CLASS 2 OF THE FIRST PERDIOD.

Hello everybody, as you can see this is my second class at the Intermediate English I. I want to share with you that the very controlled activities work very well in this group, but most of the students have problems while doing less controlled or free activities. The problem is not that they do not have enough controlled practice. I think that the problem here is that they were not pushed to use the target language when they were at Basic English. Now, they want to pass almost all the class speaking Spanish. My tutor teacher has made them change the places where they like to sit with their friends. Unfortunately, they continue speaking to much Spanish. I would like you to give me some tips for this problem because the tutor teacher wrote in my evaluation sheet that I was permitting students to use Spanish in the class!! I really do not know what to do...

Then, I had another problem. I wanted the students to write a short conversation about a friend that was coming to their country (They had an example in their books). They had to tell this friend the places he/she can visit in the country. I asked a group to present their conversation in front of the class, and they did not want to pass even when I was pushing them a little. I noticed that they did not know how to structure a simple question!! Even when it was a review of the there is/are structure that they studied at Basic English! Fortunately, two volunteers presented the one they had done and let me tell you that they did a great job. They passed to the front of the class without their notebooks and they begun talking, and describing a lot places of our country. I congratulate them because I was surprised of the work they had done.

I think that the part of the lesson that engaged them the most was a Fill in the blank activity. I brought a chart with some sentences in which they had to complete them by writing: there is/there are/there isn´t/there aren´t/ are there/ is there. First, I asked them to read the sentence and then, to tell me the complete sentence with the part that was missing. Everybody was sating the sentences at the same time. Then, I gave them some time to copy them (the complete sentences) on their notebooks.

Well as I mentioned before, I had some problems in this class; that is why you know that they were not using the language the way they were supposed to do it (of course that not all the students). Even when they were working in groups in some activities, they did not show the level of English they are supposed to have.

If I teach that lesson again, I will include more speaking activities even if the students have problems developing them. I think that step by step, they will be able to do it.










speak too much spanish