My last experience

Hello guys!! I want to share with you my last class of this nice experience.

I started my class by greeting the students and having a chat with them;  then I asked them if they liked old music and they said yes!!! So I gave them a page with thy lyrics of “If you leave me now “’ by Chicago, they had to fill in the blanks with what they listened to, then they sang the song. They enjoyed it a lot because they liked it. After that, I explained the grammar about the first conditional, and they understood fast because I used common examples for them to get the information easier, then they completed some fill in the blanks and created some sentences using the target structure.

 As next activity I asked them to make two groups (A and B) to make a competition, so I pasted a clause in the board and one of the team run and wrote the other clause, in this activity they had to use their imagination, and believe me that they did a great job. Unfortunately I could not perform the last activity in which 3 of them were going to pretend to be candidates for being president, so they were going to use the first conditional making promises and the others were going to choose who was going to be the winner.

At the end I said thank you for their participation, because they were very nice.

I really enjoyed this experience, I learned a lot from my teacher, tutors, students, co worker and all of you. Thank you for every comment and pieces of advice you gave me.  Now we are ready for the next step.

May God bless you all!!!

Second class

Hello guys!! I hope you are happy because we are almost done with this nice experience!

Let me tell you that I had my second class the last Monday; as always I started by greeting them and then I asked them to stand up to play "pass the ball" as warm up, they person who kept the ball had to say something like "I like doing this... but i don not like... or I enjoy, I can,I would like, etc" this to practice gerunds and infinitives. This clas was a review of the same topic "verb patterns" ; after the warmp up they worked in pairs to complete a reading in which they have to write in infinitive o gerund the verb  they had in parenthesis, everything was nice, the only thing was that I did not give them enough time, so some of them did not finish the work and my tutor told me that I should have given more time, because the reading was a little bit long; then I asked them to form two teams and I gave them some situations, in which they had to help people by giving pieces of advice, I told them the verbs they should use; I did this to know if they could use the target structure and I felt happy beacause they did it very well!!!

To finish the class we used a dice, I asked 3 volunteers and they throw it, in two of the faces the word "candy" , the other two "say a sentences using to or ing" and the other one" magic bag" so they had to take a paper from it and had to answer the question using the target structure.

I enjoy this class as well and now I am waiting for my last one!! Thank you very much, have a good day!!

My first class

I had my class with intermediate I the last Thursday. The topic was "Verb patterns" I found it a little hard because there are a lot of rules and verbs for them to learn.

I started my class with a warm up called "the ping pong words" all of you already know it; it did not work as it did with us, anyways they had fun at the end.

After that, I introduced the topic by asking them about gerunds and infinitives to know how much they knew about the topic, then I explained them 4 patterns; when they should use infinitives, gerunds, modals and both (infinitives and gerunds); then I asked them to make pairs to work in a written activity and when they finished I checked their work with the whole group.

For the last activity I asked for 3 volunteers and 3 of them run; we played "about me" in which you as teacher ask them about what they like or dislike, enjoy etc, they have to use the patterns in this game; so I did some questions like "what do you enjoy doing in your free time? So they started to use the target language and it was great!!

This is a nice group, they like to participate because they are eager to learn, and if they do not understand something they ask.

Thank you for your comments and pieces of advice guys!!!

Intermediate I

I had my class the last Monday and I enjoyed it a lot, because the students were very active and participative. I began the class with a warm up activity that was also the presentation of the topic; I made a chart with the name of the topic (Phrasal verbs) and prepared some numbers made with foamy to cover the topic. I wrote some questions using the common phrasal verbs like “When do you usually get up?” so they chose one number and I asked them the question with that number, at the end they saw the topic and I started with the grammar explanation. I gave a list of 12 phrasal verbs and I worked just with those ones; after the explanation I gave them two sheets of paper with the controlled practice and they did a good job. After that, I pasted some phrasal verbs around the classroom and I asked them to make two groups to make a competition; I said the meaning of the pv and they had to run and get the correct pv, they had fun with this activity and I could see how much they had understood the topic. At the end, I asked them to make one sentence using a pv, then they were going to pass in front to the class and read his/ her sentence, but saying “jigglypuff” instead of the pv, so that the others could guess the pv, this activity was to see if they could use the target structure, and they did a great job and had fun.

