Intermediate I (First class)

Hello there!! I hope you are fine.

I had the first class of this semester on Monday 29th, and it was a hard day for me, because  my great grand mother had problems with her health and I could not leave home early, so I came really late to the University, but I talked to the teacher and thank God she understood the situation and gave me the second hour.

I started the class by greeting the students and introducing myself, then  I developed a warm up activity called “truth or lie” in which they write 3 sentences (2 of them are true and the other one false) and at the end , they guess what the lie is; they had fun and and get relaxed, because I started my class after a quiz.  After that, I explained the grammar structure (so and such) I gave them  some examples describing some of them and they understood the topic; then they solved a multiple choice activity and I noticed that they did not make many mistakes, and that made me feel great. I could not develop the rest of the lesson plan, because as I told you before, I had som problems at home and I had to teach in the second hour, also they had a quiz, so I taught just 30 minutes. Even though I did not have enough time, I can say that I did my best, because I was worried about my grandma, but I left my problems when I began the class and that made me feel that I have improved a lot.

Thank you for reading and leave you comments, I wish you the best and I know that every of us is learning new things, blessings my friends!!

Basic level (Last class)

Today ( May, 20^th) I had my last class with this group. I started the class with a warm up in which the teacher starts by saying; for example, “I went to the market and I bought some fish”, then, the students have to continue this by saying something similar, but using another word related with food, this game was for them to practice the vocabulary about food and introduce the topic “countable and uncountable nouns”. Then, I explained the topic, besides explaining the countable and uncountable nouns, I explained the use of “some and any”, unfortunately I had to improvise, because I had some problems with technology. After that, I gave the students a sheet of paper that contained a list of vocabulary about food and they had to write if they were countable or uncountable, they had some problems with some words, but they did it very well, because as the teacher told me, they already knew about the topic. In the next activity they imagined that they were going to go to a picnic the next day, so they needed to prepare a shopping list for going to the market, I gave them some minutes for them to write the list, then 3 volunteers shared what they had written and believe me that they did a great job. The last activity was a race board, I asked them to make two groups (A and B) and then they made two lines in front of the whiteboard, group A had to write uncountable nouns and group B the countable ones, they started to write and had fun, after some minutes I said “stop!” and checked what they had wrote, I felt glad, because the only mistake that one of the group had was a repetition of a word.

I am happy for having finished this experience, It was very nice for me to learn in this way; I learned from every tutor I had, and also from my co worker.  I had good and bad moments and every time was a lesson for me. I hope you have enjoyed these practices my friends. Thank you for your comments!! May God bless you all!!!

Basic level

On Wednesday 8th, I had my second class with this group; I taught that day, because of mother's day. I started the class with a game called "people to people" as warm up, in which you have to say different parts of the body like knee to knee and the students have to look for another person and put together the parts of the body the teacher says, and when the teacher says "people to people" all the class get together. Then, they performed two written activities for them to practice the negative and interrogative form of the past tense; I saw again that they continue having problems with this tense, and tried to explain one more time. After that, we had an activity called "yesterday" in which one of them had to past in front of the classmates and tell a little bit about what he/she did yesterday, then the others had to make some questions to that person in order to get more information. They practiced the interrogative form with this activity and I could correct them if I heard any mistake. 

At the end, I performed an activity named "balloons", in which they had to pass a teddy bear while some music was playing, when the music stopped the person who kept the teddy bear had to stand up and burst one of the balloon that were pasted on the wall, inside the balloon there was a paper with a sentence is the past tense, they had to change it and write on the board the negative or interrogative form of those sentences. 

Thank God they did it well, and there was just a mistake.

I felt that the first class was better than this one, maybe because of the activities, but what matters is that they practiced more the topic to be more prepared for the exam. I will do it better next time.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions people!! Blessings!! :)

Basic level

I had the class with this level today and I enjoyed it a lot. This group is very particular because there is just one boy, another thing is that the most of them have failed the subject 3 times, so probably they will not be able to continue with the major, because according to the teacher, they will fail one more time; so when I was preparing the lesson, I thought to do something meaningful for them.

I started by dividing the class in two groups, then I told them some verbs in present tense, and they had to run and write the verb in the past tense on the board, the group that wrote the verb correctly got a point, they had fun and I could diagnose how much they know about the topic. After that, I asked them to work in pairs and I gave them a crossword in which they had to write the verb in past, they did it very well, they just made a mistake in one verb. For the next activity, I gave them a sheet of paper with the lyrics of a song that had some mistakes in the verbs, so they had to underline the mistakes and correct them. After that, they played the tic tac toe and I noticed some mistakes there; they had to pick a piece of paper with a verb in present, then they had to write a sentence using that verb in past tense, and they had problems doing this, but was harder for them to write a question; so I tried to explain a little bit and then each group wrote a question and believe me that they did it very well, they did not forget the auxiliary this time.

