Cristela, Monica and Gisselt: First Class

Hello!!! 

We continue with our discussion, analysis and comments about this first class with our fantastic children! This time as the headline describes, Monica, Cristela and Gisselt taught the English class. They developped the topics: numbers from eleven to twenty, days of the week, colors and prepositions. 

Let me say that I observed the students so enthusiastic and happy for the second part of this English classes! At the very first greeting they wanted to start, so the class began with the "Hello song", so they start feeling that the class had started. They sang it so well. They are starting to sing it alone. Monica started the song using three helpers. The girls pasted three images: happy, sad and hungry. The images were sticked on the wall. Monica moved each time the song said the adjectives, the kids were in line behind her... this gave the song more meaning. I liked it. 

Then, Monica continue with the warm up. I liked it because she used the spinning wheel to get the kids involved in the review! She spinned the wheel and the categories were like 5 or 6, in which she had to show them so they can say the name of the image. The spinning wheel pointed the Family category, so the students were competing 6 girls and boys against 5 girls and boys. They were all participating, but in order to win they had to grab a box so they can say the correct name of the image that Monica showed them. They were not angry if they lose the opportunity to say the correct name of the image. Even my case of study, Mariel participated, but did not answer quick. 

The calendar is one of those activities that children can see. They saw the days of the week and some of the numbers. I enjoyed watched them as Giss gave them one paper with a different color and a number. They had to go to the board and identify their number. However, Giss taught them the order of the days of the week (second time) and the numbers as well. 

I think that the way she conducted the presentation and the practice gave them the opportunity to learn by identifying the numbers more with colors. They were paying attention and were concentrated. 

 Imelda's card was color red and the number was 4. She managed really well. Monica told me that she is very perceptive and she is paying attention to everything, though you can see her talking with Maritza or with other girls. she is auditive and visual. This helped her to syncronize where to put the number in the calendar. 

 Alan did really well, as usual! He likes to participate in every activity and he models also for the rest of the class. As a teacher, you can take him to help the less participative students. 

 I was really pleased to see him participate. I think he liked the fact that the class involucrated numbers, order and  logic. The calendar activated this skill. We have to remmeber that multiple inteligences reflects that important part of our competences. This activity aim to Math, in less forms of course. He was very fast doing this activity and the next one that was conducted by Giss. He was paying attention, focused and he demostrated that he enjoyed the class! 

The next practice: The wagon days of the week

The activity was focused on the days of the week. Well, I liked it because the children stayed quiet and focused on the task. Giss told me that the more the activity is about doing, manipulating on the part of the children, the better because that way they do not feel bored thus this generate that they work more instead of the teacher doing, talking etc. 

This means that the wagon gave them the chance to demonstrate how much they had remember the order of the days of the week and also to have a little bit of fun in the process of pasting the wagons in the sheet of paper. I liked that Giss modeled and explained how she wanted the train to be done: horizontal sheet of the paper, days of the week had to be put in order and that was it. Raymund and his friends finished it quickly and Giss was happy about it. 

 The Days of the Week Train! 

To me this activity facilitated the topic of colors and the days of the week. Giss modeled the activity of saying a day of the week, "Monday" and she trow the ball in the box. By doing this, she wanted them to copy and think of the vocabulary. 
The boxes were in order. To me a variation could have been to put the boxes in desorder, so you can measure how much they had clarified the topic. However, as Giss told me they need more inforcement in the days. This can be done in later interventions where they see the days in desorder. I agree with her, since we all knew that it was a new topic. 

Then, Cristela explained more the days of the week. I think that they had much reinforcement in this topic as well as the numbers from 11 to 20. I can see that they had internalized the colors, even the white color. She started with retelling the order, then she ordered to close the eyes. They did and she unpasted two or three days of the week that were in the wall. 

They opened the eyes and she asked one or two students to see what day was left. Even when, Imelda participated was able to grab one day and pasted on the right spot! I was so happy! 

They repeated the same action like four times and they were parcipating. I like to point that when the oldest children were done in participation they were talking so much and playing around with each other. 

