Class number 9

Class number 9

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.  ~Donald D. Quinn

In my life, I have met so many people who have told me that being a teacher is the easiest job around the world, that teachers do not care about people, but  about payments and that whoever without any preparation can be a teacher. However, no one can talk about something they have not experienced, and in my personal opinion; this profession goes beyond these critics. Teachers who really love and are passionate about their profession, see every day as a new opportunity to inspire and motivate their students to be better people through learning.  

Now, let’s discuss about class number nine.

This class was in charge of Ingrid and Mercy, and the topic for this week was “FOODS AND DRINKS”.

During the class

The presentation stage was in charge of Ingrid. Ingrid developed many activities during her participation in order to not only review some topics previously taught in the classroom, but also to present the new topic to the children. Some of the activities that Ingrid did were: having the students take an envelope were some carts with vocabulary of preceding classes were inside, and the use of a puppet to teach the food and drink items. Finally, she made students decide whether the food and drink items presented were good or bad for their health.

I could observe a more confident and skillful Ingrid. In the first participation of Ingrid, she faced many problems such as, students not understanding the directions for an activity, and losing the control of the students’ attention. Nevertheless, in this opportunity; I could see a more positive Ingrid who knew how to control the kids’ attention, and also she had more control over her activities. It was very impressive for me to see a shy girl like Ingrid using puppets, and modifying her tone of voice to make the representation of the puppet more appealing. Thus, I think that Ingrid did a great job and designed very good activities that were very meaningful for the students’ acquisition of the topic at issue. To sum up, I think that Ingrid performed activities that could really challenge her personality, and at the end; she demonstrated that she is capable to adapt herself to the needs of the students in order to inspire these kids to learn.

The practice stage was in charge of Abigail. Abigail presented some tactile activities in which kids had to manipulate glue, dishes, and pictures of food and drink items; besides, she also made use of a kinesthetic idea in which she had students in group. These groups were commanded by a leader so that the leader could lead his group in the search of some items that were written on a piece of paper that they were given. Finally, kids could sing the goodbye song as usual.

 A problem was observed in one of Abigail’s activities. In the last activity that Abigail developed in which she had students in groups to work together in the search of some items; students did not understand the instructions that easily. This was because this game required long instructions, and these kids are not ready for long instructions yet. Instructions must be given in chunks and not making use of complete sentences. Furthermore, kids started to lose attention and started to talk. It is necessary to consider that activities like the one described about make students get more energetic; thus, the teacher needs to be aware of this and make use of some tips to make students stay focused.

Here you are some tips that can help your students pay attention to instructions..

Ø Cues: Be sure to give appropriate cues to let children know it’s important to pay attention. Not everything we say and do is of equal importance, so engage in a hand-clapping routine, or ring a bell, or do a call and response chant to be sure that you have all the children focused before giving directions, explaining a new activity, starting a story, etc.

Ø Keep directions clear, brief, and to the point.

Ø . Raise your hand and stand still until the students are quiet. Or, raise your right hand and put the index finger of your left hand on your lips. The children are to do the same. 

Ø  Hold up your hand and say, "Give Me Five." The children put their hands in the air and shout "five!" As they count down to one, they get progressively quieter until "one" is said in a whisper or, after saying, "Give me five," everyone puts their hand in the air and counts loudly using their fingers from 1 to 5. Teach the children that the five fingers on their right hand stand for the five things they must do when you hold up your hand. Say, "Give me five," and wait until all the children hold up their hand. Then lead them in saying the five things together.(

1)    Eyes -- look 
(2) Ears -- listen 
(3) Mouth -- closed 
(4) Hands -- still 
(5) Feet – quiet

Later when you say, "Give me five," the children are to think of these five things and hold up their hand to show they are ready to listen.

About my case of study

Throughout this course my case of analysis has been Jefferson Alejandro Zelada Blanco, he is seven years old. Since the beginning of the course he presented some learning problems such as, not being able to read or write lack of concentration, and little retention. All these have problems have been observable in Jefferson along this English project, and his mother has expressed that he presents the same problems in the school where he studies as well.

