miércoles, 17 de febrero de 2016

My First Class.




In my first class, I decided to develop an ice breaker at the very beginning of the class; the ice breaker I chose was “What is your favorite…?” I asked students to stand up and divide the class in three groups; one group had to be in the left, the other in the right, and the other in the middle. When having the students in their groups and in a circle, I gave them an object per group; also, I used the Conon Projector in order to show some questions they might use such as what is your favorite food, animal, color, music, class, and so on. After that, I explained to them that they had to pass the objects among them and ask the mentioned questions in their groups while I played music. I was monitoring the groups by going around the class and listening to some questions, answers, pronunciation, and fluency. After some two minutes, I stopped the music, and the student, who got the object at the time in each group, had to ask whichever question to the students who had the object in the other groups; for instance, “A” student asked “B” student, and “B” student asked “C” student, and “C” student asked “A” student. Now, I could notice that the environment was appropriate because their participation and interaction were so cool. To finish, I developed this activity in order to introduce possessive adjectives (my and your), and I also wanted to know my students´ interests.
Because this was my first class, I needed to know about my students´ interests and likes, so I think that “What is your favorite…?” was significant. Besides, I am sure that most of them had not had a conversation since the term started off, so they could interact by having this activity. Also, I can affirm that they learned many new words when asking and answering. In addition, the importance of this activity was that students spoke as much as possible, and as a teacher, I encouraged them to speak whenever possible for them to improve fluency and take the fear out.  To finish up, the purpose of this was to have students all together and to make them participate.
            I think students have understood the possessive adjectives (my and your) since the very beginning because when studying the grammar phase, they did not have troubles in trying to understand the meaning of the words and the rest of the possessive adjectives. Also, I realized during the controlled practice that they did not have doubts or troubles when filling the worksheet I gave them. Besides, in the semi-controlled activity, I have to admit that I did not give directions correctly at the beginning, so I had to explain to each team again; however, they worked and use the target language well. When giving directions, I think that teacher must do it carefully because students cannot understand well, and they will be standing up and waiting for a better direction. Also, I am sure that vary the activities and the way of working can influence in students´ learning process, so my methodology was to have them sitting and standing, working solo and team work or pair work so that they will not get bored.  
           In the future, I will be careful when giving directions because it is hard when students do not understand an activity, and also it is a waste of time, so I will pay attention to it next time. Besides, I will include more dynamic activities in my future lessons in order to do not fall in the same tasks during the controlled activity. Therefore, the next time I teach this lesson, I will include more interesting things in order to get everyone´s participation. Now, regarding to the mistakes, I will take into account Miss. Jimenez´s feedback because it is important to improve my teaching skills, and my biggest mistake was my nervousness, so I will try to relax and do my best in order to avoid these mistakes because it can damage students´ learning process.    



2 comentarios:

  1. The use of technology always makes a class more interesting; however, we always need a plan B because sometimes technology does not work as we want. Definitely we never have to forget monitor the class because in this way we can realize if our students are working or if they are having troubles doing the activities. Nerves never play a good role and I'm pretty sure for that reason you had problems when giving directions.

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  2. It is good that you know all your students because that is how you will approach your teaching lesson in the best way. I think warm-ups, ice groups and those activities are essential in class.

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