Class 3: Monday, March 3rd, 2014
It can be incredibly difficult to create a positive learning environment in which adolescents feel happy, secure, valued and motivated to learn. The reasons for this are many: teenagers are going through many physical and emotional changes, including changes in their brains; they would normally prefer to be somewhere else on a sunny afternoon; if they do want to come to class it may be because it is where the rest of their friends are, as a kind of social club; peer pressure is at its highest and this can have a very negative effect during a lesson; and they may even be suffering from stress and exhaustion due to their demanding school and after school commitments. These are just a few of the reasons why it can be extremely difficult to provide successful lessons and courses with this age group. However, for me it is the other way around since I have enjoyed the experiences I have had when teaching them. Even if I may face all those different behaviors, I think this experience will not be the exception...
It was my
first teaching class of the Teaching Practicum II, teaching teens. As I mentioned in my first entry I had
already had experience teaching teens, so it was not a new thing at all. Even
though the classes that I had taught when doing my community service were not
challenging enough as this one, I felt more comfortable than when I taught
children in my first Teaching Practicum since I had never taught children and I
did not have any idea about how to teach them.
Nevertheless,
as it was my first time teaching those teens, I was a little bit nervous
because I did not know how they were going to react when I were teaching to
them. So my time to start teaching came and I started the class by asking them
how they were; however, as this question had not been taught they did not
understand me, so immediately I started making yes/no questions and modeling
what I was saying, and in this way they got understand me. Therefore, I told
myself that I had to model every single thing that I was supposed to say and
explain in order they could understand me, so that is what I tried to do during
the whole class: modeling and also showings things.
The topic to
study in this class was about feelings and the main skills to develop were
speaking and writing. In the first half of the class, the main focus was
speaking. In this half, I had to teach
feelings vocabulary. I introduced the topic by showing some pictures in which
they were asked whether they knew or not what the pictures mean, and they only
knew some of them. Once that I introduced the topic and they repeat some a
couple of times the new words, I started with the practice stage. What I did at
this stage is that I ask them to do two task the first one in which they could
work on a sheet, and the second one in which they could spend their energy but
practicing what they were learning, and so students did not get bored or
stressed. For the production, I asked them to mime the adjectives that they
were studying, so all of them could show that they were able to use the
vocabulary, so do they.
The second half of the class was mainly focus
on the writing skills. I had to continue teaching feelings vocabulary and
introduce the verb be affirmative. I introduced it by matching the personal
pronouns with their respective verb “be” form. To practice it, I did the same
as in the first part, I asked them work on a sheet and then to do an activity
that required to spend energies, so they could not only learn but also have fun
in a way that not only teens but any person would like to learn. At the
production stage I asked them to write sentences about their classmates using
all what they had learned in the class.
In the
whole class, I felt confident and sure of myself and of what I was doing
because I liked teaching these students and I did not get frustrated. I think
that the students, as me, enjoyed this lesson, and this makes me feel more motivated
and continue working harder in order that students have a better and significant
learning.
Here is my planning…
Objective:
Students will be able to
-Describe and talk about
feelings using verb be (affirmative)
Speaking
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Time
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Stage
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Procedure
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Details
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8”
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Warm up
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“The Queen Wants….”
I will divide the class
in two or three groups of students and every group will have to look for some
objects that I will ask for. For example, I will say “the queen wants two
erasers”, and every group will look for them. The first group that gets the
objects will get points for their groups.
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Aim of the activity: To break up the ice
and review classroom objects vocabulary.
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: T-S
Materials: Board, marker, Ss’
classroom objects.
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12”
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Presentation
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Introducing feelings vocabulary
I will present a power presentation in which Ss will
see images describing feelings. For example, happy, sad, scared, etc. First,
Ss will look at one image and I will ask them whether they know the
corresponding word in English for that image, if they know it, I will just
correct some mispronunciations that may occur and then show the word for that
feeling; if they do not know the word, I will show the word, say the
pronunciation and make them repeat it. This repetition of words will be done
three or four times. Then, I will show again the images without showing the
word so that the students can name the items without much help.
