TEACHING PRACTICUM

 

 

The acquisition of a second language, sometimes, not only depends of the learner but also on the methodology, techniques, activities, and materials the teacher uses. Regarding to the learning process of a child, who is learning a second language, most of the time is different from one to another. That is the reason why in the Teaching Practicum I, during five classes (one per week), and the topics were about the numbers, the colors, the fruits, the animals, and cloth and accessories in which we tried to involve children by designing appealing materials, different types of activities and techniques taking into account the different types of learners we have in class. There are around thirteen children attending an English class whose age is between 4 and 8 years, and among these children, there are some of them who are auditory learners (they learn by listening), some others are visual learners (they learn by watching things). Also, some children are tactile learners (they learn by touching), and other children are kinesthetic (they learn by performing physical activities). As a result, the purpose of this blog is to share the analysis of the experiences observed in every class, and to point out the progress and improvement children had in each class.
 

 Lesson 1: The Numbers

Teachers’ name: Magaly Pacheco, Carlos Melara, and Mauricio López.                                                                        

 Date: July 13^th 2012                                                         

In this lesson twelve children were participating on the activities. Children started to learn the numbers from 1 to 10. In this class, English and Spanish were mixed since the teachers did not know children’s background knowledge. Moreover, some children already knew those numbers; therefore, it was easy to develop the activities. Regarding to participation, almost every child was involved on the activities; however, there was a child named Hector (he is four years old) who did not want to participate. According to Jean Piaget’s theory, at Hector’s age, it is normal that children behave in a shy way in front of unknown people because they are used to spend time mostly with their family members. On the other hand, one of the activities that called our attention was the "Hot Hat" due to the fact that this activity would show if the objective of the class was arranged by the children’s response or performance (it was developed at the production section). This activity consisted on playing music while children have to pass one hat (as shown in picture 1). Then, when teacher stopped the music, the child who had the hat was asked to see a flashcard and to say the number on it. In fact, the response of every child was positive since they could say the number they were expected to say. So, we could say that this lesson was successful since all children acquired the vocabulary taught.

 

Picture 1. Children passing the hat



 

 

 

 

Lesson 2: The Colors             

Teachers’ name: Iris Erroa, Juan Campos, and Gabriel Cubias.

Date: July 20^th 2012

In the second lesson, teachers taught (to children) some of the colors such as red, yellow, green, orange, purple, black, and white. Also, in this lesson children reviewed the numbers which was part of the previous lesson, and they still remembered them. Moreover, in this class, teachers tried not to talk in Spanish. At the beginning children were concerned about what they had to do in the activities, but at the end, they just did them. One of the activities that really struck us was called “Raising Little Hands” in which children got little hands made of foamy (they were of different colors), and they had to raise the hand according to the color the teacher asked them to show (as you can see in picture 2). We liked this activity because it showed us that children were happy while they were developing it. This means that they were having fun and at the same time they were learning the different colors (in English). Another activity that we liked was called “Memory Game: Flash-Cards” which consisted on guessing the color of the flashcard the teacher took away from the board. This activity showed very nice results due to the fact that children most of the time guessed which the missed color was (see picture 3). Furthermore, in this lesson, we could see that all the students were participating in the activities even the ones who did not participate a lot in the lesson of the numbers. There were some children who already knew the colors, however, they mispronounced them, but at the end of the lesson they were able to say them in a correct way.

Picture 2. Children raising the little hands

 

 

 Picture 3. Children guessing the missed color

 

 

 

 

Lesson 3: The Fruits

Teachers’ names: Lilian Lara, Pilar Magaña, Fátima González, and Karla Vásquez.

Date: July 27^th 2012

The third lesson was a little bit difficult than the previous ones because teachers were asked to speak just in English. At that point, they had to review not only the numbers but also the colors, and at the same time, they had to introduce the topic of the fruits which were apple, pineapple, watermelon, lemon, strawberry, grapes, and banana. The fact that children had already studied the colors and the numbers, gave to the teachers the advantage to have more effective results when working on the activities. The progress of children was evident because most of them mastered what teachers taught them before.  Likewise, a remarkable progress was done through the activities when teacher used negotiation questions, for example, the teacher said: “Are the strawberries red?” and they said: “Yes.” Why is this important? It is important because they are not only getting used to the language but also acquiring it in an unconscious way. In other words, they already started to internalize the foreign language, and to think how to answer that kind of questions. The activity we liked the most was part of the production stage; it was called “Guessing the Fruit.” In this activity the children’s tactile sense was required in order to guess the name of the fruit. Some children (one by one) were asked to pass in front of the class, take a seat, and cover their eyes with a piece of cloth for them not see the fruits. As a result, the other children were asked to be quite while their classmates tried to guess which fruit they had on their hands (see pictire 4). It was awesome to see the reaction children had. They were excited expecting not only the correct answer of their classmates but also to have the chance to pass and guess the fruit. At the end of the lesson we could see that children had acquired almost all the fruits (its names), had internalized the numbers, and had memorized the colors.

