Class number 3

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” 
― William Arthur Ward

The project continues, Fridays are passing by and our kids are becoming more familiar with the classes and with all the teachers!!!!!!!

This week was the opportunity for Ingrid and Abigail to show what they have learned throughout the first period of this semester.

During the class..!!!!

The first part of the class was conducted by Abigail. During the first forty five minutes of the class, the students were first refreshed with the hello song to identify whether they could remember this song that was taught in a previous class. I could notice that the kids remembered most of the lyrics of the song and were able to follow the teachers’ gestures for the song. During this time kids were relaxed and enjoyed the song. Then, the students were shown some pictures that were also part of the last class. Here, the purpose was to discover how well the students are assimilating the vocabulary and target grammar they are being taught every Friday, and as a matter of fact, they did well at remembering the last class’s vocabulary. After this refresh, the students were introduced to the new topic of this week which was “My Family”.  During this presentation stage I could notice that the students were already familiar with the topic. This maybe because of TV programs they see, or some English classes they receive where they study or any other contact with the language that they have had, but certainly;  the good thing was that they were already familiarized with the topic and it was not difficult at all for my peers to introduce the vocabulary for this class.

Lic. Yanira de Canizales. Teacher in charge of this
 practicum project.

The last part of the class was conducted by Ingrid. Ingrid worked on tasks to put into practice what Abigail had already presented. At this point, activities such as, matching, getting in groups, reviewing what they had done among other activities were developed. However, there was one specific activity that really got my intention, and this was about making the students design their own father, mother, brothers and sisters in some sticks that they were given together with the items (caps, mustache, ties, hair, etc) to paste on them. This activity got my attention because although it seemed very easy, it took many time for the students to get the gist of the task. This problem could have arisen because the children knew the vocabulary for the members of the family, but they did not know the vocabulary for items that people wear or parts of the body, so the instructions became unclear for the students and there was a need to use Spanish. Finally, at the end of this activity, after struggling to make the kids understand the task; some of them could be able to design the members of their families while some others could not. This gives us the lesson that although tasks may look easy to be developed by kids, we have to think about the instructions that we will be giving and think whether they are overwhelming or not for little kids. Lastly, to finish with the class, the kids were refreshed with the good bye song that was also taught the last class, and actually kids demonstrated that they remembered the song, but they still need some reinforcement with it.

About my case of study video!!!!!!!

This time I could observe that my case of study video Jefferson was more relaxed and paid more attention to the activities that my peers developed. However, there is always a problem with Jefferson when the activities involve any reading or writing. In this opportunity, the class did not engage any writing activity, but it did involve reading moments. During the reading activities Jefferson stayed quite as usual, and refused to participate volunteering in the reading activities. For example, there was a task in which Abigail showed a presentation with some words and most of the kids read the words and spoke them out loud, but he did not read any word and instead as I said before, he stayed quite.

This time, Jefferson did not go the bathroom during the whole class which really surprises me since he used to go to the bathroom at least twice per class. Now, I am analyzing whether the going to the bathroom is a habit that he has or just the way by which he releases stress.

Finally, I would like to say that Jefferson is learning, although there are still some barriers in his learning process, but he demonstrates understanding of the class in a less degree in comparison with his classmates, but there is still always some vocabulary that remains in his mind.