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.
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