My Reflection

Here I am writing about my experience to work with children and is unbelievable how time flies.  I just remember the very first class that I gave. It was a worthy experience and I remember how nervous I was because I had no idea about how students would react or behave.  During this first class I could control myself; however, I was almost shaking because I had audience looking at me and that was extra pressure. In this class I learnt that children understood commands in English, they did almost everything that I asked them to do, and they could do it with almost any help. I felt really good standing there in front of those children that wanted to learn and they would do it with my help. 

Then, the second class came again and I was still nervous but with the difference that I felt more confident. In this class I used different activities that worked very well with my students. They enjoy it and learnt at the same time. That made me feel proud and I realized that teach is something that I enjoy. In this class I learnt that children learnt faster when the activities are appealing to them. Moreover, I experience and learnt that teachers needed to think a lot when creating a lesson plan because the activities should be according to the age of students. Something that I will not forget is that as a teacher I always needed to have a backup plan. This will help me to face any situation because we never what could happen, and teachers should be prepared.

In my last class I was not nervous but exited to teach my last time to this children. I tried to put in practice what I learnt and put in practice the advices that my colleagues and teacher gave in my previews classes. I felt great; however, teachers never stop learning.   I feel great because I could overcome some difficulties at the time to teach. Moreover, I improve a lot from the very first class to the last one.   I decided to improve my skills and acquire many more that would help me in the future. I want to say that it was hard but I like challenge because are in those challenges that people show learn. Things that I would miss are prepare materials for my classes, think about the activities that I will perform, and doing the lesson plan. I know that this was just the beginning of things to come, and I am pretty sure that I will succeed. 

Third Group 

Topic: Playground Fun

Teachers: Luis 

              Wanda 

              Jennifer 

              Deyanira

              Vanessa 

The topic presented for the third group was “Playground fun”. This topic allowed to this group use realia in their lesson and it was awesome. My expectation for this class were that children could learnt through play.

The class started up and so the learning. Students sang the   “Hello-Hello” song as usual in the class. They enjoyed it because teachers perform the mimics. Then, there were some colorful circles pasted in the floor in which students had to sit at, and I was wondering if they will adapt to their spot during the whole class. However, that was just my concern because students respect their spot and they felt more relax.  Every eye was on the teachers and I could notice that students were anxious to start.

The first step was present the vocabulary and it was presented by teacher Vanessa. She just focused on the vocabulary that students will use during this lesson. Something interesting about this group was that 

they spoke just in English and when students notice that teachers were talking in English they could not stop stared directly to them because they wanted to understand what they were saying. They looked as though they understood, that is why teacher Wanda continued talking in English through the whole lesson. She explained four prepositions next to, behind, in front of, and between. The explanation was great because children understood what the meaning of each word was. Besides, she transmitted her enthusiasm to the class. The next step after the presentation and some teaching about prepositions was practice. During the practice teacher Jennifer asked students make two lines and she gave a piece of paper to each student. Then, one student gave a command to one students of the other line. The command included touch the ball nest to the bath, touch the jump rope behind the bicycle, etc. 

In this activity students practiced the prepositions and vocabulary; however, some of them could not read the sentences written in the paper and they needed the teacher’s help. The last activity was the warm up developed by teacher Deyanira and it consisted on played the hot chair game.  Students walked around the chairs and when the music stopped they had to find a chair and those left standing answered a question. Students enjoyed this activity because it was interesting they had to run and pay attention to the music in order to find a sit and not to be the one that answers the question. There were many meaningful activities that helped both students and teachers achieved their goals.

Second group 

Topic: My Home

Teachers: Jackeline Martinez

                 Yanet Argueta

                 Brenda Rivas

                 Nancy Membreño

                 Gloria Gonzales

The third week started and this group was ready to teach for second time. By this point my expectations for this group were even higher because they performed an excellent job in their preview class. The topic was really interesting and I for the class I expected that students would learnt at least the most common vocabulary that this unit includes

The class started as usual “singing” but this time it was totally different and this encourage students not to feel bored at the time to sing. The “Hello-Hello” song in this lesson changed completely because it was singing by using some poppets.

Each student had the opportunity to have one puppet. 

There were a plenty variety of animals and students were exited to used them. 

The first teacher on presenting was Nancy she developed the warm up in an interesting way. Students play basketball in this stage they tossed the ball in a small basket trying to make a point. In this activity the students that did not make a point would say a word of the vocabulary that they studied the previous class. In this way the class continue and students seemed to be engaged during the whole lesson. Teacher Yanet presented some vocabulary and the question Where is the ___________? In this presentation she sat on the floor where the students were sat at. Students really paid attention to this introduction and by this point they were able to understand what the teacher was explaining. The idea of be in the same level of the students in my opinion helped Yanet to have the attention of the students. Then, teacher Gloria make their students practice with an audio.

