Being Observed & Recorded

This time, I did not get pictures of my class because I got a video of it. I thought I was going to get more nervous, but I fortunately did not. I started to prepare my students  for the topic by playing  the game "the golden letter" in which students, in groups of four people, made a competition about writing words on the board according to the letter considered golden, the golden letter would change every certain period of time. I did not erase the words  on the board because I had plans for them later on.    

  

My second activity was a short quiz that the book presented in order to answer the question: Are you a chocoholic? First, I asked the students to answer it and discuss it in groups of three; Then, I asked them as a group what the results were. I did my best to make them talk since only three of them were eager to participate.

Remember the words on the board? I used them to introduce the topic “countable and uncountable nouns”. I asked the students to help me eliminate the ones that were not nouns and they did it pretty well (at least the ones who participated); After that, I explained the difference between countable and uncountable nouns so that they could classify which of the words left were countable nouns and which were uncountable nouns. Moreover, I explained the use of  much and many and I ended up with some drills to reinforce my explanation.

I think I struggled more with the student’s attitude than with the fact that I was being recorded, but I did not get upset because that is something I can’t have total control of.

“Looking over” some phrasal verbs

Our teaching practicum can also be seen as a mean to learn more or to reinforce the knowledge we already have. In this opportunity I had the chance to learn a lot when studying phrasal verbs for my practicum since I never studied that topic as such; however, it was not a hard task to investigate about separable and inseparable phrasal verbs. I prepared a presentation and practice and here’s how it came about.

I took up the lesson with a warm up called hot balloon, like hot potato, but in this case the student who stayed with the balloon when the music stopped would blow up the balloon and define target vocabulary that was written on a piece of paper inside the balloon. We all had fun playing and going over the vocabulary.

After that, I started to explain the difference of separable and inseparable phrasal verbs by using an interesting presentation I had prepared; moreover, we tried to come up with some examples by using a 3 pages list of phrasal verbs I had downloaded from the web, so I was really busy writing examples and solving students’ doubts for some time.

The last thing I developed was a crossword solving that my tutor had suggested me to use to have the students working on something they like; therefore, this was another successful class in which I learned not just teaching skills but also interesting phrasal verbs that I’m looking forward to using the rest of my career. ;)

The Origin of the Second Part

It is definitely not the same to teach in the afternoon than to teach in the morning. I’m personally enjoying more this second period in which I’m supposed to teach in the morning because  both  students and the teacher are more alert and with more disposition; however, they may always occur unexpected situations. This morning, for instance, I got very early to my classroom and I noticed some of my students were talking outside the classroom, and I didn’t know that they were arguing until another student told me that both girls were crying.  Students seemed a little curious about the situation as they were getting into the classroom, just a few of them were early, so I decided to start preparing the material expecting  nothing terrible could  happen.

I pasted the agenda on the whiteboard, and I started the class with the few students that were there on time. The warm up I designed was called “give me good luck”, it consisted in having one student tell me a number and counting students until finding the lucky one according to the number mentioned. The lucky student was supposed to tell me what he/she remembered about the previous class. I did it like four times; then, I gave the students a page with the exercises my tutor had given me and I assigned them an appropriate time to work; after that, we checked them as a group and I solved all the doubts they had about the topic even though there were some I hadn’t considered. The last point in the agenda was a reading from the book, I took advantage of this part to check students’ pronunciation, to arise their participation and discussion, and  to clarify some vocabulary. They asked me for a word I have already checked but had forgotten in the moment, so I recognized I didn’t remember and took out my phone and checked it.

The students who were arguing outside never got into the classroom, but there were no more surprises; therefore, I can assure that nothing went wrong, yet I learned that next time I check vocabulary at home, I will keep it written so that I don’t have to take out my cell phone when teaching, in case I don’t remember.