I like this group, because I think it is a challenge and I love that, because you get experience. You do not know what future brings to your life, so we have to take advantage of each experience we have.

Last class with Intermediate II

I had my last class with this group the last Tuesday, and let me tell you that it was a little hard for me to get their attention, because it was the first day of class, and I noticed that they were shy, because they did not want to participate and they told me they were tired.

The topic was the future tense (going to, will and present continuous) and it was a review, so I did not have to explain it.

As warm up I performed a ring onion activity and I asked them to stand up and make two circles, the students who were in the inner circle were called students B and the other ones students A. They walked while some music was playing and when the music stopped they had to stop as well, and discuss some questions regarded to the topic. They had fun with this activity and the teacher told me that he liked it, but it would have been better if they would have created the questions. Then, we discussed some questions about the future, but they did not use the future tense in the most of the answers, so I had to tell them that they had to pay attention to the structure of the question. After that, I asked them to make groups of 4 and then I gave them a board game, some beans and a pair of dices, and they enjoyed the game. At the end, they passed a ball while some music was playing and when the music stopped the student who kept the ball had to stand up and choose a paper from the magic bag, the papers contained questions that students had to answer using the future tense. At the end, I thanked them for being so kind and participative.

I really enjoyed the practice with this group, because it was different; they are participative, but not too much! You have to be a very enthusiastic teacher for them to participate; I know I have to learn a lot of things, but this experience was very nice! It was like a challenge, they have some problems with some topics they have studied before, and this one was not the exception, they asked a lot of things and you have to be ready to answer! So I learned to read a lot before teaching with this group and that is great!!

Thank you for your time, thank you for reading my entry and for your comments! May God bless you all J

Intermediate II

Yesterday, I had my second class with this group. I started my class by greeting the students, and then we started with the warm up activity. To introduce the topic, I brought some pictures in which there was a person doing or making something, the topic was "Make and Do", so I asked the students to guess what the person in the picture was doing or making; for example, in an image, there was a person talking by phone and they said that the boy was making a telephone call. I showed them 10 pictures in that way and I realized that they already knew something about the topic. I did that activity to diagnose their knowledge.

After that, I explained the topic, 3 rules for make and 3 rules for do, I included also some exceptions and after their questions, I gave them a sheet of paper with some fill in the blanks exercises, in these exercises they had to be careful with the tenses, and was in this moment when the time started to run very fast! They had problems not with make and do, but with the tenses, they started to make mistakes like “Don´t forget to does your homework” and others, I spent a lot of time trying to correct them, because it was a hard work in every single sentence, and there were 10, so I could not finish my lesson one more time. Anyways, it is a nice experience and I like to learn in every practice I have.

I was going to use a dice in the next activity, 2 faces with make, 2 faces with do, and 2 faces with the word candy. In this game students are passing the dice while some music is playing, when the teacher stops the music, the person who keeps the dice, goes to the front and throws it, if he/ she gets make, the student has to tell a sentence using it, the same with do, and if the pupil gets the word candy, you know what happens.

I shared the activities I cannot develop, because of the time, for you to use them if you like them.

I am eager to read your suggestions and comments, thank you a lot!

Intermediate II

I had my first class with Intermediate II today. I came early and started to prepare the things I was going to use for the class. When the teacher came I started the class by greeting the students and introducing myself. As warm up activity,  we listened to a song called "I never gonna leave this bed" by Maroon Five. This song introduced the topic "prhasal verbs", after that I explained the grammar part; to be sincere I felt a little bit nervious in that moment, because I was thinking that maybe the topic was too difficult, but thank God the Ss understood the topic very well. I focused on inseparable prhasal verbs and I taught just nine to avoid to give the Ss a lot of information. Then I gave them a sheet of paper with multiple choice exercises related with the prhasal verbs we had studied before; after that they worked in pairs and made sentences using some phrasal verbs. At the end they were going to work in groups and write a short story using the phrasal verbs, but unfortunately time was not enough. I took a lot of time in the grammar explanation; that is why, I could not finish my lesson, but I will be more careful next time.
I really like this group, they are kind and although they are shy, they try to participate. I like their attitud, they are eager to learn, and although I took a lot minutes when I explained the grammar, they were paying attention all the time.