The audio included some sentences such as the pillow is on the sofa, the lamp is under the sofa, etc. Students had some pictures that matched with the sentences that the audio included. Then when teacher Gloria asked where is the ______? They will listen and show the picture that represented the sentence that they listened. The activity was creative and the majority of the students could perform it. So far students were doing a fantastic job and this helped teacher Brenda with her activity of practice a little bit the vocabulary and the prepositions. The teacher sat down with the students and they began to practice each students were asked to participate and say a sentence using the question Where is the______? Then the rest of the students helped each other answer this question.

The last but not least activity was the one that teacher Jackeline performed and it was called “mica” this activity has a quite weird name; however, students really enjoyed it. They were gathered in a section of the classroom which has plenty space to run. They ran all over the space trying not to get the famous “mica”. The ones that got it asked a question and in some cases they said a complete sentence. This class was very productive I learnt lots of things. For example, children learn faster when the activities are interesting and attractive for them. During the whole class I was paying attention to the activities and the teachers as well that is why I can say that my expectations were fully achieved.

First Group 

Topic:  My Home

Teachers in charge: Thomas 

                                   Eunice

                                   Eduardo

                                   Bryan 

                                   William

Undoubtedly being an English teacher is not an easy task; however is a rewarding experience. This Monday the first teaching group performed their class entitled “At home”. I was inpatient to see how the students would react in this class, how much they knew about the topic, and what kind of activities teacher would use. Those were some of my expectations for this class.

 The first group was ready to start, and students were inpatient to start. In this class there were just two student but they did not have trouble at all to stick with the class. Despite, this inconvenient those students seemed to feel more confident in the lesson and the interaction between teacher and students grew. They started by singing the “Hello-Hello” song. 

The students were encouraged to sang and enjoy this part of the class by gathering in a semi-circle. They sang twice this nice song and students seemed to enjoy it. Then, teacher Eunice was in charge of the presentation of the topic in. She presented the possessive adjectives with some flashcards that had big and colorful pictures. The purpose of the flashcards was to catch the attention of the students, and the objective was successfully achieved. Besides, she presented the vocabulary of the unit including some of the most common objects that students find at home such as telephone, bed, lamp, refrigerator, sofa etc. Students were focused during the whole presentation of the topic. They seemed like if they were learning something because did not blink any second. Moreover, they felt confident enough to asked questions about the vocabulary and clarify some doubts. I really love the way in which she explained.

Then, teacher Thomas was in charge of the practice. In this part of the class a page was given to every student to practice vocabulary and the possessive adjectives. This exercise made students think by themselves; however, he was close in case they needed some help. In fact, they asked for helped and the teacher did his best to control and give an eye to the students.

Teacher Bryan was the one that made students practice in the board by writing a sentences using the possessive adjectives and the object that they studied. Students wrote without hesitation what they thought was the correct answer. Then, they checked answer with the help of the teacher. In my opinion it was a nice activity to let students use the structure that they learnt by themselves.

The wrap up was presented by teachers Eduardo and William that presented an activity to make their students practice what they learnt. The activity consisted in paste some small signals in the floor with the shape of an “x”. Then, students had to walk all over around the chairs while a sound was being produce and when the sound stopped they had to find an “x” to stand on. The student that could not find an “x” had to say a sentence using an object and a possessive adjectives. This activity was funny since students stood up, walked, laugh, and the most important put in practice what they learnt. I would like to point out that the class was very meaningful either for students and the rest of the teachers that were observing the class. I learnt new teaching techniques that I will definitely use in the future. My expectations for this class were reach and I am anxious to see these teachers again.

Third group

Topic: My Town

Teachers:   Vanessa

                    Jennifer 

                    Wanda 

                    Luis 

                    Deyanira 

This was the second class for this group and the topic that they developed was “My Town”. Personally I like the classes that this group perform because they are very creative. So I expected that students could show excellent results throughout the class.

The class started and the students were glad to start singing the “Hello-Hello” song. Then, teacher Deyanira took the control of the group and asked them to make a line in order to form a train. She lead the students to different spots in the classroom where she had pasted the places that they would teach to students.  I like the activity because it was a different way to give a little introduction to the topic and the vocabulary. 

The next activity was the formal presentation of the topic this was in charge of teacher Luis. He presented the structure “I want to go” and the proper use of the “s” when the pronouns “he and she” is used. I was surprised because students got it super-fast, and they started to talk and asked questions about the topic.  Teacher Luis seemed to have the control of the students so he could manage pretty well the group. The following activity was developed by teacher Wanda and this activity consisted on practice a little bit what the previews teacher did. She was very energetic, and students felt excited about the activity that was about to perform.  Each students had a page with an alphabet soup and had to find the words that they just saw some minutes ago. 