This is something that it happened to me and what I would have done at the moment when they started to chat is to put myself in the middle of them or to call their attention sufficiently so they knew that I wanted them to be quiet while the others were passing to the front. This is something to improve on. I noticed that she was a bit fustrated because they were not paying attention to the other students and Cristela did not say anything to them. She was nervous, I guess. I cannot blame her, this is something that often happens because it was already late and they all wanted to go; she might have noticed the time and stopped the activity so they began to feel like the activity was going to end. 

then, Cristela gave them Clay of different color. The only comment I have is that since this activity is so time consuming, it would have been better to put this last activity as the previous one, so they can have more time and have fun. Antoher variation is to have put this activity as the first one, so they have more time and have the opportunity to complete it. They all seem to enjoy it and they were so quiet that it meant that they were enjoying it so much. They all wanted it to finish because it was the first time with clay. They all seem like continuing but it was to leave. 

They sang the "Good Bye song" and a snack was given. They all were very happy at the end of the class!

Workshop Day! Activities and Techniques to implement in English Classes!

WORKSHOP DAY! 

Hello everybody! 

It is my pleasure to continue writing and sharing with you something not new maybe for you, but it is very important in any class to incorpore them and use them for the children you teach. Well, at my practicum I, teacher Yanni wanted us to create or innovate some of the activities or techniques that she listed and we had to developped it. In the group we are eleven students, so each of us explained how to do it and implement it in a stage of the planning (English Class). 
Let's start:

1. Recycled Shaker

The activity was explained by Juan Carlos aka JC. He explained that we can use an empty drink can, pebbles, colored papers and some other things you wanted to put in to can to decorate it. 
The steps were very easy to do and he created one while he explained how to make it. The can was no longer a simple, cilindric can, he made it shine with bright foamy and some other prompts that were pasted around the can. It was so cute, of course the pebbles give it the sense that it is a musical instrument, so you can use it to sing with the students and move around, to call their attention when they are making noise or fooling around the class...endless posibilities! :D To me the greatest part was when the can was finished, it was so creative and colourful!! 

2. Clay

Well, when I saw Cristela with the material she had with her I thought that it is a great material to work with! She decided to make a snail from the clay, she used green, yellow, blue and red, a pencil and two little sticks to form the animal. 
She initiated the activity and I inmediately wanted to copy her! Since it is a technique that it needs your hands, you feel really comfortable to manipulate it and start to remember those amazing days from kinder garden! Stop! Let's continue... So, our teacher requested her to give a bit of the clay to everybody, so we can experieced it. We had fun and it is very easy to do! You just roll pieces of clay into long tails, let's say and that will be the body. Then, we made the body and you repeat the first step and then you press the clay to make it plain. Then, the snail body is put on the plain part  of the snail! You make the head and use the sticks to put the eyes of the snail up. I really liked it! Kids love to manipulate things and they can see how easy is to create or learn in your classroom. 

3. Spinning Wheel Technique

This activity was chosen by Monica. She brought to the class a greaaaaat example of her to show off! It was a iron construction of the spinning wheel, and she created a styrofoam rulette with activities in each section of the wheel! The example included some of the topics our children had learned. It think that it is a great activity for kids to review everyday. Teachers can use it with differents contents, like: Any grammar content, vocabulary, reading , listening comprehension, questions about other topics. It is for me one useful and magnific tool to create! The cost of this activity in our country, cost around $6.50 and I know that some other people will be interested in applying it. The kids will love continue playing with it and since it is based on a game, Monica adapted to learn English! What a great idea! 

4. Telling a story

Raul made a story of a mouse and some other characters in a platform made of carton paper and some white sheets of papers. The story, he mentioned, only contained pictures of the story. This is timelined so everything is told in a sequencial way... This is so helpful to children because they can imagine the story with your body movements, your voice, the drama you incorpore in how you tell it, so they can live it! Raul shared with us some of the facts that we can count on at the moment of telling a story:
1. Have an interesting story to tell
2. Memorize the basic story
3. Use your hands to emphasize the story
4. Use facial expressions
5. Allow your voice to be expressive.
6. Add details (the students can even tell how the story ends, or participate in the middle of it) 
7. Practice in advance! 

All of these steps will help you so much if you happen to have a nice story and want to share it with the class!!! This helps so much, I think that when the teachers incorpore anecdotes, stories of any genre and transform the into something learnable, then children will get the best of it! 

