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.
Fortunately, just like some of my other classmates, the last class with the group was better.
For the warmup, I related the previously studied content. I used a song, "She will be loved" (Maroon 5) for having students convert a couple of verses from the lyrics into passive/active voice. It worked out well. They liked the song, and sang along with the copies of the text I gave them.
What satisfied me the most about the class is that I was able to fulfill a larger objective, having reading, writing and oral practice for the class. Another challenge was conducting the "Passive Voice Race Game". As it was a TPR activity, at first I was dubious about whether I could pull it off. Students participated, and the dynamic was nice. They worked in groups, getting a sentene strip (active voice) for each round, in which they would convert the sentence to passive voice. In the end, I corrected mistakes, with help from students and choral repetiton.
The last activity consisted in students creating a piece of "news" (writing) and later broadcast (oral) to the class group. They took their time to finish. Since the class was being filmed, they felt insecure, but when some of them participated, everybody else decided to share their news.
There was new vocabulary in the class, from the song, from the book activity, and some words the students brought up. I was able to provide examples on the board, synonyms, write proper spelling, use gestures, and suggest possible uses in different contexts.
I got a good grade this time. In general, the practice was an even more fruitful experience with the Intermediate group than with Basic. Thanks for your comments and support, let's hope we do better next period.
My last practice was perhaps the most unusual. The time was limited for students had evalations afterwards. I only developed two activities. I used a guessing game that my tutor prompted me to include. The funny thing is that the game wasn't kinesthetic, nor entertaining, it was about composition and guessing answers of a partner. I don't think teens enjoy that much, but at least, they did work on it, so that's positive.
Finally, the activity involving famous people got better results, as the group liked the pictures I brought, and were eager to make up news about the lives of celebrities. They were paired to get ideas more quickly, and they shared their creations verbally in the end.
The practice was OK, but I think I did better in the past two times. I haven't gotten the feedback yet, but I will make an effort to do my best on the last practice with this group. What did please me was correcting students' writing, which is part of my focus, following my tutor's advice.
Today's practice was more tiresome than last time, as I checked the students' homework, and some of them hadn't worked on it, like they were supposed to. They still have problems with the variations of using the third person in simple present sentences (adding the "s" to verbs), the use of auxiliars for making questions and changing "have" to "has", also with the third person. The class wasn't about that, but I had to take some time to explain those doubts.
The topic was "modals". Most of the students were able to use them correctly, the problem is that there were cases in which they could use more than one modal, but in general, they managed to deal with the possibilities, and which modal was more suitable, according to each sentence.
Unexpectedly, I got a better grade, I think it was because I followed the teacher's suggestion, to put more effort in monitoring the students while they were working. This group is more responsive and talkative when working. They like free practice.
The only con is that some of them still don't have their books or don't bring them to class, which is unfortunate. Because of this reason, one girl spent some time on her blackberry. Since the homework was from the book, she remained passive during the time I was checking that. However, she did take part in the speaking practice, and paired up for one book activity, despite not being very active...
Obviously, there is always a small group of people who seem a little careless, but I focused on the ones who were asking questions, developing the activities, the ones interested in learning.
In the end, the teacher commented that it is important to correct their pronunciation, which I will take into account. I suppose it feels kind of awkward correcting students, as one probably doesn't feel with enough or as much authority, as the tutor, who's in charge of the group. Anyway, I'll do my best to effectively correct, in a proper manner next time I teach for my practice.
As I had already been warned, students tried to test me, fortunately, and thanks to taking into account teacher Alex's wise advices, I was able to respond satisfactorily. It felt easier than the basic group, because I didn't have to take so much time explaining directions.
I haven't gotten the feedback page yet, but I guess I didn't do so bad. Students liked the warmup, despite having decided not to go with either from the lesson plan, as they were all kinesthetic activities.
The group had written, oral and listening practice. Luckily, I mainly had free activities, as the grammar part had been covered. However, as I referred to, in the beginning, I was put on the spot, as a girl started asking "Why?", even though I had already explained verbally (and my tutor too, in prior classes). Thus, I also used the board to give a more detailed explanation on why there are cases in which "used to" & "would" cannot be used.
I was surprised to see that there was an uncommon verb in a sentence from the book: "When I was a child, I used to cycle to school every morning". So, in that particular case, I had never seen that verb used that way before. I inferred that it was related to biking (bicycle). I'm not sure if it's partially informal or just not widely used.
The whole class worked on all of the activities and participated when checking the answers from the exercises. In conclusion, the first experience went better than expected, and was rather positive. I felt as though the group accepted me faster than the previous one. Hopefully, it'll continue to be that way...
Today I had my last practice with the Basic group. The whole experience was different each time. Partially, it's a shame that just when you start getting accostumed to a group, then it's over.
Anyway, my main focus for the class was on making students have more speaking practice. The warm-up did not work as effectively as expected, because I didn't adapt it to what they had been focusing on.
Other than that, students liked talking about celebrities, as they knew pop culture facts. The key is getting pictures from people who are currently popular, especially with teenagers. It was satisfying to see that even students who don't usually participate much, took part in the activity. A couple of them actually did more than what I asked for, so that shows their eagerness to express themselves.
Pair activities worked better than individual practice. Students came up with questions, original sentences and descriptions. It was nice to have more teacher-student & student/student interaction. I did not have to teach grammar this week, which was certainly an advantage.
I hope I'll be able to improve and continue to get acceptable results, in future practices. I got plenty of advice from my tutor, classmates (including teacher Alex), so thanks for your comments and attention.