I have analyzed Jefferson in many ways regarding his conduct and behaviors and also in the way he learns. About his behavior, it has been proved trough this course that Jefferson misbehaves a lot, he rarely obeys directions and he gets distracted easily and, he distracts his classmates. I have always wondered why he behaves the way he does. In a previous entry I mentioned the fact that Jefferson’s misbehaviors are to do his parents’ way to educate him, which is something that papalia (2006) calls “permissive parents” (referred to as indulgent parents, have very few demands to make of their children. These parents rarely discipline their children because they have relatively low expectations of maturity and self-control). However, now I realize that this is not the only problem why Jefferson is not a well-behaved-boy. Another significant aspect why Jefferson misbehaves is not only his parents’ instruction problem, but also his learning disability.  Jefferson is not a kid that can shine by his skills in the class; thus, knowing that some kids get attention by answering accurately to the teacher’s question, Jefferson needs to look for a way to call for his classmates attention, and here is when we see a bad behaved Jefferson trying to get people’s attention out his bad conduct.

Thus, all the mentioned above indicates that Jefferson needs special attention in both cases, in his conduct and in his learning problem. Hence, I have advised Jefferson’s mother to look for the special service of a psychologist so that he can really confirm whether he has a deficit attention disorder or what the really problem is.!!!

To sum up, as I have mentioned in previous entries, a big progress between our first class and this second time of teaching has been perceptible. This means that every group took the feedback received in the first part of this English project as a challenge to overcome their weak areas in this second opportunity. Thus, all these classes in this last period have demonstrated that we have all taken advantage of this great experience to be better professionals who love teaching!!!!!!

No matter whether we teach kids, teens or adults; what matters is our passion about teaching!!!

References:

Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldma R. D. 2007. Human development. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill

http://www.thepositiveclassroom.org/2013/04/pay-attention-how-to-help-children.html

http://www.kellybear.com/TeacherArticles/TeacherTip54.html

Assessing kids

Assessing our kids..

The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.

-Alice Wellington Rollins  

Inspiring students to ask questions becomes more meaningful than asking them questions. This is due to the fact that asking tricky questions that even teachers may find difficult to answer means  that students are going further in their analysis of the class, it means that they got really interested in the lesson and that are anxious to know more.

Now, after this brief reflection; let’s discuss about something that has not been yet considered throughout this course which is the fact of assessing children. Thus, this entry will talk a little a bit about how to assess kids.

We have been struggling with the fact of teaching kids, the creation of lessons, and the development of techniques that can guarantee a successful achievement of the lessons’ objectives; however, how do we assess kids???How do we appraise all the knowledge that we have already taught?? Do we use multiple choice, and true/false exams??? . We all know that assessment is as important as the teaching itself; without assessments, we as teachers cannot know whether a particular topic was really acquired by the students. Thus, it is important to develop good assessment tasks, taking into account many essential factors such as, the stage of language development (English proficiency) in which the EFL /ESL learner is, the types of student responses, and the use of traditional or alternative ways of assessment according to the children’s  needs.

First, it is necessary to identify the stage of language development in which our kids are, so that we can match it with the moist suitable student respond. According to Krashen and Terrell(1983) and adapted by Olsen (1992) there are four stages of language development which are: preproduction, in which learners have a silent period and their performance indicators are mostly kinesthetic in nature; the second stage is early speech, in which performance indicators are kinesthetic responses and one- or two-word utterances. The third stage is speech emergence, in which the performance indicators are one and two-word utterances, plus phrases and simple sentences. Finally, the fourth stage is fluency emergence, in which performance indicators are words, phrases, and complete sentences (Krashen and Terrell 1983). Then, after finding out the children’s English proficiency level, this one can be matched with one of the three student responses identified by Brown and Hudson (1998). These three types of responses consist on, selected-response (true-false, matching, multiple choice), constructed response (fill-in, short answer, performance), and personal-response (conferences, portfolios, self and peer assessment). Students that are in preproduction or early speech proficiency levels should begin with the use of personal response. As students' proficiency levels increase, teachers can move gradually into constructed response assessment and later into selected response assessment.

 Once we have chosen the type of student response most feasible to the English level of our kids; we are ready to move on to the final step which is deciding the approach; being these, traditional or alternative techniques we will use that best matches with this kind of student response already selected. If we read carefully about the types of student responses presented above; we can clearly see that some of them take traditional ways of assessing while some others take alternative techniques. This is because at the beginning of a child’s English learning, traditional techniques can be scaring and not that meaningful as alternative tasks such as portfolios and kinesthetic activities are. This does not mean that traditional tasks must be forgotten, but rather; both approaches can be used at certain points of children’s learning process. For example, some children at preproduction or early speech proficiency levels should begin with the use of personal response, and this type of response compiles tasks such as, pointing something out, acting out, choosing something, marking, gesturing, and following instructions that are part of alternative assessments. Nevertheless, students with a more advance level can perfectly take the selected-response type which consists of true-false, matching, multiple choice questions and the like that belong to traditional ways of assessment. This why it is important to match the children’s English proficiency with the corresponding type of response and the most appropriate techniques for that type of response that the students can handle.