5. Chants and songs

This activity was carried by Juan. He wanted to show a song, it was "Days of the Week". He made us stand up and he started to model it for us. We all enjoyed it and he gave us a tip for a new rythim to use in other songs or lyrics. Also, teacher Yanni taught us another song, with the military intonation using the "Alphabet song". The classical one but with the military sound of the pitch at the end. We must use at least two songs in our classes, because we all know that children love to sing in their L1, and why not to incorporate one in L2? With patience and modeling, we have noticed that they are so capable of singing!

6. Boxes

In here, Gisselt transform simple boxes into a nice idea to copy! She covered simple shoes boxes into a something that we can use to revise how our children had acquired the vocabulary or other items. The teacher shouts out the names of the animals, for example and students wil have balls to throw into the boxes. If they got what words was, the box will have on the top the image only. So, the teacher says "ruler" the child will throw the ball into the "ruler box", and so on. She gave us a nice idea and it is cheap, useful and great for the children because in here it is observable if they got the vocabulary or not. You can use it to review topics, vocabulary and see how much students need to practice your lessons!!


7. Disposable Plates

I liked this activity that Mercy explained. Disposable plates are easy for children to manipulate and they can enjoy any activity with this material. She made for us a bag using disposable plates. We even saw her making one bag and it is easy to make. She put some glitter on to be more attractive to children. She wanted this idea to be used with the "clothes" topic. She explained that we can give our students pieces of the clothes to children so they can dress a picture! What a nice idea! Children will only use glue and their pencil colours. 

8. Memory Game
Iliana made three sets of memory games, so we can see how to construct them. It is basicaly cheap to make and if we think about the possibilities of the memory game, well you can see it if we put this in an activity! 
It is so nice that they can play and at the same time learn words and the correspondant pictures! We can even designed one bigger so that everyone in the class can participate at the same time! Teacher Yanni explained it and I think that it is a great idea, too! It is again, unexpensive and great to do with children.


9. Puppets

I liked this activity very much! I like when Luis pretended to be the puppet, well he softened his voice and talked like a little mouse! This activity is great to put in an activity for the students! Luis explained us three kids of ways to make puppets:
The 2D puppet, sock and finger puppet. I liked the sock puppet because you can personalize it and use it like your friend, helper, assistant, etc with the kids! 

10. Hat and Crowns
Gloria made us think about how hat can be part of the class. She thought of moods hats. Each children will create one, reflecting how they feel at that moment, sad, happy, angry, etc. Instead of creating it, children can easily create one and have fun in the process.  
This also helps the teacher and the children to know more about each other. Feelings are also important! She used foamy and showed us a template of a party hat, that we can copy from. It is so good to know that a simple hat can demostrate other things in a class. They can be decorated as much as they want! 

11. Name Tags

This activity was carried by me! I will develop it in here for you: 

First, design a name tag with a double color paper with the form of a face (boy and girl) and it would be better if you use a hard paper, that way it will not be weak to use. The faces will have the children's name on. Then, it is important to ake sure that thses faces have doucle portion of paper, so the child can open the face and see what is inside. They will either find the word of the vocabulary target or the picture. Depending on how much studens you have, that will depend how much faces of name tags you will need. Make sure they match. For example: Banana the word, and Banana the picture. You can then say that they have to look for the matching word or picture to continue working. After this, teacher can use the grammar point or other topics to ask and work with them. 
I selected the topic "Food and Drinks" and printed the images in pasted inside the name tag. I created this activity to be used in a practice stage. 

Stage of planning:
Practice
Students will get in pairs by looking for their partners (using the name tags). Then, the teacher will show them the vocabulary they have in their name tags. These are: banana, candy, soda, water, pizza, hamburger, melon, donut (whatever your selection of these words). After this, the teacher will ask the whole group: Is soda good for you? this will be ask to the whole group, but the teacher can decide if to ask like that or just one pair at a time. Also, the negative counterpart: Is water bad for you? 
Also, to make this clear, the teacher will use, thumbs up or down for the good and bad words. 

