My last class at Intermediate English I!!

This class was really interesting because the students were learning adverbs of manner. What I liked about this class was that the students were paying attention when I was explaining grammar, and they were also asking questions. I folded small pieces of paper and in one side I wrote an adjective and in the other side I wrote the adverb of manner corresponding to the adjective. I brought a cord and I pasted it on the wall. I showed the adjective to the students and they were saying the adverb. Then, I turned the piece of paper to show the adverb and I was putting the pieces of paper in the cord. The students were very motivated to participate! I can say that this was the part of the class I liked the most. At the same time, students were having fun because I gave the students an example of an adjective with its adverb of manner and I pasted on the wall all the rules to form the adverbs. The students were looking for the rule corresponding to the adverb they had. They did it in pairs because there were 9 rules pasted in different walls of the classroom.

I brought three different short conversations and I divided the class into 3 groups. I gave a conversation to each group and I asked the groups to practice the conversation assigned in pairs. Then, from every group I chose two students to present it in front of the class, and they did a great job because some of them were trying to remember the conversation without reading it!!

Unfortunately, I could not develop one activity because I took too much time explaining the adverbs of manner because I was also giving examples using the adverbs in sentences, but my tutor teacher told me that it was ok to take that time to explain grammar because he noticed that the students understood very well.

Fortunately, I don´t have an activity that hadn´t gone not so well. I just had problems with time as I explained before.

If I teach that lesson again, I will teach grammar in the same way I did it in this class because I observed that the students´ attention was on what I was doing. They were very focused observing the adjectives in one side of a piece of paper and the adverb in the other side. They were also looking at the different rules that were pasted around them (in the walls) in order to classify each adjective I was showing. I liked this class!

3rd Class at Intermediate English I

Today´s class was much better than the previous one because students were using the structure in different speaking and writing activities I developed.

The activity that went well was a television interview in which I asked the students to practice a conversation between a TV presenter and a doctor. It was about a new flu shot people were getting. It was very nice because I asked for volunteers to perform it in front of the class....and guess what....I had volunteers!!! At the end, the other students who did not participate in front of the class, chose the best group by giving claps to the best presentation. I liked that they were developing the roles (TV presenter and doctor) very well.

The activity that did not go so well was the warm-up activity because once again, it was interrupted by the late comers. Fortunately, I knew that it is not their fault to come late. I asked some students why they were coming late and they said that they have classes in the same building and that their professor finishes the class too late. I did not believe, but my tutor teacher went upstairs to see if that was true, and he saw that most of the students were still attending the class!! . Again, it took too much time because the ones that were just coming wanted to do the activity.

I noticed that the activity in which the students spoke more was when I asked them to discuss 10 questions I brought to the class. Some of the questions were:

-What has been your biggest fear?
-Who has been the person you have admired the most?
-Have you ever loved somebody forbidden?

I asked them to discuss these questions with a classmate and then, I asked them to share their answers. Something good is that they were giving reasons. For example, one student said that the person he has admired the most is his mother because she has played many roles in his life. She has been his mother and his best friend. He also said that because of the good relation they have, she has been everything for him.

I had planned to develop 4 activities and the warm-up (5 in total) but unfortunately, I just could develop 4 activities because I lost time in the warm-up. I thought that my tutor teacher was going to tell me something about it, but he told me that it is better to do few well developed activities in which students are going to learn and use the structure at the end of the class, than developing many activities in which students will do the things in a hurry and won´t be able to use the structure.

If I teach that lesson again, I will bring different activities in which the students will use the structure in different ways because in this class, they were practicing just speaking and writing. I noticed that they need to practice the other skills, too!

Second Class at Intermediate English I.

In this class, the students were studying the modals of probability.
In the warm-up activity, the students were using the structure really well. The activity was “class secrets”. I asked them to write a sentence about a classmate. They were saying funny things like:
-He/She will marry a famous person.
- This person may keep a serious secret.

The problem was that it took too long for being a warm-up activity. Later, I couldn´t develop an activity I had planned. As you can see, I still have the same problem with time!!

The activity that didn´t go so well was a song I brought. I asked them to share some ideas based on the name of the song (A harvest for the world). I played the song and I asked them to pay attention to the lyrics. I wanted the shy students to participate but unfortunately, they were not able to understand the message of it even when I brought the lyric in a big chart for them to read it while they were listening it. At the end, I wanted the students to sing the song, but they took it as a joke!! Even the tutor teacher asked them to participate, but it did not work.