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Aim of the activity: To encounter target
language
Type of learner: V,A
Interaction: T-S
Materials: Projector and computer
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10”
15”
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Practice
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Activity 1: I will give a
worksheet (Engage Students’ book, p. 14) to Ss in which they could look
at some pictures in order to label the pictures with their words. Also, Ss
will have to circle the adjectives according to the pictures. Then they will
check in pairs, and after as a whole class.
Activity 2: Ss sit in a semicircle
will play the “Hot Seat”, I will put a chair in front of them, they will have
to walk around the circle and seat in all desks while I play some music; when
music stops the students sit on the chair that I put before in front of them
will have to guess the word that I will write on the board. For guessing,
their classmates will have to mime that word, so the students can guess since
he/she could not look at the word on the board. E.g.: If I write angry, Ss
have to put an angry face or something like that in order to mime the
feeling.
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Aim of the activity: To clarify target
language
Type of learner: V,A,T
Interaction: T-S, S-S
Materials: Worksheets
Aim of the activity: To remember target
language
Type of learner: V, A, K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Desks, music, board,
marker
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10”
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Production
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Ss will have to pass to
the front in order to mime some feelings and the rest of the class will have
to guess what is the feeling that student is showing. For doing this, every
student before miming will go to me in order to pick a piece of paper with a
feeling in it.
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Aim of the activity: To practice and
internalize target language
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Pieces of paper with
the feelings
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Part 2
Writing
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Time
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Stage
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Procedure
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Details
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1”
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Warm up
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In case that students are tired, I will ask them to
stand up and distress for a while in order to continue with the class.
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Aim of the activity: To get students relax
Type of learner: K
Interaction: --
Materials: --
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7”
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Presentation
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I will introduce the verb Be (affirmative) by
showing first the Personal pronouns (I, you, he, she it, we, they) in some
pieces of paper that I will paste on the board, and I will show the students
what every pronoun means. For example, if I show “I” I will point myself, if
I say “she” I will point a girl and so on. Once they have understood every
personal pronoun, I will paste on the board the three conjugated forms of the
verb “Be”.
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Aim of the activity: To encounter second
target language
Type of learner: V, A
Interaction: T-S
Materials: Board, masking tape,
pieces of papers with personal pronouns and verb “be” conjugations.
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13”
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Explanation
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I will explain which of those forms match with the
personal pronouns (I am; he/she/it is;
you/they/we are and their contractions too). Once I have explained this,
I will ask students to pass to the board, so they can match the personal
pronouns with their respective verb “be” form. For it, I will leave the verb
be conjugations on the board and I will make three big circles for every of
the three forms, and also I will give some Ss the personal pronouns, so they
can go the board to paste them. After, I will write on the board some
sentences without the conjugation of the verb “be” and I will ask Ss to help
me fill in the blanks in the sentences.
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Aim of the activity: To understand and
clarify grammatical structures
Type of learner: V,A
Interaction: T-S
Materials: Board, marker, masking
tape, pieces of papers with personal pronouns and verb “be” conjugations
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10”
15”
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Practice
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Activity 1: Worksheet (Workbook, p.
10-11)
I will give every student a worksheet, so they can
complete it in pairs. Then they will mingle in order to compare their
answers.
Activity 2: The crazy Alphabet.
I will divide the class in two teams; they will be
in two lines. I will put letters of the alphabet on the floor. I will show
(once) and say sentences such as: “I am happy”; the two at the top of each
team will run in order to look for the letters in order to form the sentence.
I will be repeating the sentence without showing it, so they can remember the
sentence. In the case that both Ss fail the sentence, I will show it again,
so they can see what they have wrong. At the end, the student that forms the
right sentence first will get points for his/her group.
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Aim of the activity: To remember target
language.
Type of learner: V-A-T-K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Worksheets
Aim of the activity: To practice and
review target language by listening.
Type of learner: V-A-T-K
Interaction: T-S
Materials: Letters of the
alphabet, pieces of paper with sentences
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20”
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Production
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I will give Ss a sheet of paper and ask them to
write some sentences about each of their classmates using the target vocabulary.
E.g. Brian is tired, Paola is happy,
etc. Then they will pass to the front to read their sentences.