Picture 4. Children guessing the fruits

 

Picture 5.

Lesson 4: The Animals                                                      Teachers’ name: Marleny Campos, Konny Martínez, Orlando Gómez, and Isaac  Rodriguez.

Date: August 10^th 2012
 

The purpose of this lesson was to teach children the name of some animals such as rabbit, horse, parrot, turtle, cat, dog, chicken, and fish. Also, children had to review what they learned in the previous classes. This was a very interesting class in which children could practice the new vocabulary and have fun. We enjoyed observing all the activities, but there was one that really got our attention because every child had the opportunity to participate. In this activity, teachers gave to the children some shapes of animals. Then, a big drawing was pasted on the board; it contained the silhouette of different animals that children had to look and decide whether their shapes belong to one or other animals (one child at a time), and they had to post the shape they got. The progress children demonstrated in this task was very notable, especially the improvement Hector showed. When it was his opportunity to pass, he was directly asked to name one of the animals and its color (the animal was a yellow cat) as you can see in picture 6. He accurately named and said the color of the animal. This lesson was successful due to the performance every teacher had, and the response every child presented.

 

Picture 6. Saul pasting the shapes he got.

 

Lesson 5: Cloth and Accessories

Teachers’ name: Heinar Pineda, Andres López, Josue Roque, and Ronald Alcides.

Date: August 17^th 2012

Finally, we observed the lesson about cloth and accessories such as dress, blouse, sweater, pants, tie, socks, shoes, hat, cap, sunglasses, bracelet, and necklace. This lesson was completely different due to the absence of many children. At the very beginning of the lesson, there were only two children Genesis (the girl who has more English knowledge) and Hector (the child we have being discussing about). In here, we discovered that Hector works better if there are not too many children participating in the activities. Additionally, in this lesson we could see how those children really behave due to the fact that they were laughing and sometimes did not pay attention to their teachers. Both Genesis and Hector were excited developing each of the activities. For example, in the presentation stage, teacher made the sound of animals children had studied, so that they had to guess by saying the name and its color. At that moment, Hector waited to Genesis to say the animal, and if Genesis did not know, Hector just stared at her and did not say anything until Genesis pronounced the words. Probably, in this lesson was where Hector could show more his cognitive development. There was an activity called “Bingo” and teacher just said the words without showing them any picture or real cloth. It was wonderful to see that Hector was able to identify the word he listened by crossing out the picture he was supposed to (as seen in picture 7). All the activities were really funny and interesting; however, the one that called our attention was “Let’s Dress Those People!” children were asked to take real cloth and accessories (mentioned above) in order to dress two teachers (see picture 8). Watching this was really funny because Hector was so fascinated that he even fought with Genesis to get the things faster than her. Even though they did not acquire all the new vocabulary words, we could realize the progress those children had.

 

Picture 7. Playing BINGO

 

Picture 8. Dressing teachers

 

 

Conclusion

Throughout these five classes, we have been able to analyze the behavior and progress children showed pointing out that some children response better if the group is no too large. Sometimes, we analyzed children in a general way, but there were some cases in which we have to be specific due the improvement some of them had as in Hector’s case.  Our teaching experience was really exciting because it was the first time we have worked with children; consequently, it was a big challenge for us. Maybe, that is the reason why we were nervous because we had never practiced with real students, and we were afraid of making mistakes or not to get the students’ response. In fact, even though we did not make an excellent performance, the way in which we leveled the activities helped us to get student’s attention and response. At the production stage we witnessed that children learned the name of the fruits by guessing what fruit the teacher gave them. We think that we succeed since children were reviewing the vocabulary taught in previous lessons. Also, this experience has been helpful due to the different activities every teacher developed in order to have a variety them. This may help us as teacher by the time we have to work with real students. It is very pleasant to teach a lesson and to be able to see how successful the activities were. As future teacher, it is very important to learn all about children in order to know which methodology should be used in a class to get excellent results. Additionally, we could say that the experience we have getting from the teaching practicum is not only interesting but also helpful to know how to teach to children.