My third Class...

I want to share with you that my last class with advanced II was not my best class.  I faced too many problems since the moment the teacher told me I was going to teach the grammar part. In the previous classes I had only developed the practices and some other things, but this time it would be totally different. I had to start with the unit and introduce the grammar part.  I did not know about the grammar part I had to teach them so I studied the information the teacher provided to me. Well, what I really want to tell you is that I was really nervous because of the grammar part that I made a lot of mistakes since the beginning of the class. I managed the topic because I had studied it, but my fear was how I was going to explain them if they had doubts at the end. As a student I can understand a topic, but my problem is that I do not know how to explain it to others. During this last class I have to say that I stepped back in the process because I could not face my fears. I let them win, but I also learned something really important from the teacher. He told me that when we are at the front of the class we are the experts there because in that moment the students do not know about the topic yet. We are the one who are going to provide them with the information so we have to feel confident about the things we are doing and saying in front of them. 

My second Class…

Even though I know I continue making some mistakes and I have things to improve I want to share with you that my second teaching experience was better. I think it was because I took in consideration every detail that the teacher mentioned me during the feedback. I arrived early to the classroom and even though I could not rearrange the desks because of the small classroom, I tried to create a good atmosphere since the beginning by greeting them. This time, I felt not as nervous as the first time because this time I knew how the group works. Let me tell you that they are a really good group and you are going to enjoy working with them if you have the opportunity because they are always eager to participate giving their opinions and during the activities. The name of the unit is TASTE so the warm up activity was related with food. I divided the class in 2 groups and asked to choose a representative. Every group had the opportunity to choose a piece of paper with the name of a food and describe it in order that the representative guessed the word. The activity was a success because the students had fun, and at the same time they put into practice their skills when describing things, but at the end I faced a problem because I did not take into consideration the time and I could not develop the last activity. Well, after that I continued with my class. The teacher had already given them the grammar part, but I had to make a short review before starting with the practice.  I asked them about what they remembered about the last class and they easily answered me. The topic was about “Fronting” and “Inversions”. During the practice they had to work in pairs. Again, they had doubts about the meaning of some words, and as I had looked for the meaning, I could help them. Then they developed a speaking activity in their books, but I did not have time to finish it. My recommendation: be careful with the time!!! 

My first Class...

My first teaching experience was with Advanced II. Since the beginning I was really nervous because they are a large group, and also because they are English advanced students so I had to be really careful with my pronunciation and grammar. I started my class with a warm up activity following the teacher´s recommendations. He asked me to develop an activity related to adjectives because the topic was “the adjective order”, so I did it. The activity consisted in reorder unscrambles sentences in the correct way. Of course, in the sentences they were going to find different adjectives in order to practice what they had learned in the last class with the teacher. During the activity I felt better because the students were cooperating with me and following the instructions about what they had to do during the warm up activity. After the activity finished, the nerves came back because I had to continue with the class. The teacher had explained the grammar part in the previous class so what I had to do was continuing with the practice that was not something really easy as I believed it. As a teacher you have to be really careful about details. You have to know that students are going to make mistakes, and that they are going to have more than one answer, but before the class I did not expect it, and  I felt confident because I had solved the practice at home. I assumed that reviewing the homework was going to be an easy task, but it was not so easy. They had different answers even though it was a controlled practice.  They asked me if they could do it in different ways and if not why not. For a moment I panicked because I did not know how to respond to their doubts. After that incident, I had to continue so I asked them to work in pairs. When they were working on the exercises, they asked for the meaning of some words that they did not know. I had looked for the meaning in advance so it was easy for me to help them. To finish the activity I asked them to share their answers in an oral way to compare them with the ones from the other classmates. In this form they could verify if they had ordered the adjectives in the correct way or not. At the end of my class I noticed that I made a lot of mistakes, but now I possess new experience that I did not have before and that I will try to improve by doing my best effort in the missing classes.

First Class Observation                                                                          Date:  January 30^th, 2013.                                           

Advanced English II

My first class observation was with a teacher who teaches a large group of advanced English students. First, I have to say that it was great to observe his class because I could see how most of the strategies and methods that we have learned during the major were applied during his class.

Greeting on time. As students of the English major one of the first things that we learn is that we as future teachers have to be on time in the classroom and he was not the exception because I observed that he was in the classroom 10 minutes before the classes started. As result, while his students were coming in to the classroom, he received them creating a positive and relaxed atmosphere since the very beginning.  

Spanish is not allowed. Another thing that I could observe was that some students were speaking in Spanish at the beginning of the class and to deal with it the teacher called the students´ attention in a funny and creative way pointing out that it was not permitted to speak Spanish. By doing it in such a positive way, he got good results because since that moment until the end of the class I did not listen any of them speaking Spanish again. I think it was because the teacher encouraged them in a positive and funny way.

The warm up activity. After that, he asked them if they had worked in their homework however he did not check it in the moment.  First, he developed a short warm up activity. As we know it is not necessary to develop a game during the warm up activity. In this case he prepared a vocabulary review from the last class. To be fair during the activity, he initially asked for volunteers. Some of them were eager to participate, but after a moment no one wanted to pass to the front so that he started to choose the ones who were going to continue developing the activity.

The "warm up activity" ends and the homework review comes. I think that in order not to lose a lot of time the teacher decided to review the homework in an oral way.  In this way students could practice their speaking skill and at the same time check their answers and solve their doubts.

Practice in pairs. At the time to develop the class the teacher decided students should work in pairs, but he asked them not to work with the same person as always they do.  By asking that, they could interchange new information with other classmates.  When they were working in pairs, he was observing them walking around them and not staying in the same place, trying to solve their doubts.

Organized participation. The teacher asked the students to be organized when they wanted to share and opinion or to ask for something by raising their hand and waiting for their turns at the time to speak.

At the end I could observe how the teacher deals with many unexpected situations and how he solved every doubt during his class. I just hope not forget everything I could observe here during my first class.

Second Class Observation                                                                    Date:  January 31^th, 2013.                                          

Advanced English II

In my second observation class the teacher only gave one hour class because he had a meeting or something like that, but in that hour he started his class as he did in the last class. He started by greeting his students and having a short conversation with some of them. Then he presented a speaking activity. He gave them some copies and the directions about what they have to do.  What the students had to do according to his direction was reading the pieces of paper which contained information about different estrange foods around the world. Every piece of paper had different information so the teacher asked them to read it individually and pay attention to details. After the students finish reading it, the teacher asked them to look for someone who had not the same information and explain to that person what the information they read was about. They finished sharing opinions between them so they come back to their sits. After it, to complete the activity, and continue with the class the teacher requested to some of the students to share their information to the whole class because by doing the first activity every student only knew about two of the six different estrange foods. At the end the final task was that every student learned about the six different estrange foods that the other classmates had read and also it was to develop in the students their speaking skill. Something important that I could notice during the activity was how the teacher solved students´ doubts because the information included a lot of new vocabulary.