The Thirth and Last Class

     My last class was very good because of the activities I developed. It was really nice to teach my last class because I already knew my students and the way they behave during the class, which I love because they love participating. This time teacher Salvador told me to teach about second class from the lesson, and it was just practice about TOO+ADJ+FOR PHRASE+INFINITIVE; he also said I was free to change anything from the activities in order to adequate them as I preferred. I developed my class into a grammar practice, a Tip Ranking Activity, and an Impromptu Speech activity about Global Warming.

     Before starting the class, I had to wait an hour because I was supposed to teach at 3:00 pm, but there was no one to evaluate my teaching, and so I had to wait until 4:00pm. The grammar practice was not so difficult to manage because students just have to open their books and complete the sentences from the activity. First of all, I tried to make a review of the previous class in order to get students familiar with what they were going to do; then, I gave the directions and wrote an example on the board for them to follow the same structure in their books. When they were done, I checked with all of them the answers. There was no problem with the exercises.

        During the second activity, I was nervous because of the space, so students were supposed to be moving around the classroom stopping by different stages; fortunately, it went well although my directions again were clear at all because I could say everything in just some words, but they understood because I asked someone to retell what they were going to do. Before the activity, I had already pasted the tips for helping the environment to decrease global warming around the classroom, so I saved time with that. After that, I counted until three and they had to read and to start discussing about the tips and sharing if they would apply those tips. Then, they had to move to the other stage and continue doing as the first time three more time. I monitored and it was pretty nice because I could notice they were interested on talking about global warming, so they were even sharing some other tips to decrease global warming.

     Finally for the impromptu speech, I got them follow me to the basketball court. I asked them to form a circle; then, I gave directions. They had to pick a piece of paper containing a statement or a sentence about global warming and start taking about it. I decided to number them from one to two, and in the first time number ones had to start talking and then number twos. It was good, but I know I could have more advantage of the activity, and again I was thinking on the bell which was about to ring, so I got the activity finished and say good bye to students. I felt satisfied because they could learn something from me, and I learn and had experience at teaching from them.

  As a conclusion, the opportunity to teach at English Access was wonderful because I learned a lot from the other side of teaching English because it is not the same as in the major because there we are dealing with children and not teenagers or adults. Based on my experience, I can infer that every time you are teaching you have to be well prepared in order to succeed with your class and set the goal or objective, so in the future I plan to dedicate more time for preparing the activities to develop. I will also try to learn on how to give clearer directions, because this time I had some problems with that; I will also try to manage the time very well for not missing teaching time and for not taking more time to finish. To sum up, the first teaching practicum gave me a lot of experience, and I am sure that now I can go any classroom to teach English without problems, so I have known how to manage the groups and also how to develop a lesson successfully. 

Second Class at English Access

     My second class with students of the second year at English Access was cool. As always, I tried to do by best by teaching in a way Ss feel comfortable because that is important for the learning process and we know that when we try to be friendly, students are more attentive to the class. What I did this time was to start with a good atmosphere remembering what we did during weekend, making grammar review and some grammar practice, and practicing orally talking about controversial issues in our society.

     I tried to start as early as possible, but it could not be like that because there was a meeting and some parents were still there in the classroom talking about their children with the teacher in charge of the group; anyways, I started like 5 minutes later. On the other hand, it was nice to be in front of my students the second time, so I really admire their willingness to learn and participate; I asked them how their weekend was and I also ask them to talk with their classmates about it, and they were excited.

     To make grammar review, I asked students to remember me about it; it was awesome because they gave ideas about it, and I could notice they had learned about last week topics. I wrote on the board all the abstract nouns they remembered and then I wrote an example for them to state if it was correct or not; I did the same with the second grammar, which was about verbs followed by an object and infinitive.

     I also made students read some paragraphs and then talk about it. To do so, I made them get in groups of four and number each of them, so numbers one had to read paragraph one, numbers two paragraph two, and so on. Consequently, it was nice and I liked that part of the class because it became interesting when they were doing exactly what I asked them to do. It was going really well when the bell rang. This was the first time that time was not enough for me, so I had planned the activities and I thought I was managing the time, but since the class started like five minutes later it consume my teaching time as I had planned.

     Concluding, I can infer that not always the class goes as you plan it, and based on my previous experiences, I have to be careful with that. Besides, for my future class, I will take care of the time I use for each of the activity; I will also try to be clear when giving directions and CCQ. Moreover, will create more visual aids, and I will use an appropriate sitting arrangement.

First Class at English Access

     Having de opportunity to teach in the major before helped me a lot at English Access because it was really nice being there with teenagers who are really smart. I taught the second part of the class because Teacher Salvador Buen Dia suggested me to go with the practice, so I started at 4: 10pm. I was excited because since I went to observe the class, I could notice that those 25 students are really good at English, and most important thing was that they love participated. My class was divided into three parts such as The Grammar Practice, Dictogloss, and Agree or Disagree activity.

     The grammar practice was nice because Ss recognized the non-count nouns that show abstract ideas perfectly however some of them asked me the meaning when they had doubts. Before starting the class, I tried to activate their schema by asking them what they had been doing during the first class, so they answered enthusiastically.  Then, I started by giving them the practice; they had to circule or underline all the abstract words they found in the piece of paper, and after that they had to develop exercise A and B from their books on page 101. This activity went really well because they did ir rapidly.

     The dictogloss was the next activity. First, I had to read the text so that students could get an idea about it; then, I had to read it again and students had to write keywords in order to build up the paragraph I was reading; because of time, I did not read the last time, so I asked my Ss to discuss about what they had listened and the words or ideas they got while I was reading. I really liked it because the reading was about racism, so it gave them the chance to share about it with not so much problems. Teacher Salvador said it was really nice when I was monitoring them because that was a good way to be in contact with them because while that, they asked me about the meaning of some words; I also took the advantage of asking names.

     Agree or disagree activities are really nice to make Ss discuss. This time they were asked to get in pair and were given 2 cards that showed agreement or disagreement. I had o read some some statements, and person who had the agreement card had to start discussing about it giving the reason why he or she was in agreement, so the same for the one who de disagreement card. This activity did not go as it was planned because Ss did not understand what to do, so I might have been clearer while explaining, but it was because of time. What I did at the end was to explain it in another way for them to et the idea, and finally it worked well.

     For my next class, I pretend to take into consideration what teacher suggested me to do while giving directions. I will be more creative and will keep on being with good attitude as teacher said; I will also take the advantage of the energy my students have.