Third Period

Lesson 1: School

 

 First Part
Teachers’ names: Iris and Mauricio.

Date: September 7^th 2012

 

 The first part of the lesson teachers had to present some new vocabulary words related to school items which were pencil, pen, ruler, book, eraser, and bag. Also, teachers had to take into account a point of grammar in which teachers asked "What’s this?" And children had to answer "This is a ruler," for example. At the beginning of the lesson we thought that children were not going to produce the grammar point due to the fact that when teachers asked the question, they just repeated the name of the item, and sometimes teachers were like forcing children to answer the whole sentence (it’s an eraser). However, after enough practice, children got used to the grammar part and started to use “it’s…” in order to say the name of the item. We thought that because they did not attend the class two weeks. All the activities were appealing and interesting for children, but the one we prefer the most was “The Magic Roulette” since in that activity student were expected in which item the roulette would be stopped and which student would have to answer the question according to the item showed on the roulette (as shown in picture 1). We could see that children were happy developing this activity due to the fact that they wanted to participate to spin the roulette. “The Magic Roulette” is a very nice activity not only for children but also for adults because all students like and enjoy it. We could say that this lesson at the end was a successful one even with all the difficulties that children presented at the beginning. In our opinion, teachers need to improve their instructions in order to have them short and effective. Also, teachers need to be careful with time management (established time to each activity). However, they did a good job because children started to use grammar points and new vocabulary. Also, they used appealing materials and very nice activities.

Picture 1. Children spining the roulette. 

Second Part
Teachers’ names: Magaly and Carlos.

Date: September 7^th 2012

 The second part of the same lesson was a little bit different because the grammar point and the vocabulary words changed. Teachers had to ask “What’s that? (Vocabulary words: desk, chair, window, computer, and eraser) and children had to answer “It’s a/an…”teachers had a better result in this lesson because children were already familiar with the grammar point because of the practice they had in the first part of the lesson. We could notice that children were not forced to say “It is a…” due to the fact that they have already acquired it.   One of the activities that was interesting for us is “The Bottle.” This activity consisted on spinning a bottle which was on the floor and it had to point a child who had to answer the teacher’s question. It was really funny to see that children were excited and making gestures about who the bottle would point due to the fact that sometimes the bottle was moving pointing one child or another before stopping (as you can see in picture 2).  According to what we could see, teachers improve the way in which they interacted with children also the instructions were better. One of the things we want to point out is the fact that one of the teachers while watching the reactions of children had to improvised a new activity because children got confused with her body movements, and the activity worked as if it were planned (before this activity were a little bored as you can see in picture 3), and children enjoyed it because they have to run and everybody wanted to be the first one to touch the items.

 At this point of classes, children and teachers have had a big improvement. Teachers are giving better instructions and children are developing each activity in a very successful way. Also, grammar points are included, so that children are not only learning new vocabulary (single words) but also short sentences (chunks). The progress children show is very impressive and interesting for us as teachers. Besides, throughout the classes we have seen that not only older children are acquiring the language but also the youngest ones like Hector who repeats everything the teachers say, so that when he is asked directly, he can produce what he is supposed to, and that is just rewarding for teachers because they are part of that process.

 

Picture 2. Bottle Activity

 

 

Picture 3. Children were bored.