Last one of the P!

I taught my last class of this period on September 27^th.

This time I had to begin a new unit and to introduce a new structure. I was to teach “used to vs. would” for past habits. As usual I develop a warm up activity, and I think I chose a wrong one because at that time students like to move because the class is at 7: 00 a.m. anyways, I brought this activity called “fact or fiction” in which students came to the front and told a story about their own or somebody else’s, and the rest had to guess if what they listed to was real or not. I asked for volunteers but nobody wanted so I used the attendance list in that way they had to pass. At the end, they participated but the warm up was not catching for them. 
To move on, I wrote the word of the day on the board and listened to some of the examples students wrote. As a presentation, they had to read an article about “Rituals”  I used a pdp model, but I had some problems regarding with the time; the reading was kind of long and that took too much time for students so I  asked them to stop reading though some of them hadn´t finished reading it. And because of that I was not able to develop the activity I had prepared as a post. 
For the grammar part I just had like 8 minutes left, so I gave a quick explanation and some examples and my class was over the teacher told me I had to be careful with the time because I needed to go deeper in the explanation but the presentation took too much time. Besides, the teacher told me I looked very nervous that day, I also had some spelling problems I couldn’t write some words, so students told me, teacher that word is not written like that and I couldn’t realize where the mistake was until a student came and helped me write it. I do not what happened to me this time. Anyways I am done with the 2^nd period.

The last period is coming guys… let´s go for it!!

Second Adclass!

I taught my second class on Friday 20th, with this group I have just done practice. I have not taught the grammar part. They are studying “Phrasal verbs”  so as  a warm up;  I did a matching activity some students got some sentences containing phrasal verbs and others got the meaning of those PV. They had to come to the front and paste them on the board so that those who had the meaning could match them. Later, we checked them and everybody participated. I think that was meaningful for them. Secondly, I taught a new expression to students and asked them to write an example for the new one and the one I previously shared with them. I checked that orally.

I did a quick review of the previous class that had been about “separable and inseparable PV” students provided me with some examples. And then I asked them to work in their book they had to rewrite some sentences using PV. They did that without any problem. So next, I gave them a filling in the blank activity they were to choose the correct verb and preposition to complete the statements with the appropriate PV. To finish with my class I divided the class into two groups and had a “phrasal race” I wrote a  regular verb in the board and in their groups they had to write as many sentences as they could using that verb with a correct preposition. For example, Verb= take, PV= take back. Ex: I had to take back the shirt. It was the wrong size. I did that many times and my class was over. Sometimes I forget to CCQ so the teacher told me that it is really important to that all the time because he could notice some students did not get my directions in the warm up activity. 

Adv, 2nd P!!

On Friday 13^th I taught my first class. We are working with an advanced group this time.

So, to start my class I introduced myself and asked students the way they felt as they were going to have impromptu speeches. I did a warm up activity in order to review the previous classes as they had been studying “Conditionals” I brought the famous song if I were a boy, I played it just once and asked students to pay attention to the conditionals they could find in the lyrics. Then, I wrote these two questions on the board: What would you do if you were a boy/ girl? And if you were an animal, what animal would you be? Why? I gave them one minute to discus with a partner and then we shared. 
To move on, I brought a new word to students and I also asked them to come up with a sentence using the new word. Next I just asked students about the usage of future progressive and future perfect as I was to give only practice about the new topic (Future progressive and perfect) I. brought a chart in which I had written some sentences and questions regarding with future progressive and future perfect so students had to choose either to use progressive or perfect, I asked for volunteers to come to the front and fill in the blanks. And then we analyzed the answers as a class. After that, I asked them to work in their books, and then we checked the answers.
 As a final task, students had to write five questions using future perfect, for example, what will you have done by 2014? After writing those questions they had to mingle and ask those questions to their classmates. They reported the answers and my class was over. I did not face any bad situation this time thank God. So it wasn’t a perfect class but everything went smoothly.

1st P, done!!