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Aim of the activity: To use the target
language
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: sheets of paper
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3”
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Wrap up
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I will ask Ss if they liked today’s class, and which
activity they liked the most.
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Aim of the activity: To close the class and
find Ss’ learning preferences.
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Assignments and Announcements
·
Ask Ss to check the Facebook group class in order to
do the homework on Tuesday and Thursday. I will explain and provide examples
about it in the Facebook group class, and if they have doubts ask me there
(Facebook group) and I will answer them ASAP.
ü Assignment 1 (Tuesday): “Upload a video of yourself in the class group,
telling your name, age, where you are from, nationality. After this small
introduction, choose your favorite artist, actor, poet, actress or any other
famous person and say the same personal information about her or him.”
ü Assignment 2 (Thursday): “Check out your partners’ videos and write sentences (according to what
you listen) to one of them.”
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Class 4: Friday March 7th, 2014
My second teaching time came and this time I
had to continue teaching all what the students had studied so far (countries,
nationalities, feelings, and verb “be”), it requires to review what I and my
partner Ingrid had taught them.
This time I felt even more comfortable because
I had already experienced at least for a time with these students. I already
had an idea about how they could react, so I was kind of relax. I divided the
class in two parts. The first one was mainly focus on the reading skills and
the second one on the listening skills.
In the first half of the class, they had to
master reading skills, so in the pre-reading stage, I just introduce some
probably new words that they were going to find in the reading texts, and also
I tried to make a review of the topics they had studied in the previous
classes. Then I gave them the reading text in orders to complete the task in
there.
In the listening part, I asked them first to
compete in teams by writing on the board some words they listen to. I did this
activity because it required being active, and so students felt motivated to
continue working on the following activities. Then I just present some new
words they could find in the audio, and also I made a review about the
pronunciation of the verb be forms and their contractions. After, I play the
audio, so they could do the task in their worksheet, and also I asked them to
practice a conversation they had in there. In the After-listening stage, they
had to change some information in the conversation by their own information in
order to perform it in front of their classmates.
All students did a good job in the whole class
because they complete all the tasks and did every single thing that I asked
them to do. Something really important that I could see in this class is that
students have learned a lot because they remember so many things they have been
learning throughout these two amazing weeks. I am sure they are going to
continue learning much more since they seem to enjoy our English classes.
Here is my
LP…
* Students will be able to
- Talk about countries,
nationalities, and feelings
- Introduce themselves
when meeting someone for the first time
Reading
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Time
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Stage
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Procedure
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Details
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8”
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Warm up
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Follow the leader.
I will ask Ss to stand
up and make a circle. One of the students will go outside the classroom. The
Ss inside the classroom will choose a leader. The leader has to make some
gestures and his/her classmates have to follow him/her. Then the student who
is outside the classroom will go in, and he/she has to guess who the leader
is. This student will have two opportunities to guess who the leader is. If
he or she does not guess who he/she is, I will show an image or objects about
vocabulary studied in previous classes, and he/she has to say the vocabulary
word.
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Aim of the activity: To break up the ice and review vocabulary
Type of learner: V,A, K
Interaction: T-S, S-S
Materials: Vocabulary word images
or objects
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12”
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Pre- (reading)
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I will paste on the
board some new words in colorful papers that they will find in the reading
(Engage Ss’ book, p. 16) and I will explain their meaning. Words like: right now, nickname. I will also make
a short review about the structure of the verb be (affirmative), feelings,
countries and nationalities vocabulary by pasting on the board a paper with
some sentences with some missing words, so they can fill in the blanks. E.g.:
Brian and Sara _______ from Mexico.
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Aim of the activity: To encounter new vocabulary
and review target language.
Type of learner: V,A
Interaction: T-S
Materials: board, market, colorful
papers with new words, paper with sentences.
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15”
15”
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During-(reading)
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During 1: I will give to Ss a
hand out with worksheets, I will ask them to look at the first worksheet, so
they can read and listen to the texts first. Then they will read the texts in
order to complete the exercises of the first worksheet. Finally, they will
check in pairs and after as a whole class.
