THE THIRD WEEK OF PRACTICING WITH CHILDREN

 

This is the third week of practicing with children, and I have noticed that they have started to produce words that are from the vocabulary that was taught in the previous lessons!  I think that our lessons have been effective!  Next, I will present the 4 lessons developed during this week.

Lesson 7

Topic: Clothes

October 27th, 2014

 

In this day I could observe the performance of my colleagues who were in charge to teach vocabulary about the clothes. Now, I will share the activities that I observed that they developed during this lesson.

The first activity that broke the ice was very energetic!

Students were invited to dance as well as the teacher while the music was playing. When the music stopped, they had to get together in groups and the students who were not in a group were asked to spell some words from the vocabulary of the previous lessons. I consider that it was a great activity because all the children enjoy it! And they were able to review the vocabulary of the previous lessons which is something important because the more students practice, the more they learn.

The next two activities had the aim to encounter the students with the target vocabulary. It is the reason why students were asked to watch a video about clothes, and they were repeating the pronunciation of the name of the different type of clothes. 

Then, they were asked to sing a song in which it was used real clothes in order to help students to recognized  the clothes they were wearing.

In the practice part, a very nice activity was developed. It was a guessing game! So it was drawn on the board only some parts of the clothes and students had to guess and say the name of the clothes.

Then, in the production stage students worked in two groups because it was a competition.  Each child had to say the name of the clothes that the teacher was showing. I think this activity would have been better if the teacher would have used the board and write the points that the two groups earned because in the end, nobody knew which group won.

I consider that my colleagues have improved because I observed that all of them had a good projection of their voice, they gave clear instructions, and they looked more confident.

 

Lesson 8

Topic: Grammar: I’m wearing, you’re wearing, she’s wearing, he’s wearing. 

October 27th, 2014

 

During this lesson, I observed the performance of my colleagues who developed the second lesson of today.

I really liked the first activity because it was very enjoyable for the children.  Children were asked to walk around while the music was playing, but when it stopped they had to sit down. The last one who got sit, had to explode a balloon and say how to say in English some words from the previous vocabulary.   At the beginning I was thinking if the colleague in charge of it was going to be able to control the children since the activity involved balloons. However, she could control them! =)

In the presentation part, real clothes were used, so the teacher pasted the spelling of the words on the set of clothes that was presented. Then, she presented a set of

sentences like “I am wearing”, “she is wearing”, and “they are wearing”. In order to make students to understand the meaning of those sentences, she pointed a student and she said the clothes that he was wearing. For example, he is wearing white t-shirt.  

Then, in order to elicit the students to produce what they had learned, a BINGO game was developed in which students had to write the name of the clothes. Then, they listened to the words that the teacher was mentioning and they completed the bingo.

Finally, children had to complete a worksheet in which they had to recognized the picture and write the name of the clothes.

In conclusion, it was a nice lesson in which I could observed that my colleagues had improved a lot because this time they looked confident, and I observed that they enjoyed the activities as well as the students. There are still some details in which they need to improve, but I really believe that they can improve and perform a better lesson than this one. 

 

Lesson 9

Topic: Parts of the body 

October 28th, 2014

 

Today my group and I were in charge of this lesson. I think that we did a better job than the last time because we took in to account all the comments and suggestions that our classmates and the professor had given us the last time in order to help us to improve our lessons. Therefore, we tried to be more confident, we smiled during the lesson, and we tried to have a good rapport with the students. Next, I will share the experience of the performance of our lesson.

Warm up

I was in charge of the first activity. Therefore,   I started the class by asking some questions to the students in order to help them to practice their English vocabulary. After that, I started with the warm up activity in which I was going to diagnose how much children knew about the target vocabulary. I asked one child whose name is Oscar to pass in front of the class and to be the assistant of the activity which consisted on make each the students to identify the body parts that were written in the labels and paste them on the appropriate Oscar’s body parts. During this activity I observed that most of the children did not know all the body parts and it took much time for them to decide where to paste the labels. I think that it was one of the biggest difficulties that I faced during this activity. When all the labels were pasted on the assistant, I checked if they pasted the labels in the correct place, and I tried to show them very briefly the appropriate body part for the labels.

