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