November 3rd, 2017. Closing Ceremony

This Friday was the closing ceremony. We prepared a lot things to children could enjoy with them, such as some games, chants, food, etc.

When we arrived to the Bon Bosco School, we started decorating the classroom with globes, crepe paper, etc. We pasted some globes around the classroom and outside of it. Also, we pasted crepe papers simulating chains on the wall and some of them were hanging from the ceiling. It looked beautiful because they were of different colors. Besides, we pasted on the board a banner that said ''congratulations'' and some mortarboards.

When the kids arrived we started playing ''pin the tail on the donkey''. We pasted on the board a picture of a donkey with a missing tail. One at time, we blindfolded a child and gave him/her the tail. He/She was walking around while his/her classmates were saying to him/her ''cold'' or ''hot'' so he/she could get to the blackboard to pin the tail on the donkey. All of them did it well. I sure they enjoyed it because they wanted to participated again. 

Also, some teachers participated.

Then, we played ''feed the clown'' we gave two balls to the children so they had to throw them one by one and tried to get them into the clown's mouth. It game is fun and harder than it looks because people must have marksmanship.

After that, some teachers performed the chant ''5 littles monkeys''. They gave to each student a monkey and started to sing it. it liked to students because they were dramatizing what the chant said.

Besides, another group performed the chant ''Old MacDonald''. Before started they asked to the students for animals and the sound that they make; and they were saying it. then, the teachers used the animals students mentioned before to sing the chant. 

Next, some teachers gave a speech to the children for everything during all these time with us and gave the diplomas to them.

Finally, the kids and we went outside to eat pizza.  We had a nice moment sharing with them.

 Here is a group photo

Unfortunately only 3 of them arrived, we do not know why, maybe their parents did not let them go. However, we had a good time together. It will be unforgettable.

It has been everything. I have finished my practice with children, but also my semester of the career. However, this experience has been nice and rewarding for me. I enjoyed a lot with those children, I learned from them in the same way they did from my. 

 

October 20th, 2017

In this Friday, we had the pleasure of having the visit of Kati Castro of the EFL program (English Language Fellow), who shared with us important tips for teachers of a foreign language. Some of her tips are the followings:  

1. Be (or get) excited about the class content.
Excitement is contagious!, so we should look interesting in the topic that we are going to develop during the class; although, we are not, but we have to cover our bored face for a happy and excited one; otherwise, we will transmit our feelings to students. So, at the end we could not achieve our aim because the class was not what we had expected.

2. Created a lesson structure that works for you and follow it consistently.
Each teacher has her/ his own style to teach, so they have to plan a lesson which works for them. Besides, their lessons plans can have warm up and cool down activities, which we can use to introduce a new topic, review the previous one, or for students to have fun. Also, she mentioned that there is not problem if we create an agenda, but it has to had an objective for the class, in order the class would be effective. Moreover, she gave us an useful structure for us to follow that '' I DO- WE DO- YOU DO'' which means ''I DO'' The teacher do it first, in order to show to students; ''WE DO'' we all do it together; ''YOU DO'' finally, you do it by yourself. Furthermore, the lessons should be focus a skill (speaking, reading, listening or writing). 

3. Command respect from your students.

• Teach students how to treat you and others. To have a respectful environment teachers have to set boundaries in order to demonstrates students who is the authority in the classroom.
• Create a code of conduct with your students. We can ask them to set some rules that they consider will help to improve the conduct inside the classroom. 

4. Give students leadership opportunities and others responsibilities. 

To students build trust on themselves we can let them leader activities, discussion leaders, or group roles.

• Leader activities: while developing an activity we can ask them to choose a leader per each group or depending the activity the will perform
• Discussion leaders: we can ask some questions just to the leaders as they are representing their groups.
• Group roles: let them choose the order they are going to present something that have been assigned them , like who want to be the first one, second one..

Moreover, We should assign them some responsibilities like, pick up the trash that is on the floor, put the desks in order, etc.

5. Incorporate VAK- visual, auditory, kinesthetic in every lesson.

As we know, each student is different and special; and they have they own learning style. Some of them can learn through visual, like seeing pictures, maps, watching videos, etc. Others through auditory, such as talk to someone, listening to music, read a loud, etc. An some others learn through kinesthetic like dancing, working stand up, doing mimics, etc.

 6. Plan questions based on knowledge goals.

Most of the time we just ask simple questions using Wh- words like ''how, who, where, when, etc.'' we do not let students to think more, to demonstrate us that they are able to have comprehension.

Here is a useful list of several questions that we can use with our students and we will help them to have reading or listening comprehension.  

7. Evaluate using rubrics.

 We can create our own rating system. so that, we are aware of what are the points that we are going to evaluate and the percentage of them. Also we should share the rubrics with students before (because we are letting them to know what we are going to take into account, so they will aware of what they have to do to get a good grade); During (because we should remind them what the rubrics say, so they can not claim us); after (because we have to explain them what the rubric says and what they had done).