 

In the particular case of the English project that we have, there are many things to take into account when designing assessment techniques. One of these things is the fact that not all the children can read or write. There are around four to five students in the classroom that still have problems with their reading and writing; thus, traditional ways of assessments such as, quizzes and exams would not be workable, neither writing assignments. However, alternative assessments would work better in the process of appraising these kids’ acquisition of the classes.  Let’s see what kind of these alternative assessment tasks can be appropriate for our kids.

First, considering that our kids are either in the preproduction or early speech level of English proficiency, the most suitable type of student response to use with them would be personal response. Thus, some tasks that belong to these English levels are kinesthetic activities that require either just a pointing out or acting out of something and one or two-word responses.

Here are some of the activities I would use to assess the students of our English project.

ü Pictorial Products. To elicit content knowledge without requiring students to speak or write, teachers can ask students to produce and manipulate drawings, dioramas, models, graphs, and charts. Thus, in this case, I would present my students with a chart in which they will have some categories such as, FAMILY MEMBERS, DAYS OF THE WEEK, ITEMS CLOTHES, NOUNS OF ANIMALS, and other topics that we have studied along the course. Then, I would give them some pieces of paper with pictures labeled. MONDAY, CAT, SKIRT, and the like with the intention that kids should paste every picture in the corresponding category. This would be an individual work since I am trying to assess the children’s level of acquisition of every topic covered in classes.  Another idea using pictures could be giving a shift of paper and asking kids to color with a specific color  the items mentioned by the teacher, for example: color with yellow the things that are under the table, then,  color with red the things that are on the table, and so on.

ü Physical demonstration (point, gesture, act out, thumbs up/down). The teacher can call students one by one and ask them different things related to the topics that are under evaluation and tell them to show their thumbs up if the information is correct and down if the information is incorrect. The use of pictures can be crucial if students still need visual aids to identify what they are being asked For example: the teacher can show a picture of a pair of glasses and tell to the kid is this a hat? The kid must show his thumbs down. And so on until asking the necessary questions.

ü Give them a box. Students can be asked to put something in, on, under, behind, etc.

ü Listening activity: students can be presented some set of pictures in pairs, and they have to mark the one that the teacher mentions; for example: one dog and one snake; the teacher says “snake” and the students should mark the snake.

To sum up, it is necessary to think and study your group of students before creating assessment tasks; thus, the activities mentioned above have been designed thinking about the weakness and strengths of the kids that belong to our English project.

References:

v “Assessment of Young learners” by Kassim  Shaaban. Forum Lebanon 2001.

v  http://employees.oneonta.edu/thomasrl/YaTeachTech.pdf

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html

class number 8

Class number 8

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin=)

I think that we all have heard at least once these wise words; however, not all teachers put them in practice, but this is not the case of our English-kids project because we do involve our children in any task that we develop in the classroom. when we started with this project, we did not ask much for the kids’ participation; the lessons were pretty much about teachers teaching, giving a normal class in which the teacher talks and the students listen to him/her; nevertheless, as soon as we found out that involvement is the best of teaching; we all changed our lesson plans into great activities that require the students’ participation in the tasks, which are now having better results than traditional approaches that are neither meaningful nor motivating for the children’ learning process. Now, we know that at the end of the course, we will have good results and the children will return home with new knowledge that was gotten in a very cheerful and diverse way. 

Now let’s talk about this week class that was in charge of Juan and Raul!!!

During the class!!!

The presentation stage was in charge of Raul. This class was about using some verbs to denote actions, such as: jump, drive, run, and the like. Thus, in order for Raul to present the topics to the kids, he used many activities like, the use of a flipchart, adding gestures to the actions like: drive (make with your hands as if you’re driving) swim (make with your hands as if you are swimming) jump (kids jumped), etc. Finally; the students’ acquisition of the actions was tested in a task in which kids were asked to stand in lines. The two kids at the two of the lines were told a verb, and they had to take a hoop that was on the floor and throw it to some cones that were next to the kids lines in which the verbs were masked with figures; the child who thrown the hoop before in the corresponding verbs would be the winner and could get a coin. About this final activity, I can say it was great; however, the position in which the kids were set was not appropriate because girls were in disadvantage since boys were nearer the cones. I think that this task would have worked better if the two lines of kids would have been standing in front of the cones and not next to them.  These kinds of troubles should be perceived before the class starts by visualizing with anteriority how the activities will be developed, and how we are going to manage not only the space but also the students. Nevertheless, besides the difficulty, the activity’s aim was wonderful.  Thus, the presentation stage was successful.