Cost of materials:

-For the two pliegos of hard paper (cartoncillo): $0.80 cents. 
-Fabriano paper type: $2.25 each
-Glue
-Printed images: $0.80 approximately. 


See you!!

Mercy and Ingrid's class: My family

Friday, September 27th, 20013

Hello!! 


This time I will discuss my own experience regarding the positive and negative facts or expeciences that I experieced with my partner Mercy. 



The English class begun singing the "How are you today" song. Children were in a circle, singing with us the lyric. They all wanted to participate and we let them know that it was time for English class. Then, we continue with the warm up activity. Mercy managed this part. I think that she was capable of developing the warm up nicely. The commands were easy to understand because they had already learned the vocabulary that Mercy wanted them to recall. They jumped when they heared the word "ball", they sit down for the word "bed", etc. They started to do the commands, and the fact that they saw pictures of the words helped them to remember and finally do the activity as Mercy planned it. This also is important because some students are visual and they take advantage of this. 

Process! 

Mercy prepared a presentation in which she showed a family, they were the father, mother, brother, sister, grandmother and grandfather. Each slide was neat and specific. This gave the clear meaning of each picture. 
She pointed the picture and elicit the name of the person. She introduced the question for people usage: "Who is this?" and added the "Yes, it is and No, it is not" in the way they had to answer. She modeled and they answered. She used also number for identifying the members of the family, so she can elicit if the vocabulary was being remembered. She pointed to number five and asked Who is she? The students answered with the single word "mother!" and also they were properly corrected, when Mercy asked pointing to mother and father "who are they?" They answered: Mummy and daddy. So, I liked how first Mercy stopped here to elicit if they know the vocabulary, they did know but in other ways, informal. So, she corrected this at the moment and they no longer called them informaly, but formaly. They also continue to practice the new vocabulary in trios, the flashcards helped them to identify only the image with what Mercy was giving to show her. The only thing that everybody agree on is that not everybody had the opportunity to participate because only 6 flascards per trio were given. Thus, only two or one of the trio participated more. Then, I think that they caught the message and reached the aim of the activity. Then, it was my turn to continue with the class. They were given number to be part of a group of four and then I gave them a matching exercise which had to take turns to complete it. They gathered and gave them also crayons to make the line of the matching. I was monitoring them and they did it so fast!!! I admit that I did not expected that they finish the exercise so fast, but then I did not panic and decide that they were the ones that had to revise the activity. So, I invited one group to check their partner's work and so on. The only thing was that I did not develop the activity so that everyone went to see one specific group's job, so that they were not uneasy and had the chance to check the matching like a museum. I just do not know what to do and forget to think that the fact of finishing quickly gave them the chance to go around or talk. So, the reflection for this activity is to think how to manage the whole group so that everyone is engage in the same activity and at the same time.
Then, I continued with a more visual activity. The crossword was a success with the oldest children, but for example the little ones were not in the same level of searching of the words. So, I think that this activity is not well suitable for them. They founded all the words and were very happy to received a glitter sticker! After this activity, I complemented the use of the vocabulary target by doing puppets. They were very confused with the prompts that each puppet needed. I failed when I said at the moment they were done with the crossword: "You can go back to your seats"; when I said this everybody went directly to the desks and sit. It was in this exact moment when the next activity crashed down!!! I should have remember that the principal idea was to let the students sit in the floor! I just was not paying attention to my words and I just said them! Then, I felt completely bad about myself and the activity, because they could have done better and me included  if they were sitted on the floor, so that I could have reached and they could have felt more comfortable. This also, brought discipline breakdowns, I mean that they were talking too much and making noise, I was not able to reach them properly (too much distance to reach them sitted in the desks) and I could not make error correction. The last activity was to remember the prepositions using the puppets they created, but I just grabbed one and started to asked them: "Where is the brother?" and they said: "It is on the house". I just asked them four I guess and they were quiet familiar with this topic as well. 

Then, we invited the students to sing the last song and they just mumured the song, but they totally like to move their bodies with Mercy and I. 


This was all. I will post the planning as well:

Teaching Practicum I “Teaching English to Children”

Names of the Teachers: Ingrid Girón& Mercy Márquez                       Date: 09-27-13

Lesson: 3                                                                                         Topic: My Family

Vocabulary: Father, mother, sister, brother, grandfather, grandmother.