                              

8. Collect and use data.

We can give them pre-tests or surveys to determinate prior knowledge before starting to develop the class because it is important for us to know how much students manage the topic, so depending on that, we will know how much emphasis we will make. Besides, we have to check for students understanding during each stage of the lesson because we can not move from one stage to another until students have understood.

9. Take time to reflect and adjust.

After each class we can make us those questions bellow to ourselves to reflect is the class was how we were expecting or not, so if we were wrong we can teach that again in the next class.

10. Encourage a mindset .

There are two kind of mindset growth and fixed mindset.

• Growth mindset is about achieving mastery and competence. The person believes that superb personal qualities can be learned, developed or cultivated.
• Fixed mindset which implies that we believe our attributes and abilities are inherently fixed and unchanging.

We as teachers should help them to trust in themselves and show them that they can change their mindset because they are able to improve and develop their abilities. they do not have to be narrow mind because everyone is good at something.

It was all the points that she shared with us in the conference. Also she share her experiences with us. We learned a lot from her, and It was a pleasure having her with us.

After the conference finished we returned to our classroom to start planning the closing ceremony that is going to be on November 3rd.  We were discussing in groups, and assigning what each of us will do. 

 

October 13th,2017.

This Friday was the last day of our teaching practicum. This day was turned of Alex' group, which is composed by Alexander, Olga and Eliseo. They were in charge of teaching ''My past vacation'' and their skill was ''Reading''.

Alex started the class with a great ''puzzle'' activity as a warm up stage. He divided students in two groups, and provided a puzzle per each group. They had to form them and the group who finished the puzzle first was the winner. The puzzles were about vacations activities, so students could linked what would be the class about.

Then, Eliseo present a poster with a short part of the reading which had the vocabulary they would presented. He asked students to stand up and made a circle. Next, he gave to them a luminous ball in order to play the hot potato, every time he hit the ball, the lights went on, so students had to pass it between them; and when it turned off, the child who kept it on their hands had to pass to the board and matched the vocabulary with a picture. They matched it well. It was good because they checked if students knew the vocabulary.

After that, Olga asked students to sit down on the floor. She presented the reading with a big book, she started to reading it while the students were paying attention to her. When she finished to read it, she asked them some specific questions about the reading like ''Who was____?, ''____ was a woman or an animal?'', ''____ climbed the mountain by car or horse'', etc. They answered them correctly so that means they understood it. Then, she asked ''What is the story about'' and gave some options. Besides, she presented some possibles titles for the reading so students had to choose one.

 

Next, she read the reading again and provided them a worksheet of ''True or False sentences''. Everybody was working on it and as soon they completed it they compared with the classmate who was next to. Then, Olga started checking it and asking them ''Why is it false?'' and they answered it.

Later on, as post-reading, Alex gave them a page, so children drew about what they did in their past vacation. Some of them drew themselves in the beach, climbed a mountain, rode on a roller coaster, etc. Then, they pasted them on a poster that was on the wall.

Finally, as wrap up, Eliseo asked them to stand up and made a circle. He gave a big dice, which had a picture in each side of it; and the light ball again. When it turned off the one who kept it had to throw the big dice, and said a sentences using the phrase that was presenting the picture.

After the break, all the groups were in charge of develop the second class. what we did was we divide all the stage between each group.  It was about the same topic ''My past vacation'', but with the listening skill.

Rocio, Katy and Beatriz started with the warm up and the pre- listening.

The warm up activity was nice. It was about ''Eggs Hunt''. Students were looking for the 8 eggs that the teachers in charge had hidden. Those eggs contained a paper with a number in side. When students found all of them, they could open them to see what number they were. Then, Beatriz gave them a picture about vacations activities, so according to the numbers students were asked to say what they did in their past vacation using the phrase that the picture represent.

In the pre-listening Rocio presented the vocabulary that appear in the listening. She was showing the picture and asking "What is that'' and the kids were answering her. She pasted the pictures and labels on the board and practiced the pronunciation with the children. Next, she removed the labels and kept them in the classroom platform. She gave to each of them a piece of paper of different color. Then, she was taking out a paper from a box  and asking ''who has the yellow/pink/green... paper'' and the student who had that color had to do a mimic of the phrase Rocio had shown before; and the others students had to guess. This dynamic was amazing because the kids were so dramatic when performing that.

Fatima, Diego and I were in charge of the rest.

Diego played the audio for the first time; after that, he asked them ''How many characters were talking in the listening?'' And they said ''two''. Also, he asked them ''What are the names of the characters?'' and they answered. Next, he pasted on a poster the names of the characters.

Later on, Fatima gave them some papers of the vacations activities that were in the conversation in order they could classify what each one did. Then, she played the audio for the second time. When it finished, each students stood up and pasted on the poster the activity that each character did in their vacations. Students classified it well, so that means they had listening comprehension.

After that, I provided them a worksheet of ''filling in the blanks''. I reproduced the audio for the last time, and checked with them if they answered correct. The inconvenient  I can say I had was that the children did not write fast so I had to stop the audio to give them time to write.

Reading and listening are difficult to teach to children as they are so hyperactive and difficulty pay attention to them. but there are many activities that we as teachers can apply in our classes to make more dynamic and meaningful classes.