 They did it fast of course with the help of the teacher. Then, a bigger version of the alphabet soup was presented to them. In this time the dynamic change because now they had to stand up and go to the board, find a word, and circle it. Something that I really like was that students did not fell push or intimidated while they participate. On the other hand, they wanted to do it and participated without hesitation. The next activity encourage students to show what they learnt. Teacher Jennifer was in charge of this stage and she made that each students participate. I saw that students seemed a little bit nervous but she cheer them up every time they were in front of the class. The fifth and last activity was the wrap up and activity that has a purpose make students think, participate and practice in a freely way. Teacher Vanessa was very creative and came up with an interesting activity called “The Spider”. The tool that she needed was a bun wool and she was ready to star. Students had to say the name of a place and took one piece of wool. Then, they had to throw the wool to other students and so on. 

The activity was new for me and so for students because they were really engaged on it.

 In this class I realize that our students are very smart and understand commands and the use of the structures pretty well. That is why the use of interesting activities just like the ones that this group used work pretty well at the time to teach. So I can assured that the expectations that I had at the beginning of the class were completely achieved.

  

First group

Topic: My dream job

Teachers: Bryan Melgar

                  Eunice Menjivar

                  William Alexander

                  Eduardo Escobar

                  Tomas Lievano

The profession was the topic that this group presented and they came up with a fantastic idea of dress acording with  some of the most famous  professions. There was a soccer player, a teacher, an actor,  polie officer, and a doctor. This create a good environment for students because they felt more confident and more relax.

The first teacher was Tomas that review some of the vocabulary studied in the previews class. Something that I like was that they create some name tags that included their names and a profession asigned by the teachers.

The presentation of the topic was in charge of teacher Eunice. She explained the topic and the professions by doing mimics in order that students got the meaning of the

profession. The question what do you want to be? Was presented by Eunice as well and she  took anough time to explained point by point the question and the answer. Then, teacher bryan made his students practice by playign the “hot chair”. This activity allowed students feel comfortable, and this helped him to create a good environment in which they learn in an diferent way and not just siting down llisten to the teacher. Student were focused during the whole activity because they had to pay attention to the song because when it stopped they had to find a chair. The ones that left standing had to said a question and an answer about a profession. Students really loved this activity because all of them were set out to win.  Teachers Eduardo and William continued practicing with their students by usign two different activities.

The first one was the famous “hat” in this activity students made a circle and pass the “hat” to their classmates while they heard a song, and when the song stopped the one that got it said a profession that they would like to perform.

The activity was interesting, students were engage and themos timportant they practice what they studied. The other activity consisted on write on the board and write either a question or an answer. In this activity students were a litle bit nervous because they had to write; however, teachers helped and encouraged them to ketp going. I enjoyed this class a lot because there were many activities that involved all the students. Moreover, the performance of each teacher was awesome, and the most important I learnt in every single antivity. 

Third Group

Topic: My day

Teachers: Vannesa

                  Luis

                  Wanda

                 Jennifer

                 Ada deyanira

In this class the topic was “My day” and I was expecting to learn new teaching teachniques and new activities.

The topic was introduce by Jennifer and students were focused during the whole introduction. Besides, she sang a different sogn with the sutdents that included the phrase Can you tell me the time? since they were teaching daily routines and the time. She used a big clock that was pasted on the board in order to tought them how you ask for the time and an activity perform in some hours of the day such as get up, eat lunch, go to bed, and do the homework.

Then, teacher Wanda continued teaching the time and review some of the dialy routines. However, this time sshe created the question  “What time do you __? And they had to complete the sentence with some of the daily routines to which they were introduced to. 

The very next activity was “Lottery”  developed by teacher Deyanira. Personally I really like this activity because students had fun while they were practicing the time. Deyanira monitored students pretty well and ketp them focused on the practice. Besides, students were  engaged and this help her to perform her activity without any problem. Then, she asked them to lifted out a paper in which there was a question like time do you get up? And the questions vary with other daily routines. Students practice one each of them by doing a question and answer it by telling the time that they perform the activity. The next teacher Luis that  kept his students doing a matching game. The cards that were used in this activity were big enough for students to identify the pair of the other picture. The activity in my opinion was apealing for students because they complete it succesfully. The last activity allowed students to stood up, walked, and ran. The teacher in charge of this activity was Vanessa, and it consisted on shout a daily routine or a specific time and studnets had to find the pictures and touch it. Students had a good time with this last activity because it was a time to relax but they kept learning.

I want to point out that this group did a good job in this class because they prepared enough material for students to practice. Besides, there were new activities that were created acording to the age of the students. I really like some of the activitis that is why I have to say that my expectation were achieved.