Objective of the lesson: By the end of this lesson, SWBATidentify and use at least between 40% and 80% of the target language presented in the lesson in the “Family Song” using the family members’ flashcards. (and those who can already identify and use the 40% or more of  it will be able to use it more fluently).
Time	Stage	Procedure	Notes
2-5” 5-6”	Welcome Song and video Warm up	I will set up the video so the students can again sing along with both teachers. Children stand up in a circle and I give them directions to follow: When I say “CAR”, it means 'walk around' “BED” = sit down (on the floor) “BALL” = jump.  I say the directions as I want, for example: bed, doll, car or doll, car, bed, etc. and Ss just have to do what it is expected with that word. Then, I will speed up a little more.	Aim of the activity: To get Ss sing. This helps them know that they are welcomed to the class. Materials: Speakers, projector and computer. Aim of the activity: to start thinking in English. Type of learner: A-K Interaction:T-Ss Materials:none Responsible:Mercy
15”	Presentation	Introduce the topic “My family” by showing them some pictures in order to elicit some vocabulary. Then, have them repeat vocabulary up to three times. I will show them the flashcards and then I will say the word twice. The six vocabulary items will be explained this way.Ss will see the family´s power point presentations that have the family members with pictures to get the target vocabulary clearer. After this, SS will imagine that the pictures in the flashcards represent a family member for all of them. For example, the picture which has a mother on it that will be the mother for all. Ss are asked: “Who’s this?” “Is that the mother?” (Pointing a picture), if the picture corresponds to the word “mother, they should say “Yes, it is”; on the contrary, they should say “no, it’s not” (I will model this).	Aim of the activity:Encounter and remember target language. Type of learner:V-A Interaction:T-Ss Materials: family members’ flashcards and the “Family” power point presentation. Responsible:Mercy
10”	Practice	1-Ss sit on the floor. They will work in trios; every trio will have the 6 family members’ flashcards with them. I will show and say out loud a family member name, and every trio will have to show me the right flashcard according to what I say. For example, if I show and say: “brother”, Ss have to raise and show the flashcard that I have asked for. To check it is the right flashcard, I will see every group. If a trio does not have the correct flashcard, I will ask them “Is that your brother?” if they say “yes”, I will ask everybody the same question, so they can get help. When either the trio or the whole group say “no”, I will ask them “Who’s this?” until I get the right answer.	Aim of the activity:To get students practice the new target vocabulary. Type of learner:V-A-T Interaction:T-Ss Materials:Family member´s flashcards and their names. Responsible:Mercy
15”		2- Students will form 4 groups. This is how they will be together:  On the floor there will be 4 images, for example: Teddy bear, Ball, Chair, and Book. Each child will get a strip of paper with a number from 1 to 4. They will be working according to the number they have. For number one´s: Teddy Bear; Two´s: Ball; Three´s: Chair; Four´s: Book. Next, students will work in groups in order to match the word with the image. I will give them the exercise. Each group will have one to work with. They will take turns to resolve the matching exercise. For this, I will also give them a color pencil so that they take turns in matching one item at a time. I will monitor them if they happen to have troubles with the exercise. The vocabulary that will appear in this activity are the following words: Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Grandmother, Grandfather, Ruler, Bed, Pen, Eraser.	Aim of the activity: To match the word spelling with the picture. Type of learner: V-K Interaction: T-Ss Materials: the matching images with their words, 10 images and 10 words in the quarter of fabriano paper. Responsible: Ingrid
15”		3-I will have on the board the crossword with 16 vocabulary words that Ss have learned the last two weeks. I will say something like: “We will do an activity of finding words in this crossword soup!  I want you to look at the crossword and look for one of these words”. I will give them a small piece of colored chalk to highlight the word. These are the following words that will be on the crossword: Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Grandmother, Grandfather, Ruler, Bed, Pen, Eraser, Pencil, Ball, Book, Yellow, Red, Family; 16 in total. Then, I will first say the word and then they will repeat it after me. I will call them by their name so that each one has an opportunity to pass and find a word.	Aim of the activity: To find the target vocabulary in order to identify and get familiar with the spelling. Type of learner: V-T Interaction: T-Ss Materials: the crossword in the board, chalk to highlight the founded word.  Responsible: Ingrid
15”-20”		4-Ss will get an individual kit of the prompts that they will use to make their family members´ puppets, glue and I will be monitoring them in case they need my help to glue something. They will have the six family members and at the end I will ask them to show me the “father”, like this: “Show me father”, “Show me mother, and so on”. I will also elicit the number of the members of the family: “How many members of the family are? Ss will say: “one, two, three.” or I will say the numbers and they will raise the puppet meaning “one”, “two” and so on. Finally, I will say “What color is the…” in order to get the colors of the different prompts of the puppets and I can include the “Who is this…” by pointing to one of the Ss´s puppet and have them say orally the answer.	Aim of the activity: To get students doing their own version of a family using puppets. Type of learner: T Interaction: T-SS Materials: All the puppets prompts: wool hair, sticks with the cartoon circle, bar glue, and accessories and their own bag for saving the puppets. Responsible: Ingrid
Closure: 2”-3”    SS and Teachers (Mercy and Ingrid will guide the students to end of the lesson by singing the “Goodbye Song”). Ts will something like:  “Now, it is time to leave so we are going to sing the “Goodbye Song”, let´s stand up and join us!” Ts will begin singing along with the SS doing the song’s body movements as the last week. We will sing acapela.
Assignments and announcements

