Journal entry II

On may 10^th, the fourth class was taught. This time the topic to be taught was about shopping and I really liked it because there are a lot of things to do in order to teach this topic.

To start the class I always greet all my students and ask them general questions to create a warm environment. They were very attentive, and what I always notice is that they always want to participate and learn new things which is really motivating.

I took a video to the class in order to introduce the topic. It was about shopping in a movie context. The fragment of the movie is really popular. It is called “White Chicks”. As I expected they really loved the video, and they laughed at it. From the video I think I took advantage of it because I asked additional information, and they guessed faster what the topic was about.

Later I decided to take some pictures in a power point presentation to show my students. The idea was to make them aware about different aspects around shopping, and how the linking or relationship with a specific gender has changed over the years. The showed pictures were pretty clear in terms of evidencing real situations. They tried to describe every single picture, and what they did was to associate it with their life, so it works also to be internalized.

From the previous they were asking different questions in order to create the need of using ING after some verbs. The activity was aimed at creating some habits and better association patrons that avoid forgetting valuable information. 

Finally, in pairs they answered a test to know whether they were shopaholic or not. They were very curious about the results. Most of them are not shopaholic, and at the end of the class those results were shared and they looked really happy and enthusiastic.

What makes a good teacher?

     A good teacher is the one who provides the students with many tools for their lives. A good teacher may be strict, may be funny, may be serious, but what makes him great, is the ability to make their students reflect on what they know. A teacher who guides the students towards looking for meaning, asking questions, who teaches to give their opinions. That is a real good teacher. Generally they are not appreciated a lot, however, if they really left a positive mark in students’ lives, they will remain in the story, and in that way they will gain immortality.

Journal Entry I

On April 26^th, the third class was taught. I wanted to do something really different because I think monotony is a key factor to fall into things boredom. This time I wanted to focus on writing, and I prepared many activities to do something fun and meaningful.

At the very start I greeted all my students and asked them some questions in order to create a warm environment, not only the cold relationship teacher- students. I consider the beginning of a class as a really important stage because it can tell us how motivated or enthusiastic students are, and depending on the results, it is up to us to control the situation.

Later I decided to take some pictures in a power point presentation to show my students. The idea was to make them aware about how the adjectives work in a sentence. The showed pictures were really famous, and as it was expected they were attentive, and entertained. In the way I see it, I took advantage as much as I could of those elements. I tried to make them give their opinions and so on. They are very clever so they understood all the given instructions.

After, I decided to make them use their vocabulary and some expressions already seen. They received a paper in which everyone had to write the same starting point. They were going to write a kind of collective story.  They were timed, so they had to be careful and think quickly. Additionally, they couldn’t read what the first person wrote, so they had to make up something alike to what the last person wrote. That activity was at the start kind of confusing because they did not understand how to fold the paper, and other aspects. However, after the first round, the instructions were internalized and followed.

The activity was entertained, and they were under pressure which is very good especially when they are in areal situation to know how to react, and cope with it. When everyone had their own paper they had to read the collective story and to come up with some conclusions from the exercise.

In my original lesson plan I had another activity which included a work in pairs. They had to modify their stories in order to make sense. However, they could choose just one of those stories or use them both. As a result I could notice how well they used the adjectives and how their writing was going on. Nevertheless, I ran out of time and I could not do that activity, but I believe the activity was enough, and maybe for future lesson plans, I will try to adjust the time, and control it better.