This week's experience was the best so far, with the advanced group. I felt more acquainted with students and the feeling appeared to be mutual. They liked the warmup, consisting of listening to a song, but not reading the lyrics. It was just meant to make them remember animals, nature, or ecology. The track was "In The Jungle (Ace Ventura OST)".
In addition, I handed out some National Geographic magazines about wildlife and nature. The purpose was to have students connect ideas and recall their prior knowledge. For example, one of them said the music reminded him of a movie, The Lion King, and of Africa.
The topic was about being eco-friendly. Following advice from my tutor, I didn't use the activity from the book, as it was too long and dull. Instead, I opted to use an article called "Top 5 Eco-Friend Celebrities". Clearly, it was more appealing for the class. I even pasted big pictures of those famous people, so they could relate the info to the images.
This time the reading worked better. Instead of students reading aloud one by one, I decided to ask them to read in groups. The process was faster and their voices were louder. During the reading, some new vocabulary came up, and I explained their meaning and usage through examples in a common context.
Afterwards, students worked on written practice, pair discussion and on a chart from the book, which seemed to be interesting for its environmentalist awareness message. I will make the last effort, and attempt to succeed in the final practice of this semester too.
My second practice with this group differed in its development from the first one. Many more students attended, therefore, it was their first time, with me as a practitioneer. I was lucky enough to have found a song that has the same title, as a reading I used during the class (with PDP framework).
The lyrics also described the phenomenon, which was "northern lights/aurora borealis". So, my warm-up consisted of playing the song, checking for new vocabulary and to connect it to the target article. Students seemed to like it, as the song wasn't old, but actually part of the popular twilight series soundtrack. They read the text, and new words were added, and explained in the vocabulary section of the board, using examples and drawings. The rest of the class went well too, and time wasn't enough to cover everything my tutor had assigned. However, she told me it was ok, for the pace was alright.
This time, I decided to have them check a few questions about the article, before reading it. They had a short discussion about them. Then, I gave directions and the purpose was to have all of the students, one by one, read aloud one part of the text. At the same time, there were some pauses for their questions and addition of new vocabulary to their glossary. Everybody participated, and in the end, they answered the questions, and shared them as well.
In this opportunity, they had more confidence, and they also were more numerous. That's why they made more questions, and the class felt like an almost non-stop process. The flow was more dynamic, which his more demanding, but it is also pretty good to have a more responsive group. Hopefully, improvement will continue during the remaining practices.
I was anxious about this new group, in spite of that, things went fairly well. I arrived on time, but only the teacher was already in the classroom. Some students arrived late and others just didn't show up, so the class was quite small. I noticed there wasn't much space, but the seats seemed a lot more comfortable than the ones I'm used to. I guess they took a "vacation bridge" and enjoyed a double weekend...
It was weird that they asked very few any questions, I made sure to give them the chance to do so, but they weren't as responsive as the previous groups. I assume that due to their level, doubts decrease. Also, my tutor commented that they are always like that, it wasn't because of me.
Most of the activities were in pairs and dealt with speaking practice. One of them was having presentations, or role plays. They had 5 minutes to prepare for a short conversation, using "nor", "neither", "such", and "so." All of them participated and they appeared to have fun while being in the front, for some lines were humorous.
When they had to write a short article, in tabloid style, I drew on the board a logo with a catchy phrase, and informal writing below, using figurative meaning to exemplify how to do it, which students enjoyed.
During the feedback, the teacher told me that my warm-up was nice. Even though I didn't use a TPR activity, she said it was interesting, as it dealt with linguistics, and it was something students had never heard about. Overall, the class was positively reviewed, and I will keep on preparing well for the next practices, with the hope that results will remain positive all the way through the end.
