Luis and Gloria's second class

Teachers: Luis and Gloria

Topic: Clothes

Vocabulary: Jeans, shorts, dress, blouse, skirts, t-shirt, socks, shoes, glasses, hat, cup, sweater.

Grammar: I am wearing, she is wearing, and he is wearing.

Whose _____is this? Whose _______are these?

It was Luis and Gloria’s class, the second teaching group in the third period. I think they improved a lot their teaching because I could notice that they did many great activities that gave a nice environment to the entire class. I really enjoyed it. Once again I will not focus on my case of study because, unfortunately, she was not there…

 

Gloria started the class with the warm up activity which was the “how are you” song, I liked the way of how she gave her own touch to the activity because children had to not only sing the song but also raise some faces at the time of mentioning every mood (hungry, happy, and sad). Even though it was a great change, I consider children did not understand the instructions at all because they did not sing as other times, but they were more focused on raising the faces, and even some of them in some times raised mistaken faces. I do not know, but I think that with clearer instructions, children had done a better task.

 

Next, she presented the topic by showing some

flashcards about clothes items. It was interesting because at the same time of encountering the target language, children were reviewing the topics: colors and numbers.  In addition, something that I really like of Gloria’s attitude was that every time that children were talking, she changed their position so they could be more attentive.

 

Practice

 

One interesting activity was about wearing body shapes.

In this activity, boys had to wear to Ricardo (a boy’s body shape) and girls to Fabiola (a girl’s body shape), so they had to follow Gloria’s modeling in one of the shapes. This was a great task. However, I consider that it could have been more successful if all children have had both body shapes and Gloria had modeled one by one in order they got not confused and they could use all item clothes they had in the bags. Even though it was a nice activity in which students at

this stage are ready to perform it very well because at their age, they already can differentiate among what is for boys and for girls. Most of the children wore their body shape according to what every gender must wear. Nevertheless, I could see that one of the boys had used all the clothes item and he had paste a skirt in the boy’s body shape. I consider it was not because the child does not have that knowledge, but probably because he could have thought that they were going to use all the items because they were in the bag. Thus, I consider that children could have had both body shapes, so they can show that difference.

 

Another very interesting and nice activity that children and most of us enjoyed was when Luis used the memory game activity. At this age, children have developed their brain, so they can use their memory and self-awareness for performing this kind of activity. Through this activity, children were able not only to use their cognitive area but also to practice the new target language and review the colors and numbers as every time that students participated, they had to choose two colors and two numbers, so it made them increase their knowledge. Also, something that made them get involved in the task was that when the first child formed a pair and Luis gave it to her, many of them wanted to participate because they also wanted to get pairs. For me it was an amazing activity. However, I could realize that it would have been more appealing if Luis had had an order by which all children could participate. For this, he could have made maybe lines in order to every children participated the same times. 

 

    

Moreover, something that I REALLY liked and enjoyed as the children was the “good bye” song because of the complete change and style that Luis gave to it. It was not the simple song that we have sung in all classes, but it was a complete “boom”, and as me, everyone was astonished of that…

 

Without doubt, they overcame most of the problems that we had had previously, and of course they increased a lot their way of teaching because besides of those little problems, they definitely did a good job!

 

Congratulations Luis and Gloria for this great class!!!! Personally, I liked it so much!!! :D

 

References:

Papalia, D., et al. A child's world. pp. 239-290. Mc Graw Hill. USA, 2006