Regarding Raul’s performance during the class, it can be said that he overcame the comments he received in his first participation.  This time I could observe a more confident Raul full of ideas not nervous at all, having control of the whole class, calling on kids’ specific names when they were not paying attention, and doing a great job. This means that Raul did learn from his first intervention and he decided to be better this time. Now, it was observable how Raul has learned from his mistakes to be a better teacher every day, and he could succeed. Great participation Raul…  

Now talking about learning from past experiences or some mistakes we have done in our teaching practices; it is important to have a very good attitude toward the feedback we have received so that we can grow and do a better job next time. Thus in order for us to do better at recovering from past mistakes, here you are some tips that can be really useful:

Ø Reframe Your Mistakes

First, use reframing to stop thinking of your mistakes as failures. They can be more accurately described as opportunities for learning—people generally learn more from mistakes than they learn from successes. With each mistake, you can learn valuable information that can be used for future success.

Ø Be Forgiving

Next, maintain perspective and don’t take mistakes too seriously. Blaming others for our mistakes can be a defense mechanism for those who are cruel with ourselves when we mess up—we stay in denial because we can’t take our own unforgiving self-condemnation. 

Ø See What You Can Change

Rather than thinking of who is more responsible for a situation—you or another person—look at the situation as a whole in terms of what you can change. What can you change next time, what do you have control over?—makes it an empowering experience to learn from your mistakes.

Ø Ask Questions

Ask for impartial opinions. Have a few trusted friends who will tell you the truth, and who can see things from both sides, and ask them what they see. Sometimes we’re too close to a situation to make sense of it at first, but an observer who isn’t so emotionally attached, and who can deliver their opinion with love and tact, is what we need to help us learn from our mistakes.

Ø Pat Yourself On The Back

Congratulate yourself for whatever growth you’ve gained from dealing with each difficult situation you encounter and each mistake you make. Remember that these things add value to life as much as the more pleasant experiences we all value. And be glad that you always have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes in one way or another.

Practice stage:

This practice stage was conducted by Juan. He used many activities to make students put into practice the verbs Raul had taught them. Some of these activities involved singing with all kids, spinning a wheel, and passing a hat at the beat of the music. All these activities were well assimilated by the kids and they could really practice what they had learned.

Regarding Juan’s performance, there is no much to say because he did a great job. Juan is very secure when teaching, he might not have the appearance of a kids’ teacher, but once he is teaching; he becomes in a different Juan full of ideas and with a good control of the class. The only thing he might want to control a little bit is his tone of voice because it can be a little tough, and when he is calling some kid’s attention it may seem as if he is nagging them. However, beside this little thing to care about, his participation was amazing.

To sum up, this class was very well designed and with clear objectives. Thus all that Raul and Juan had planned went well and the most important thing is that kids not only enjoyed the lesson, but also learned how to denote actions in English.

About my case of study

It is been noticeable during the whole project the misbehavior problems that Jefferson has had. Since the course started, Jefferson has always called the attention of every teacher in the classroom due to the way he behaves in the classes. He is constantly talking, he does not pay much attention to the teachers’ classes or instructions and he definitely interrupts his learning and the other kids’ learning with this bad behavior. Nevertheless, decisions and actions have been taken by all teachers in order to remedy the situation without good results. All groups of my classmates, every time they get to teach have prepared and applied many techniques with the purpose of having all kids who are troublemakers well behaved being Jefferson one of the most terrible ones. However, until this time; nothing has worked with Jefferson; he continues presenting a conduct that is not appropriate.

All the exposed about leads me to think that the problem goes beyond the classroom environment. There should be a reason why Jefferson has a bad conduct. I have observed Jefferson outside the classroom and I can clearly see that his naughtiness occurs everywhere not only in classes. This is because Jefferson’s parents are what papalia (2006) calls “permissive parents” (referred to as indulgent parents, have very few demands to make of their children. These parents rarely discipline their children because they have relatively low expectations of maturity and self-control). Thus, due to the little discipline that Jefferson has received, he misbehaves everywhere he goes.