Monday, August 12th, 13

On that day I had my last class with the intermediate group of students, this time I was introducing a new structure, “Simple Past and Past Progressive” I am so lucky as I always have to teach grammar, anyways. I started my class by developing a warm up activity, “the telephone is broken” you know how this works, so I included sentences and questions from the previous topics, I think it was meaningful for them because they enjoyed that activity. As presentation I wrote a conversation on the board and left some spaces, so students had to fill in with some words I wrote on one side of the board. After they completed the conversation, they repeated with me and then they practice in pairs. Then I asked boys to repeat and then only girls, the teacher always tells me that it is really important to have them repeat. Later, I explained and gave some characteristics about the tenses so that they know when and how to use them. I know this topic is kind of confusing so I made some time lines for students to be clearer and understand better about the structures. After that; I provided some examples and asked students to help me come up with some others.  

I just gave a practice, in which students had to decide whether to use past simple or past progressive, they did it and we checked the answers together. What I did next was to have a   dictation practice as they are having their evaluations soon. So I dictated to them and later I asked each of them to come to the front and write a piece of the paragraph until all of them participated. In that way we checked the mistakes and I explained some new words to students. In the end I just said bye and thank them.

My 2nd class!

I taught my second class on Monday July 29th, so I arrived very early at the university to arrange everything in the classroom. The teacher told they were to change classroom so next time we would be in a different room.  But she got confused and got kind of late to the classroom all the students were already there and I needed the cd player to develop the warm up. Finally the teacher came but she had forgotten the cd player. Anyways, I used Maggie´s  pc, the volume was no so loud but I did it. I started my class a little bit late because of the above reasons. I was desperate but I needed to continue.

This time I had to teach “ Countable and Uncountable nouns”  so to start I made two groups and asked students to make a line in front of the board, they had to write as many words as they could think of, of course one group wrote about count and the other about no count nouns. At the end, I had them repeat all the words they had written on the board. After that, I gave a quick explanation about the topic because they had already studied that on the previous term. So, I made more emphasis on the nouns that can be both countable and uncountable. At first they were confused but they understood the difference as I gave them examples.

To practice, they worked in the book, and then they discussed in pairs about their favorite kind of sandwich, later they had to report about their partner´s likes. Eventually, I asked them to think of what´s wrong in their town and what they will do to improve it. I told them they could use sentence stems like these: “There isn’t enough…” and “There are too many…” they interacted with their classmates and came up with pretty nice ideas.

Going ahead!!

Hello everyone; I know you all are ready to start teaching! Remember just one more cycle and we are over if God willing, so let’s put all our effort and do the best we can on this!!

I started my teaching practice on Monday, July 22^nd, I am working with an intermediate level this time; they are twenty one students and I could see everybody is eager to learn the language.

I started a new unit; it is about adjectives. And to introduced the topic I started teaching this two words: “so and such”. But before introducing the new structure I developed a warm up activity. What I did this time was to focus on what students had been studying before. As they had practiced “the present perfect” I took advantage of that and asked them to create a piece of a song using participles, for example, have you ever been to Paris? And so on. They had to choose the rhythm for the song and then come to the front and sing it as a group. I noticed students had a good time when singing and listening to each other, at the end I can say it was a meaningful activity as they were refreshing their previous knowledge and enjoyed a lot. Next, and to activate students’ scheme I asked them to describe the most beautiful place they had visited, so that they could use adjectives. They participated a lot, and then I move to the grammar phase, I explained to students the form, meaning and use of “so” and “such”. They did not have any problem so then I gave them some practice, they had to choose whether to use so or such some of them had some troubles while solving that, but eventually they got it. And as a final task, they were to create sentences using the new structures. I felt confident when teaching as I had worked with some of the students before. I just had some inconvenient and it was regarding with my writing on the board. I don’t do it so bad but this time I was going almost from corner to corner!! Believe me guys it was a real shame. At the end the teacher gave a tip to me, so I would appreciate if you share some more with me!!

Precedently thanks;)