For my next class, I am planning to separate them from their friends because they speak too much Spanish and most of the time they don´t know what to do in the activities because they don´t pay attention. I guess that this is the hardest experience I´ve had.

If I teach that lesson again, I will bring a short activity as warm-up because the one I did in this class took too much time. I will also include only the students that arrive on time because I lose time giving directions to the students that come late.

My First Class at Intermediate English I

This class was really interesting for me because I knew almost all the students; that is why I just had to memorize like six new names but it was very easy.
I noticed that the students liked the warm up activity. It was a TPR activity called “class secrets” in which they needed to be as quickly as possible because it was a competence between two groups. I gave them some troubles and the first group to pass them had the opportunity to take one piece of paper containing a question. This group had to answer the question by giving a complete sentence.
Example: Who may secretly be in love?
The group said a name of someone they thought may be in love. If the group made a mistake structuring the answer, they lost the point.

At the end the group with more points was the winner.

Then, the activity that went well was one in which the students were sharing some ideas and they were using the required structure (may, will, might, won´t). I brought a chart in which there were some incomplete sentences, the students were adding information according to them.
Example: In five years…………..
Students: In five years I will be a professional.
In five years I may buy a car.
All their answers were really good and what I liked is that the prompts I brought made them think about the things they may, might, will or won´t do.

The activity that did not go so well was a competence activity. I brought a chart that had incomplete sentences. The sentences did not have the modals (may, might, will, won´t) so, I asked them to make three groups and I gave to each group the modals that were missing (in small pieces of paper in different colors). Each group had a different color. I read the sentences and they had to paste the correct modal I mentioned. The group that pasted it first was going to get a point. I did not like so much this activity because the students were making a kind of mess and the activity did not work as I had planned it. Also, the room was kind of small and I did not have the space I needed for the activity.

Fortunately, time was not a problem for me in this class. I know that it has been a challenge for me in every class, but this time it wasn´t.

If I teach that lesson again I will develop activities according to the way the students work. I will also think about the space I have in the classroom and if I know that it is too small, I won´t bring activities in which the students need enough space. Finally, I will take into account if the activity I plan to develop can create a problem, especially if it can create a mess in the class.

My last class at Advanced English I!!!!

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job. ~Donald D.

My last class was really interesting because the students were studying discoveries and inventions. It helped me a lot to remember some discoveries I studied when I took this subject. In other words, I learned more about it in order to teach it to the students!

The part of the lesson that went very well was a short debate I developed at the end of my class. I divided the class into two groups and I gave each group an invention or discovery. They had to say the advantages and whatever information to prove that the invention/discovery they had was better than the one the opposite group had. They also said the disadvantages of the opposite group´s topic. Some of the shy students were participating, but not all of them!! I did not want to push them to participate because they had done a great job in other activities.

The part of the class that did not go so well was the warm-up activity because I had some problems establishing the rules of the game.

In the grammar phase, as always, the students were participating asking questions and giving examples. I presented the structure (past perfect tense) and almost all the work was done by the students. I just gave them some examples and then I gave them the beginning of sentences and they began adding ideas to complete it (orally).
Some examples of the prompts I gave are:
I did not have any money because...
Students´answers:
I had spent too much.
I had lost it.
I hadn´t worked.

They felt bad about selling the house because....
They had spent a lot of money on it.
They had lived there for a long time.
It works very well for advanced students!

Unfortunately, I had problems with the time I was going to give to each activity. I could not develop the final activity I had in my plan. My tutor teacher told me that this is the challenge I have in almost every class. I have noticed that I spend too much time when I am developing speaking activities, but it happens because I like when students are motivated to participate that is why I prefer that they continue speaking instead of stopping the activity when I know that what they are sharing is really important to reach my objective, and at the same time they are improving in different skills.

If I teach that lesson again or whatever other class I will try to be careful with the time I spend in the activities because as one of my classmates says, we have to distribute time according to the level of difficulty the activities have!

I learned a lot from this group and I liked to work with them because as I have said in other journal entries, they are a good group of students that like to participate and they give really nice ideas!
I also learned many things from my tutor teacher. He shared some ideas with me in order to help me develop my classes. He showed me how to turn a boring activity into something interesting for the students. He has a great ability to make students participate.

I would work with this group without thinking twice!!

