My first practice and observation week was from March 7th, 2011 to March 11th, 2011. I went to “Técnica No. 43” High School, and I stayed at the school all the afternoons of the week. This is my Permission Sheet.
The planning of the class
In this week, my work was to prepare six classes, three of them for first grade, with the topic “Daily activities (Present simple)”; and the rest for second grade with the topic “Parts of the house”. Here are my lesson plans.
The material
My Classes
First Grade
When I practiced with first grade students, I could notice it was a big group with students who played and talk between themselves most of the time, so it was hard to get their attention.
At first class I introduced myself and I began with the activity, they should read a text and infer and identify what we were talking about, also they should listen a song and identify the Present Simple sentences, after this, they should write a little paragraph about their daily routines. For my second and third class I had other activities prepared, but I coludn´t finish them, because the time of my first class was reduced, and I couldn´t give my third class because school prepared a dance activity for all students.
Anyway, at my first class students joined in teams and read a text of their English workbook in order to identify what the text was talking about and know the structure of Present Simple, in this way I used communicative approach. They should answer to their activity in their book too. But I discovered there was a lot of vocabulary that they didn´t know. They didn´t understand the meaning of the text and they kept asking questions about vocabulary. These issues made the class slow. But I could learn two things, Vygotsky theory about interaction between students is true, they can help each other with their learning when they don´t know some specific things. But also children must work in small groups, with 6 members top, because otherwise they distract easily.
At my second class they listened to the song, they circled simple present sentences and they write a small paragraph about their daily activities.
Second Grade
At second grade I finished all my class.
At my first class students joined in teams and they make a game by matching words with drawings in order to know the vocabulary of the house. Then they read a text and identified the parts and vocabulary of the house.
A my second class (2 hours) students solved a letter soup in order to know prepositions of place, after that they wrote the new words on their notebooks and also they wrote a few examples of them. Then with drawings, pictures and magazines they create their “dream house” and wrote a description of it.
I really liked to work with second grade, despite they also talk a lot at the beginning of the class and it seems a little hard to get their attention, once you have it they work really well. The participated a lot by matching words with drawings and they really made a great effort when they created their dream house, they worked very well in their teams and they used their creativity to make a great job, also they used the stuff they learned to write the description.
Conclusion
At this practice I could learn a lot of things:
Students like very much to work in teams and play games, they like to participate in contests because contests are a motivation for they do a bigger effort. Also they like to use their creativity, they like to draw, cut and paste things and decorate their drawings, I think that when they do things they like they reach a better learning and understanding.
Also when they work in teams they can help each other and this shows how Vygotsky interaction theory works.
First grade was a difficult group for me, because they got distracted a lot, but I noticed how the teacher of the group uses in an efficient way warm up techniques in order o attract and keep the attention of the class.
The second grade teacher explained to me a concept I didn´t know: “continuous evaluation”, and she said that I must evaluate students in a permanent way, even if they don´t know that, I must pay attention to their participations and everything they do at the class, so when they get a grate I will be able to justify it.
