared, and, this time, I felt I was comfortable. I had to develop two activities. One was a fill-in-the-blank activity, and the other one was a free practice in which they had to write a paragraph about themselves. The topic was Daily Routine activities.

As a warm up, I put some pieces of paper in a plastic bag which contained some daily routine activities. Voluntarily, every student was going to pass and performed what the piece of paper said. The warm up was successfully done since they were practicing the simple present, and at the same time we all were having fun with the mimics the students made. I spent 10 minutes in the warm up.

Once that they were familiarized with the topic, I put them to work in pairs. They were to complete a fill in the blank activity. I gave a reasonable amount of time for them to complete the exercise. Then, I checked along with the class. I did the first exercise, and they kept solving the rest. I asked individual questions. In this exercise I took around 15 minutes. I still had approximately 20 or 25 minutes to develop the second activity, which was about daily routine activities; however, (again) my tutor did not allow me to finish my class, so basically that was all I did in my third class. I think I did a good job. Nevertheless, I got like a disgusting feeling because I was not given the right time to develop the class. I think that that also affected my grade. Anyways, I tried to give my best when teaching and I know grades are just a parameter of what we do. Hope you all guys had better experiences.

2nd teaching practice

In my 2nd teaching practice, I was not confortamble with the first activity since ,under my view point, it was sort of complicated; furthermore, I knew it was going to take lots of time to be developed, and I did not understand it at all. I started the class with a general greeting asking about the things my students had done on the weekend. Then, I kept on developing the activity which was about family members. I told my students to work in pairs but then, because of the time I did not complete the activity. For sure that I knew that the teacher was going to notice that the activity was not achieved as it should  have been. I spent about 15 minutes on it. The next 15 minutes were spent in the presentation part. Here, the students had to used the book. There was a reading about the description of some people which matched with a picture of them, and the class had to inferred to which member of the family in the picture  was the descritption they  were reading. As I said, I was not comfortable since the beginning. I must say that my second experience on teaching was one of those that are good because of the mistakes that you obtained from it, so that next time you take them into account for  you to improve, modify or  totally change everything. Even bad things have positive points.

I will not give more minutiae of the lesson. What I can say is that there was not coordination of some points in regards with what I was supposed to teach due to the miscommunication that I had with the teacher. I also want to say that I did not have the time I was supposed to have to teach my lesson. I was given only 30 minutes. Sincerely, this was not a good experience at all since there was no flexibility or freedom to teach the lesson. I could not change anything in the lesson plan (this does not mean the lesson plan was wrong) and since that moment I had bad sensations about it. Anyways, it is done. I want to believe that next time will be totally different.

Voicethread vs Voxopop

Voxopop enables you to start an asynchronous discussion with other people using their onwn voices. You just send them the link to your created discussion.




Voicethread is similar to Voxopop, also good for a synchronous discussion, the difference is that this one allows videos reponses and also it automatically plays the whole sequence of speakers one after another.

Both of them are wonderful tools. Personally, I prefer to use Voicethread because I think it is more interactive than voxopop. You have the alternative of making a comment either recording your own voice, recording a video, or by simply texting. So there is flexibility in that sense since not everybody might have the equipment necessary for recording a video or recording their voice. So, in case this happens, you can perfectly type your comment which is something that is not possible in Voxopop.
Voxopop does not have that versatility. It gives you no choice, while Voicethread gives you more than one altternative. In Voicethread you can even upload an image,  a Power point Presentation and even sharing videos from youtube adding your personal opinion about it. I would say that both are useful, if we see, both provide the chance of  developing the speaking skill, and at the same time listening. Depending on your view point, conditions, and purposes you might make a choice between them. It's up to you.

The hardest skill to develop

The listening skill is mostly the one that is hard to develop for the majority of people. As it is a process which does not have rules to be learned or developed, people find very difficult  to cope with this skill. The accent tends to vary from person to person, so this makes this skill even harder to be developed at the beggining. However, people always find many ways to train themselves on this skill.

Listening to music helps a lot to develop this skill. Teacher might include some music or singing sessions to make the process dynamic and easier.

Watching movies in English is also helpful to train your brain and develop the listening skill. When these sort of activities are taken to the classroom the results are better.






As we can see, there are probably many other resources to  develop this receptive skill in a more attractive and easier way. These above mentioned are just the most common. It's a matter of creativity of each of us; however, if we have a teacher who provides ideas like these one is cool. We're surrounded by this beautiful language, so there's no excuse to develop this skill.

The lack of interest due to misuse of technology

Experts debate whether today's kids are helped or hindered by their immersion in technology

Nowadays, there are many factors that might hinder directly and indirectly the teaching learning process; one of them is technology in general.  I interviewed a teacher and asked her to respond these questions:  is there any problem in your class that affects directly the teaching process? What do you think the possible reasons could be? Taking into account those reasons, what might be done in order to avoid the problem?  What would you recommend to do? Her answers were pretty nice, under my view point. To start, she mentioned that one of the main problems is the lack of interest and the time they (the students) spend developing activities which do not contribute to the learning process.

She said her students do not usually present their activities on time due to they have been playing videogames, chatting, playing in the computer, etc. To this, she attached the fact that the time spent on these activities is not controlled by any of their parents or caretakers; “at least it does not seem to be like that”, she said. At the same time, this causes their students to be sleepless on class which also affects their attention and, therefore, their performance goes down. She said that this is a problem which affects the process from both perspectives, directly and indirectly. Indirectly because it affects the students outside the ongoing process that takes place in the classroom; however, this same reason has a negative impact when being in the school.

In order to keep away this problem, she said it is something that might be achieved gradually along with their parents. They need to educate or re-educate their children in that sense, but first teachers need to educate parents; “it cannot be possible that children state how things must be done at home”. She said that making reference to the fact that nobody says anything at home of how and when to use the computer, or playing video games before doing homework, etc.  She says that it would be right if parents get aware of this problem by putting maybe a schedule at home so that the child gets used to it, and in that way, they would start noticing that in order to play or doing any other activity, they must follow and respect that schedule.

Finally, she gave me her general view point about this topic saying that it can be easily noticed that technology is something necessary in these times; however, it might have an undesirable impact in our life if we do not educate ourselves with the use we do of it. At the same time, she added that parents need to establish rules which constructively help their children not only in the teaching learning process, but also in a general manner in which gradually the child becomes disciplined. To finish, she told me this “remember that a child who is going to school is a responsibility not only of teachers, but also of the whole community which is involved in the process while this one is growing up”. It is important to be aware of what is happening not only in schools, but also in the environment which surrounds the child.