My last class with the basic group did not start in
the best way. The reason: I never know what to do when my group of students
arrive after I give the directions for the warm up. During the three classes
with them I had the same problem and what I tried to do in order to give them
time to arrive was to start a short chat with the ones that arrived early, but
I think it was not enough because some of them always entered to the classroom
after I gave the directions and I had to explain again what they have to do
with the purpose that everyone participated during the activity. Besides that
situation, I consider everything was good because then I continued with the
class in the way I had planned it.
In the second activity I had
to develop a reading, but before to start with the reading I wrote the name of
the reading on the board and I asked them to tell me the thoughts that came to
their mind when reading it. The name of the reading was “The Wilson’s Party” so
it was easy for them to share about it. After it, I gave them the copies of the
reading and asked them to read it individually and to pay attention to the details.
Even though the reading was not complicated, they always have doubts with some
words. I tried to solve most of them giving them the meaning of the words when
they needed it, but for some of them was even difficult to get the idea when I
explained them so I had to use gestures. After they finished to read it, I
asked them to work in pairs and share what they remembered about the reading of
course they did not have to read it again. When they finished to share what
they remembered with their classmates I asked some of them to share it but this
time for the whole class. It was really good because by doing that they could
practice a lot and enhance their speaking ability. In this unit they are
studying “The Simple Past” so as a final task I asked them to look for the
verbs in simple past and underline them.
Then they have to share the verbs they found with the whole class. At
the end I thanked them because they were a really nice and cooperative group.