During 2: I will make two
students’ groups. I will paste sheets of paper with sentences outside the
classroom, and inside I will have two sheets of paper in blank. All students
of both groups will have to go outside the classroom (one student at a time)
in order to see the sentences there. E.g.: the first students (of every
group) will go out, read the first sentence, try remembering it, go in, and
write it down or what they remember of the sentence. Once the first student
finishes writing, the next students will see first what the first student in
his/her team wrote, so then she/he will run outside in order to read and
continue what the first student wrote on the sheet of paper. If a team
“finishes”, I will check the good ones, but in case they have wrong
sentences, I will ask them to continue until they get all sentences
correctly. The first group that finishes and has all sentences right will be
the winner.
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Aim of the activity: To practice reading
skills
Type of learner: V,A,T
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Worksheets, CD player
Aim of the activity: To practice reading
skills by having fun
Type of learner: V,K,T
Interaction: S-S
Materials: two sheets of paper
with sentences, two sheets of paper in blank, two pens.
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10”
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After-(reading)
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I will ask Ss to work
individually. I will give every student a nationality and a sheet of paper,
and they will have to write some sentences in a text describing themselves,
just as they read in the texts they read. Then they will read their texts in
front of the class.
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Aim of the activity: To use target
vocabulary
Type of learner: V,A,T
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Sheets of paper
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Part 2
Listening
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Time
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Stage
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Procedure
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Details
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7”
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Warm up
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I will divide the class in three groups and I will
make three lines of Ss. I will say any vocabulary word, and the three Ss at
the top of each line will have to run in order to write that word. The first
student who writes the right word will get a point for their group.
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Aim of the activity: To get up Ss by
starting with a listening activity and review vocabulary.
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: T-S, S-S
Materials: board, markers
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12”
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Pre- (Listening /reading)
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I will introduce some new words that they will
listen into the audio. E.g.: birthday,
happy birthday, great, nice to meet you. I will write these words in
colorful pieces of paper, and I will paste them on the board and give some
examples using these words, so they can have an idea about what they mean. I
will also make a review of the different pronunciation between the verb be
forms and their contractions. E.g.: I
am/I’m, she is/she’s, etc.
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Aim of the activity: To encounter and
clarify new vocabulary
Type of learner: V,A
Interaction: S-S
Materials: board, colorful papers
with the new words
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8”
15”
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During-(Listening)
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During 1: I will ask Ss to work on the “listening
part” of second sheet (Engage Ss’ book, p. 17) of their hand out, so they can
listen to the audio and complete what they are asked to do. I will play the
audio two or three times in order to complete the task. Then they will compare
their answers in pairs and finally as a whole class.
During 2: I will ask Ss to work
on the “speaking part” of the same sheet. They will have to listen and read
the conversation, so then they can practice it in trios. Then they will
listen to the listening 3 of that
part in order to complete the task.
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Aim of the activity: To practice listening
skills
Type of learner: V,A,T
Interaction: S-S
Materials: CD player, worksheets
Aim of the activity: To practice listening
skills and pronunciation
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: CD player, worksheets
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15”
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After-(Listening)
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Ss in trios will practice the conversation in the
worksheet (Engage Ss’ book, p. 17) and they only will change the highlighted
words in order to use their own information. Then they will pass to the front
in order to say their conversations, they could look at their notes in order
to perform the conversation.
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Aim of the activity: To use target language
Type of learner: V,A,T, K
Interaction: S-S
Materials: Worksheets, Ss’ notes
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2”
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Wrap up
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I will ask Ss how they feel and if the class was
easy or not. I will also ask them if they liked this week’s homework and to
list the vocabulary they have learned so far.
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Assignments and Announcements
Ø On Monday will be
explained everything about the first Oral Presentation
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Resources:
Mercy, I could feel your confidence since the very moment you shared the lesson plan to me. I think you and Ingrid have created a very good learnig environment and that is the main reason why students keep atttending your lessons because they are learing, socializing and having fun! I think you did a very good job with the activities and the materials, neverheless, there are a few aspects you need to improve in classroom management and I would like to meet you one of these days to talk about it.
ResponderEliminarLet me know about your availability.