Finally, having discovered what the problem is; it is necessary to talk to Jefferson’ parents and advise them about their kid’s bad conduct. Sometimes teacher do not have more to do than calling kids parents in order to improve the conduct of a rebellious child. Of course this should be done with kindness and tact so that parents do not get offended.

Here are some tips for parents experimenting the same problems with their kids’ conducts!!!

1. Try to Have Reasonable Goals

I think that many times instead of trying to make gradual changes, parents expect that all the inappropriate behavior will stop immediately. The truth is, you might see certain behaviors stop right away, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your child will never act out again. It’s not going to be instantaneous, and it will take just as much practice on your part as it does on your child’s part. Change takes time. It’s not just you who needs time practicing new techniques. Your child also needs to practice so he can learn by repetition. The reason you want to ask for reasonable change is because your child cannot make major changes all at once.

2. Coaching Your Child Forward: Know What His Strengths Are

It’s important to have a good idea of what your child is capable of doing. Here’s an example: Some kids have an issue like ADD or ADHD. It’s important to get a really good understanding of what ADHD looks like in your child. Is it hard for him to focus and stay organized? Maybe he daydreams when he’s supposed to be working. Every child is different, and it’s important for you to modify your expectations accordingly. It’s also important for your child to know what his strengths and weaknesses are so he can recognize when he’s getting off track and learn how to get back on. After determining what your child’s strengths and weaknesses are, understand that he will make improvements from that starting point.

3. Keep in Mind That Your Child is Working Toward a Goal

Accept that your child is working toward a goal. In other words, your child is probably not going to be able to stop his inappropriate behavior on a dime. If your teen is in the habit of getting his way by intimidating others in the family with his angry outbursts, understand that this behavior is not going to go away immediately. Work with him on making small steps toward good behavior. You might say, “You need to give me your cell phone for the next two hours until you can behave and talk appropriately.” The key is that during that time, your child is practicing this new skill. You’re not saying, “That’s it—you’ve lost your phone all day.” Many kids struggle with punishments that last too long and end up giving up halfway through. Instead, you want to have short-term goals throughout the day. Work toward short-term accomplishments and successes all day long.

references:

http://stress.about.com/od/positiveattitude/a/learn_from_your_mistakes.htm

http://www.empoweringparents.com/My-Childs-Behavior-Is-So-Bad.php

 http://www.empoweringparents.com/My-Childs-Behavior-Is-So-Bad.php#ixzz2kTQtDZ43

Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldma R. D. 2007. Human development. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Class 7

Class 7

"Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another." -- Marva Collins

This is exactly what has happened in our English classes with our kids. Now, they have learned how to learn. At the beginning of the course, they were all very shy and introverted, they did not understand any command such as, “sit down, stand up, repeat, make a circle, etc” now, they know all these commands, and there is no need to model the commands like “sit down” or “stand up” anymore because they have already acquired them in a receptive way. Furthermore, kids volunteer happily in the different activities we develop without being pushed as it happened at the beginning of the course when nobody wanted to participate, and they were all afraid of passing to the board alone in front of their classmates. Nevertheless; at the present; they all want to volunteer at the same time, and there is no more shame of learning!!!

Consequently, to continue observing and analyzing the students’ behaviors and improvements along this course, let’s analyze class number seven that is in charge of Luiz and Gloria!!!

During the class

The presentation stage was conducted by Gloria. Gloria started her participation with the hello song. During this activity Gloria gave different sticks with the faces of the adjectives that are mentioned in the song, so that kids could raise them when they listened to the adjective they had in the representing faces. During the song time, I could notice how kids have truly learned the lyric of the hello song because although Gloria was not singing the song using the exact lyric; kids did follow the correct order of the lyric. This could be observed in the part that says “I am happy” where Gloria sang, “are you happy” however; kids did say the correct phrase “I am happy”. Thus, this shows me that our children have already internalized the lyric of the hello song which is a good progress taking into account that from the beginning of the classes, we decided not to change the hello and good bye song in order to make students perfectly internalize at least these two songs throughout the whole course.

