Luis & Gloria's class

Class 1

Topic: “Welcome to the Classroom”

Vocabulary: Bag, book, pen, pencil, ruler, eraser.

Grammar: There is and there are

 

After we had had the first contact with the children, my classmates Luis and Gloria were the ones who started with the first teaching class. It was not easy since it was their first time, so they faced several problems that most of us could have had.

 

Luis started with the class, and he started with a warm up activity about asking their names through throwing a ball each other and asking names. I cannot say more because this is what I know because I did not see the activity.

 

Next, he started to present the topic. He introduced the topic presenting the new vocabulary by showing some flashcards and asking them if they had those objects with them, and if they had them, they had to show them. Once he did it, he pasted the picture next to the name which was on the board. I consider it was a good activity because with this students were reviewing colors and numbers due to the fact that Luis asked them when he showed the objects. However, I could notice that the flashcards were not made with a hard material, so it tended to fall. Even though it was a problem, I considered it as a contribution for us because with that we learned that we had to print the materials in a harder material or put them on.

 

Then, they started the practice. One activity for practicing was about asking them for vocabulary objects. He made two groups and in every group a leader to whom he was going to say what he wanted and that student had to say it to his/her group. I think it could have been a very nice activity; however, they had some problems. Firstly, because I consider he had to have modeled the activity so that students could understand well. Also, because he did not use all the space he had, and the groups were too near, so when he asked for the objects, some students tended to get confused and sometimes they gave the objects to the opposite group’s leader, so that mean they had not understood at all. In this activity, I could see my case of study, Darlin, she was completely lost, in fact, she did not engage in the activity because she did not understand what they were doing. Probably is Luis had modeled and given clearer instruction, the activity would have done great.

 

Another activity that they did was carried out by Gloria. This activity was about making two lines and the student to the front had to write letters on the board. In this activity they had to use their fine motor skills because it was a tactile activity in which Gloria said the letter to the last student of the line and that student had to draw with her/his finger on the student’s back in front of him/her. It was not a good idea to do that activity since even older students had problems doing that kind of activity, so they were not able to do the activity as it was expected because what students were doing was that they were saying the letter and in this way the student in the front of the line wrote it. However, one of the groups was in disadvantage because they had Imelda in the front of the line, so she had to write the letters, and as she is starting that stage she still misses using in the same speed her fine motor skills, so what she was doing was cheating what the other student in the other line was doing. As it was not doing well, Gloria changed the activity by just saying the letter, and also she changed Imelda’s position. In this way, she got a better students’ task.  With this, we learned that we think or have a plan B when an activity is not doing as we expect. Without any doubt, that class was the one in which we learned so many things for improving our way of teaching.