Presentation

Then, Brenda continued with the class, and she started with the presentation of the topic. Thus, she used two posters, and she presented all the body parts by pasting labels on the posters. Those labels contained the spelling of the body parts which was something very useful since children need to see symbols (in this case the letters) in order to learn something. I consider that she did a great job because she could control the students, and she corrected them in a nice way each time they mispronounce something. However, there were only one problem and it was related to the material that she presented. I think that when she pasted all the labels it was kind of messy because the posters were not so big.

Practice

Next, Gaby developed two activities. First, she asked students to sing the “Head & Shoulders” song by touching the body parts that the lyrics of it indicated.  Then, she gave a worksheet to each student and they had to write the missing letters. I consider that Gaby was surprised when the majority of the children finished the activity in a very short period of time. It meant that children had learned through the presentation and the song that they performed.  In my opinion, Gaby did her best because even though it was her first participation in a lesson, she looked very confident.

Production

Claudia was in charge of the production part. Therefore, she asked students to see some flashcards about the body parts, and they had to say which part of the body was drawn per each flashcard. Then, she started to touch her body parts and asked students to say the name of the body part that she touched. Something very important that she did is that when students did not know exactly the answer, she provided them options in order to elicit them to say the answer. 

Wrap up

 Finally, I developed the last activity which I change because of the time, and I asked students one more time to sing the song Head& Shoulders but in a faster way and with much energy. I really enjoyed doing that with the children because I saw that all of them were having fun.

In conclusion, today my group and I did a better job that the last time, and I consider that we have improved because this second time we were more confident and relaxed since we already know what to do in case of any inconvenience that we faced during the last lesson. In my opinion, I consider that each lesson that we perform, we earn more knowledge and experience about teaching English to children.

  

*Things I should improve

1- I should give options to students when they do not answer a question quikly.

2- I should monitor all the studednts when they are performing an activity.

 

Lesson 10

Topic: Toys & Preposition of place 

October 28th, 2014

 

During this lesson, I could observe different activities which were very meaningful in order to teach grammar to children. Moreover, I could see the strengths and the weaknesses of the performance of my colleagues.

The first activity consisted in a review about the vocabulary of school objects. The teacher in charge of it asked the children to play a guessing game in which student were going to see some parts of a school object and they had to guess and say the name of the school object. However, this activity would have been better if the colleague would have projected more her voice.     

In the next activity students were asked to watch a power point presentation in which was introduced the grammatical topic which was preposition of place. Then, by using real objects the teacher encourage students to say the appropriate preposition of place.

I consider that it is a good strategy to use concrete objects in order to present a topic because I saw that children were paying attention and it facilitated their learning process.

Another activity that I consider were very significant was

developed in the practice part in which students worked in trios  and by using a chair and toys students had to put the toys according to the preposition that the teacher said. I think that it was a great activity and it was achievable for the children since it consisted on a task response technique.

Then, the last activity that I observed was the spinning wheel. I saw that children enjoyed the activity, and they demonstrated that had learned the majority of the prepositions. I think that in this part the colleague in charge of it did a good job since she could control the students.

 

 

Case of study  

During these two lessons, I have observed that for Astrid it is very difficult to learn grammar. I consider that it is because grammar in somehow is something abstract, and she is not  able to think abstractly yet. However, I consider that if she is elicited to  practice more grammar  by using some concrete things she would be able to improve.   

Now talking about her psychosocial development,  I consider that she is growing with excellent social skills because she is not an alone girl, she likes to interact with people. Moreover, According to psychologists she is in the age when children need to be able to make friends and to have friends, so she is growing psychosocially according to her age because she already has  many friends and two very close friends who are Fabiola and Gaby. Finally, in this week I also observed that Astrid’s fine motor skills are developed very well since she can use thin objects, and she can tie her shoes by herself.