Last Class Group Number 4

Group 4

Part 1                    Topic: Toys and Games                       Date: Sept. 28th 2012

Teachers: Heinar and Josué.

Vocabulary: Bike, doll, teddy bear, car, plane.

Grammar: I have/I don’t have.

Our first part of this lesson has many advantages to be depicted. In the first place, kids were very motivated to study the target language that was going to be taught. It might have been due to the fact that they were eager to receive the final lesson. It helped a lot the development of the class for they willing to participate. In the second place, a puzzle activity was applied for kids. We mention that in here because it is worthy to say that children liked a lot. In addition to this, teacher managed the activity in a very good way. Indeed, the teacher created different puzzles with different number of pieces.  Then, teacher distributed the puzzles according to the level of difficulty to the most appropriate kid. In the third place, teachers managed the class in a very skillful way. This was done at the moment of controlling some students that were a little bit distracted and were not paying attention to the teacher. Finally, something new that happened during the lesson was the fact that students were yelling the vocabulary. In fact, this was something that really motivated the children for they felt a sort of freedom to behave that way (Which is ok). These facts helped the teacher as well for he felt more confident at that time. In conclusion, concerns expressed above reflect some positive factor of the practice.

Despite the good details of our practice, there are some points to consider for improvement. First, in the very beginning of our lesson, the teacher a little bit nervous. In fact, it affected the development of some activities. For example, the “Chant” that was performed by the teacher got a little bit less motivating. Truth is that a chant should be very meaningful for students, in the sense that they would be able to remember that joyful melody. Besides, there were some activities in which repetition might have been more promoted. It would have helped a lot at the time of performing in the production stage (Students reached the objective, though). In addition to this, there was an activity about puzzles. In here, students form the figures; nevertheless, it was somewhat difficult to handle to move the pieces without deforming the images. Therefore, when students were moving around to see all the pictures that they form they tend to step on the puzzles and disorder them. In sum, these are some of the aspect that we need to consider to improve for better instructing in our lessons.

Part 2                    Topic: Toys and Games                       Date: Sept. 28

Teachers: Andrés and Ronald.

Vocabulary: Ball, train, robot, kite.

Grammar: Do you have? /Yes, I do/ No, I don’t.

The second part of the practice has many positive aspects to be considered. In the first place, teachers implied many physical activities. For example, there was an activity about moving toward some pictures on the wall. Indeed, it was done to review some vocabulary that was previously taught. It was something that was done to activate the students’ energy. In fact, we think that it was something well implemented because they had been already working a lot for 40 minutes. Thus, they were a little bit tired. In the second place, teachers used some “Calm” activities. As a resemblance of this, students had some time to color some drawings. Actually, this kind of activities balanced the students’ level of energy. This helped the students to maintain a good path of the lesson’s development. Finally, facts expressed above are some good examples of positive factors about this part of the lesson.

Despite the good aspects mentioned above, there are some points to be improved in this part of the lesson. For one thing, teachers implemented two times an activity about coloring some drawings. Even though it can be something very useful for a class development, it could have been somewhat boring for kids because it can be the case that they would have considered it as something repetitive. Besides, in one of these occasions students had to color too big drawings. Therefore, they spent too much time doing such activity. In consequence, the focus of the activity might have changed a little bit from “Practicing vocabulary” to “Completing coloring the drawings.” Besides this, there was a point in the development of the lesson in which the teacher was calling students to say a vocabulary word that was being asked. Nevertheless, teacher concentrated this practice to the single student most of the time and not to the whole class. In conclusion, these have been some positive factors to be depicted for our lesson.

CONCLUSION

The teaching experience is something endless. One might think that he or she has many good ideas for a lesson and many excellent activities to develop a class. Nevertheless, a teacher should be always focused to students’ needs. This is because the student is the main factor in the teaching learning process. Time ago, this matter was something different being the teacher the center and nucleus of such concern. To conclude, we can say that we, as future teachers, should be opened to our students to help them progress in their learning…because that is our profession…that is teaching.