After the hello song, Gloria used many activities to present the topic of this class which was “clothes”.  She used many active and innovative ideas to make students internalize the target vocabulary. Some of these activities were, making the kids make up a specific movement for each clothe item; for example, for the word, “sweater” children had to simulate a sweater by touching their arms from the hands to their shoulders; taking into consideration that sweater’s sleeves are long. Then, she also made students dress a cartoon by pasting one item clothes at a time. These pasting activities always take more time than any other task because not all the kids are in the same childhood stage; thus, this difference in ages makes the oldest ones be faster than the youngest ones; however, at the end, they all could dress their cartoons in a proper way.

The most important things about Gloria’s presentation were that her activities and her performance did show an improvement in comparison to the first class that she taught. In the first class that Gloria taught, she was very nervous, and her nervousness increased when her activities started to fail; however, in today’s class, Gloria overcame her fears and although at the beginning of the class she was a little accelerated, she slowed down just a bit, and her activities started to have a good effect and also a good acceptation by the kids. Nevertheless, this improvement is a sight of more confidence and preparation that are things Gloria worked on in this opportunity, so that she could do a better job. Furthermore, her activities were also more carefully designed and the ages and abilities of the students were considered in order to have more effective tasks, taking into consideration that Gloria’s tasks of her first class were not appropriate for the ages of the kids in the group. Thus, all the mentioned above shows how Gloria did bear in mind all the comments that she received in her first participation and she overcame them all!!!!! Good job Gloria!!!!

Now, taking about getting nervous when teaching which is something that happens to most of us if it is not to all; here you are some tips that can help you out to cope with the stress of teaching, presenting, or lecturing something at any moment of your life!!!!

Ø It is essential to be always well prepared and well rehearsed in order to feel confident.

Spending time preparing your subject well, and knowing what you are going to say and how you are going to say; it will boost your confidence and help reduce your nerves. Thus, it is necessary that you have a high level of proficiency in the topic that you are addressing. You might not be good at everything; however, you must be good at the topic you are presenting, so as a good teacher you should prepare the structures you have to use in order that you can manage them properly at the time of teaching.

Ø Practice Deep Breathing. Adrenaline causes your breathing to shallow. By deliberately breathing deeply your brain will get the oxygen it needs and the slower pace will trick your body into believing you are calmer. This also helps with voice trembles, which can occur when your breathing is shallow and irregular.

Ø Drink Water. Adrenaline can cause a dry mouth, which in turn leads to getting tongue-tied; in such a case, you must have a glass or bottle of water handy and take sips occasionally, especially when you wish to pause or emphasize a point. Take care not to take large gulps of water.

Ø Smile: Smiling is a natural relaxant that sends positive chemical messages through your body. Smiling and maintaining eye contact also help you build affinity with your audience; in this case, you students.

Ø Use Visualization Techniques: Imagine that you are delivering your teaching to some students that are interested, enthused, smiling, and reacting positively to it. Cement this positive image in your mind and recall it just before you are ready to start the class.

 

Now, let’s talk about the practice stage. This stage was conducted by Luiz. In this opportunity he made use of very good tasks such as, memory game and some other activities and which he kept the students activeness and enthusiasm very up. Furthermore, Luis activities were loved by the students because I have observed that they love everything that involves kinesthetic tasks. This is because kids get easily bored when they are just asked to be sitting down at their desks and writing anything; however, if you interchange activities, for example: one relax activity; then, when they start getting uninterested, you switch  to another task  more active, it will definitely make a difference in the kids’ learning and you will avoid boredom; in this way, the kids’ learning  will become not only informative, but also motivating, and this is precisely what Luiz did, he kept students into his tasks the whole moment. Finally, it can be said that the practice stage was carried out in a very good way.

 

Talking about Luis performance in comparison with the first class he taught; I can say that he did overcome all the observations he got in his first time teaching kids. The first time I saw Luis teaching in this course and because of his personality I thought that he did not like kids; however, when someone does really make a commitment to himself to be better at something; at the end the person will succeed in  his personal goal, and this is exactly what Luis did. He made the decision of doing a better job this time and he won. I could observe a more confident Luis that tried to do his best; besides, I am still amazed by the way he conducted the goodbye song, in which he made some changes, but kids loved it and enjoyed the song more than in any other time during the whole course. I think that in this opportunity the goodbye song was more meaningful for the kids’ learning than before, and I am pretty sure Jefferson (my case of study) would have loved this new version of the goodbye song, taking into account that he loves dancing; unfortunately, he could not come to the class.

As a final thought, I would like to say that everyone in this practicum class is capable to become in an amazing teacher, we just have to believe it and go for it!!!!

References.
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/present/presentation-nerves.html