See you around!

Raul and Juan Jose's Class: My Pet

Hello, again my classmates! 



This time I will discuss some of the interesting facts about Raul and Juan José class. Their topic was about "My pet". They had to include in the grammar part, "Do you have a ..Yes, I do. No, I don't". I thought at the begining that the children were not going to be able to understand this part. Though, I was willing to see how my partners were going to develop the topic and the other items of the class. 
They started sharply. Students were given the opportunity to go to the bathroom so they cannot interrupt the class in the practice stage. Then, the class started. The first one to teach was Juan José. He started to show the students flashcards with the animals: cat, dog, snake, rabbit, turtle and bird. They loved the pictures, they recognized some like dog and cat. Then, Juan José asked them to select the word that he elicited, like "cat" and an specific child was called to grab the name and stick it in the chart. This was very nice managed and controlled by Juan. 
I also like the fact that at the begining they use a power point presentation to show the pictures of the animals. They even count the letters one by one, this was useful because we again observed how much they are internalizing the vocabulary.
The images were clear and neat for the students to understand. 


Then, Juan  ask the students to make a circle, then the teacher will show them a wrong flashcard and he said: "Is this a cat?"  and students responded accordingly to the picture. Amazingly, the students responded to the questions that Juan asked! I was so surprised and happy for this!

I want to point out that Raul in the next activity created a good activity, but I think that the instructions were long and complicated for them to get the idea. Also, he seemed to be nervous because it was the first contact he had. He also did not modeled how he wanted the activity to be done. I think that if he had done the modeling, he could have had reached his aim. Thought, after this Raul seemed to be better. 

Images too complex  and dark to understand complicate their visual area.

The next activity "sharks are coming" failed in the following aspects: 

1. The picture he wanted to use was to dark to see and in this picture Michelle was struggling to see what was the image about. Then, the sharks were not one but three! I think that this was because the activity called out to be plural. Thus,  I think that this activity was not so easy to do. I think that it was designed for a teen group, because it involved many instructions. 

However, Raul shine in the last activity where he gave the students a kind of book with gaps to fill in.  This was so nice to see kids filling the spaces and getting the message of the activities. I just saw that they were very interested in completing the book and showing them to Raul; I just noticed that they were not receiving any motivation when they finished the activity. I think Raúl, could have thought on giving them something in reward. After this, they had the book to take out and were very happy!!!!

Case of Study: Imelda!

Imelda was very enthusiastic to practice! I think that Imelda was very shy in some things because they sometimes do not understand the whole message! in the case of Imelda, she is being helped by Maritza, but this does not interfere at the moment when she is asked about something! She responded according to what she is asked and then she continued to anything she was doing. I liked when she was doing the activity  of the animal's book. She even asked Raúl about the reading area because she is not able to read in Spanish nor even in English, though she filled the gaps of the animals.