First Class, 3 Period!!

At this time, I already learned a lot of strategies and different ways to teach I can say with properly that I´m not same girl than before starting this subject because I had the opportunity to give classes in basic and advanced levels and now in English access, since many time ago I wanted to know how was it to work with this group, I listened the good comments of my classmates that had the opportunity to work with them; now that I could observe the learning environment, I noticed how nicely is to work with these children because they are so anxious to learn English and that motivated me to prepare a great class for them. No means that I didn´t right before,  but this time I enjoyed preparing my class.  As teacher, I felt realize to develop the class and how successful was it, not because I am saying, but because I noticed that children loved to work and they were so interesting to learn during all the class that I taught them. All this experience lead me to try to improve my teaching more every time. I realized how much I liked to give classes, specially now that I dedicated the best of me to do it.

Basically, before starting the class, I pasted some pieces of scotch in their desks and pasted the objective , the agenda and new vocabulary, and I had ready the charts that I was going to use in my class. Then, when they were ready, I introduced myself and I gave them pieces of paper to each one in order that they could write their names, I really wanted to call them by their names during the class. Later on, I develop the warm up, I wanted to use something that allows them to stand up, have fun and work at the same time, so I made 3 groups and because they are children I asked them to chose a name for their group and chose a representative, this last thing it had a purpose that I will mention later, after chose their group´s name and representative, I gave to each group a bag which contained 3 sentences in simple past, they had to order and then, the representative had to write the sentences on the board and then the group which had more correct sentences was going to win. I noticed that they were so anxious, I decided to use this because they are children, I know that I can use other strategies with adults, but in this case, they had fun by learning an practice. Finally, when the groups finished, I checked with them all the sentences, I did it in order to involve them in the review and allow them to notice their mistakes too, in fact, they participated in the activity and in the review by telling me the mistakes, they laughed a lot in this activity.

Later, I continued with a practice, I gave them a worksheet that the teacher asked me to use it, it was a writing activity. Meanwhile the students were working, I was monitoring them, it was easy for me, because I used seating arrangement before they came to class, I put the desks in semi-circle in order they could sit better and I could monitor them better too. Some of them asked me for the new vocabulary, but fortunately, I already wrote the new vocabulary on the board, so they noticed and understood the meanings. 

Then, I use another worksheet that the teacher asked me to use it, but I talked with her days before the class, asking her if I could use other strategies with the information of the worksheet in order to use not only writing activities, but some other kind of strategies that helped to students to not get bored in class, fortunately, she told me that I could do other things with the same information. So, my idea was to bring a chart in which  I put some verbs in different colors in order to call their attention and analyze which verbs were for each sentence that I wrote, some of them had to pass to the front and write the correct verbs in past for each sentence, in fact, I asked them calling by their names, then, together, we reviewed if they wrote the verbs correctly, then I used another chart that consisted in that I gave them a variety of verb in pieces of papers and then they have to pass to the front and paste in the spaces, it was like fill in the blanks, but in a more interesting way because my purpose was that all of them could pay attention not to the person that stand up and write or paste the verb, but to put attention to the mistakes in order to help them to notice the correct way to write the verbs and  I´m sure that they will remember that in the exam and later on because they were focused in the activity and pay more attention.


I consider that this class has been the best class that I had developed and the most successful, maybe it wasn´t perfect but I had improved a lot and I hope I continous improving my teaching during this time, fortunately, I put the best of me and I obtained the most successful class that I had taught because students clarify their doubt and they learned the correct way to write the verbs and the most important it´s that I´m pretty sure that they will remember not only for the exam but also it will be meaningful learning.

My last teaching in Advanced II !

This class was the best experience as a teacher that I never had before, because at this time, everything was so different, my development as a teacher improved so much, I never thought that I  had obtained a very successful class!!!

At the beginning, I began the class by developing a warm up activity that I invented it by my myself, I asked them to make two groups, then I gave a marker to the representative of each group, the activity consisted that everyone of each group had to pass to the front the board and write a noun, one group had to write countable nouns and the other one had to write uncountable nouns. They had 3 minutes to do it and the group with more answers was going to be the winner, in this activity they had fun a lot and at the same time I could observe how much they remembered about the topic.

To continue, I asked the students to listen 4 stories about  4 superstitious persons, after listening, I asked them some questions, for example if they believed that these 4 people were superstitious or not, we continued to discuss  about the 4 stories, some of the students were superstitious and others gave their personal opinions. So, I guess that this part of the class was so interesting because I was interacting with the students, I would like to give them more classes. 

After presenting the topic, I continued with the grammar, I thought that this part It was going to be one of the most  difficult parts of the class, but fortunately  the results were so productive. Because I remembered what the teacher Christian told us before, he said that we can use many strategies to explain grammar and not only the traditional way, so I tried to use attractive charts in order to get their attention, also, I explained the grammar by using a lot of examples in order to help them to understand better and make the things easier than the complicated explanation that make our students get bored. I explained only three rules that I considered were enough in one class, the topic was "Non-countable nouns made countable"; in addition, I used 2 little charts that contained examples of some phrases that could use with this topic, also I used two or three examples of how they could use for each phrase. Then, I did CCQ I asked them to give me other examples and they did it. I was impressed because they payed attention during all the time. Later on, I gave them a worksheet that contained some nouns, so they had to classify if the nouns could be countable or non-countable nouns, then they had to write sentences using the nouns by providing examples of countable nouns and non-countable nouns made countable.

Later, I asked them to go to their book and work in one exercise in which they had to read a paragraph and look for non-countable nouns that could make countable, I gave them 6 minutes to do it. Then, I asked some of them to give me the words that they found, but my surprise it was that many of them wanted to participate in the activity. At the end, I gave them a worksheet as homework assignment in order to they could practice at home.

What I liked, it was that the students were paying attention all the time and  they participated a lot and expressed their opinions in the discussion, also one of my favorite parts, it was the grammar explanation because it was not boring, students were attentive  and when I did CCQ I noticed that they understood the explanation. The teacher told me that the use of attractive charts called students´attention, also the use of a lot of examples helped them to understand easier, and personality I think that the use of examples helped me a lot, more than if I had explained to them the grammar in the traditional way, because they could observed how they could transform the non-countable nouns in countable.

This time, I improved a lot in my teaching practice, I consider that the developing of all the activities was successful and much better that I thought it would be, also I didn´t get nervous so I interacted with the students as never I did before. The students understood the topic and were participating in all the activities, I guess they liked the class too. So I  hope to continue improving my teaching that it´s my purpose, being a teacher and have a successful class, definitely, it´s a great experience!