Journal entry IV

On May 24^th, the sixth class was taught. As always all my lessons have a communicative focus. That is why I wanted to implement something fun and catchy to make my students talk. For that lesson I was expected to work on simple past. I really loved teaching that topic because there are many things to be done about it.

At the beginning I showed all my students a video. That was about four characters who did not know each other. However, they gave their opinions about each other, just analyzing a picture of them. In the way I see it, the video was really nice, even the teacher in charge of the group was entertained with it.  The video was expected to introduce the topic, and after it was played, many comments were out.

Next, I had prepared a presentation about some common stereotypes or prejudices people have around Colombian people, and many other ones all over the world. They were very attentive, especially because it was about something that they knew very well. Once the presentation was over, they received some cards with some questions about prejudices. Those were trigging questions in order to make them react and give their opinions. They did the exercise, but some of them tended to use a lot of Spanish, so it was necessary to tell them that English was compulsory when speaking.

In every single lesson I have implemented real opportunities for students to use their language, and some others for them to interact which is a relevant factor. In the final part of the class I wanted to look at them stand up, so I organized them in a circle, and they had to use their speaking abilities to make their classmates know what their first impression was about them at the beginning of the major.

Finally, they had to express what they felt at the very start, and use the simple past without having a previous grammatical relationship with the activities. The activities were aimed at making them use their language, and making it every time better through real and meaningful tasks. Something that maybe I would like to get better is my time management. Sometimes the activities are longer than expected, and when the class is going on, it is the time to analyze better and control how long the activities are, but during the actual action.