My third class at Advanced English!!

I liked this class because most of the students were speaking English in all the activities I developed. In this class, I did not use very controlled activities because my tutor teacher wants the student to develop fluency and to improve their pronunciation. That is why, in most of the classes, I develop different speaking activities in which the students are sharing their ideas. This is one of the reasons I have when I say that I like to work with this group. As you know, they are advanced students and when there is something interesting to talk about, they give their best!

The students were studying the conditional clauses, so I brought to the class the song “If I were a boy”. The students really liked this song because I created a discussing. In this discussion, girls were sharing some ideas about what they would/wouldn`t do if they were boys. On the other hand, boys were sharing the things they would/wouldn`t do if they were girls. As you can imagine, they were saying funny things, but what I like is that they shared their ideas.

These are some of the things they were saying:
BOYS: If I were a girl …
I would wear sexy clothes.
I would have a lot of boyfriends.
I would go out at night with my boyfriend.

GIRLS: If I were a boy….
I would be faithful.
I wouldn`t use drugs or drink beers.
I would go to parties at night.
Well, they were saying many other things, but I can`t write all of them. For me, this was the part of the class in which the students were more motivated to participate.

I also, pasted on the board some charts with some strophes from the song. In this case, girls were saying if what the song said about boys was true. Then, boys had the opportunity to explain the reasons why they do those things, and some other students said that they are not like that.
I think that the part of the class that was not so well was the warm-up activity because the students were cheating. I asked them to make two teams, and I gave them an object. They had to pass this object to the student that was behind them, but before passing the object, they had to do something else like: touch a desk that was in the center of the classroom, jump two times, etc. The last student was going to run to a desk I put in front of the class, and this student had the opportunity to take one piece of paper that had an incomplete sentence (If I were rich…….). If this person gave the complete sentence, his/her group had 1 point. I lost too much time because as I said before, they were cheating. Some students were not doing what I asked them to do before passing the object.

There was one activity that I noticed students liked a lot. I gave to each student a picture with a famous person (Hittler, Einstein, Brad pitt, JLo, etc). I asked them to write a question they would ask to this person if he/she were alive or if they could talk to this person. They were saying great ideas about what they would ask, and what I liked is that they were using the conditionals very well. In this way, I noticed that my directions were clear and that I had reached my objective.

If I teach that lesson again, I will assign more rules in order to play the game I developed in the warm-up activity. I just told them that they had two opportunities to say a correct sentence without help from their classmates in order to get the point. Now, I am thinking that if I use it again I will add some penalties to the people that do not do the troubles they have to do in order to pass the object. Another thing I would do is to give the group that was not cheating one point.

My Second Class at Advanced English I!

(This should be my third class, but you know that I could not teach one class because of the problem you already know!!)

In this class, the students did a great job working on a warm-up activity that I prepared to review the future tense. In this activity, the students played the role of fortune tellers. I wrote their names in small pieces of paper and I asked them to put them in a bag. Then, they took one name from the bag and I asked them to make a prediction for that person. They were predicting funny things.

Some predictions were:
-That they were going to be great teacher.
-That they were going to marry a wealthy person.
-That they were going to have 5 children.
-That they were going to have a relation with a married person.

I think that the part that did not go so well was the grammar explanation stage. My tutor teacher told me that I had talked too much in that part. He suggested me to teach that stage in a more communicative way in order to give students the opportunity to discover the new structure by themselves. I would like to know some ways in which I can teach grammar using a communicative strategy!!!

I asked the students to work in pairs to develop the warm-up activity. Then, they worked individually in order to read a paragraph about predictions related with technology that experts have done. The students liked this reading because it had many things that called their attention. There is a prediction that says that malls will disappear because people will shop at electronic virtual reality stores. Experts also said that in the future, people will plant “knowledge chips” in their brains. These chips will enable people to speak French, to repair the TV, to play any sport, etc. These fortune tellers describe some other things that could happen. Finally, the students worked in groups because I asked them to talk about some other things that will change in the future. They were discussing advantages and disadvantages of the changes the world could have.

I think that I reached my objective because the students were using the future tense and they were giving nice predictions. They were also shaing some plans and goals they have. I just can say that they used the structure very well!!

If I teach that lesson again, I will take into account my tutor`s suggestion about how to teach the grammar stage. I will try to give students as many opportunities as possible to speak because some of them really need to practice this skill.