 Thank God I am learning a lot with the practices. When I received the feedback I realized that I have improved a lot, and it made feel proud of myself, because it is nice when you see the results of your effort.

Thank you for your comments my friends, blessings!!

Intermediate I

Hello guys! I hope you are doing well.  Let me tell you that I had my second class with this group the last Monday and this was a special class, because I had some problems with my attitude. As my tutor told me, this is good for us to happen in our practices for gaining experience.

I have always tried to be on time in my classes, but I could not arrive on time that day and it affected me a lot; to be sincere I do not know what happened to me that day.

The topic was comparative and superlatives; I started my class with a song (Fighter by Christina Aguilera) as warm up, and they had to underline the adjectives, but while the music was playing I noticed that no one was underlining, so I asked some of them and they told me that they did not remember what an adjective is. When the music stopped I explained to them what an adjective is; after underlying the adjectives I told them that we were going to sing the song and I played the song again, but I saw some of them talking, so I stopped the music and told them “as nobody is singing I am going to start with the grammar explanation!”, everybody got like surprised and I started. I just wanted to take advantage of the time and I did not realize what I was doing.

I used a power point presentation to explain the topic and it was nice, because they understood, I included some exercises in the ppt and they solved them on the board. After that, I gave them some sheets of paper with more exercise and I explained the doubts they had. Every time they were with their cell phones I said “please put your cell phones away!!!” or “speak in English!!!”

When I finished my class, I apologized for having arrived late and thanked them for their participation.  I like to analyze what I do in every class, and that day  I felt bad and ashamed because of my attitude, I am not in that way. In my feedback the teacher told exactly what I have told me myself before; the students asked the teacher was happed with me, they asked him “Was she angry? She is not like that” I was with them the last semester. A girl thought that I got angry because she was with her cell phone and they tried to guess why I got angry for some minutes he said. I was not angry; I do not know what happened with me that day. The teacher told me that he was surprised, and that I have to control myself in my classes. I appreciated every word he told me and I know that I was worried because of the time and other things, but I am sure this won´t happen again, I will be better in the next classes.

Your pieces of advice are welcome. Thank you very much!!

Intermediate I (second period, first class)

I had my first class with this group the last Monday, and I was eager to start, because I had this group the last semester and I remember that it was a little bit hard, for they were afraid of making mistakes; that is why, they did not like to participate. In the observation I could see that now they are totally different and love to participate.

I started the class by greeting them and saying what I want in my classes; then I began the warm up activity "Follow the leader", and they had fun; then I made a review of "the verbs with two objects"; after that, they practiced the topic with some exercises I gave to them and they did it very well. I could see that they had understood the topic.

 For the next activity, I divided them into 2 groups for making a competition activity, so I gave an envelope with some sentence strips to each group for them to form the sentences putting the indirect and direct object correctly. They showed me that they knew what they were doing; both groups did it very well.

I finished the class by saying thank you for their participation, they are a nice group, believe me that they are totally different and that is great!

Thank you for your time and comments my friends!

Intermediate I

Hello guys!! This is my last class with this group and I liked it. I started by greeting them as every class, and then we played “The hot seat” , I divided them into two groups and each group had to choose someone who had to be sitting in front of them to guess a word that the teacher had written on the board. The others had to mimic for the person to guess it. I used words like ghost, scary story, dark, monsters, etc. After that, they had a listening in which two persons were talking about scary stories, and they liked it, they worked in pairs; one of them answered the first part and the other one the other part, it was nice because they had a listening quiz after my class. Then, they worked in groups of 5 and I gave them a sheet of paper with a scary story, they had to read it and create a new one using the target structure (past simple and past continuous) and although we did not have enough time, they did their best and created the scary stories practicing the target structure.

Thank God I finished the practices of the first period and I know that we all have learned and improved a lot. Thank you, for your comments and suggestions guys, blessings!!!