Our third class

Hello, now I'm here to talk about our third experience teaching classes as a group. The topic we taught was food and the skill was grammar.

In general and being honest, we could have done this way better than it came out. But let's talk about our performances.

Daniel:
It was my first time giving the first part of the class, it was kind of dufficult for me for many reasons. The first one was that the warm up implied me to take balls off the ground and I'm kind of silly but at the end, it was good in my opinion, very funny activity. My biggest issue came with the presentation part in which I did well (at the end the kids demonstrated to catch everything) but perhaps at first they could not understand me, because I didn know how to simplyfy the information for them. But more than that, it was cool.

Xenia:
She developed the practices and in my opinion it also was cool but there were some little details, for example the time management since she took little time and the other one may be the voice projection which was lower than other times. But she helped a lot to discover that the kids did actually understand the topic, and she acomplished her duty.

Astrid:
She also did quite a great job but her mistakes were unfortunately more noticeable, she got quite desperate to see that a kid was not giving his cooperation to do an activity and in this moment I could understand her, because it is frustrating, but since they are kids, we must be carefull on the things we say and the gestures that we do. But she also knew what to do when she ended the activities and the time was still available, and I guess that's a good thing, we with Xenia thought it was a good idea to leave her alone in this moment because sometimes when we interfere, we may get nervous and confuse each other.

Things to improve:
-Tone of voice
-Face gestures
-Ways to leave the kids alone if they don't want to do something
-Time management
-Ways to simplyfy topics

In general that was my objective opinion on our class. Hope you guys have a nice week. See you later.

Paola, Lidia and Sarai's class

Today, I'm gonna be brief since we in general have improved a lot and each time there's less and less to enhance. I guess that's a good thing.

The class was about the reading skill of the professions and they did a very good job in general.

Saraí
She started with the first part of the class with very good activities and the thing I want to remark the most is that she taught a lot of vocabulary. At the beggining I was afraid that the kids would not memorize all of that, but at the end the kids learnt all of those and it was great.

Paola
The only thing I guess she has to take into account is that for kids it is kind of boring and exhausting to sit down time after time in the floor and in the desks again. But im general the activities were just fine. She also did a great monitoring.

Lidia
Her tone of voice was great and the activities were also well developed, but she made the kids draw, that is something that, again, we should avoid at any cost. But at the end she did a great job with the kids and the timing was just good.

Things that I liked:
•Their voice projection
•The monitoring
•The activities
•The vocabulary

Things to improve:
•Avoid the drawing activity
•Standing up, sitting in the floor and in the desks over and over

I guess that's it. Great job girls. And peace to you all guys.

Our second class. Professions vocabulary!

Hello everyone and it's time for the review of the week. Today I'm going to talk our second class that Astrid, Xenia and I developed last Monday. It was the time for the professions vocabulary to show up and it was a great opportunity to show our best sides. In general oppinion our class was just perfect, we developed and plan this class in a very organized and satisfactory way and let me explain you why.

Xenia
The first teacher that showed her potential was Xenia and she did a great job, we noticed a way better performance than last time, since she had practically no time to develop her part. But, this tume was different, she gained the kids' attention and hard work even more than the last time. Here it comes one of the most controvertial situation of our clas which was the size of the images. Let me tell you that they were indeed small, but it was not the end of the world at all. Teacher Xenia did an awesome job by showing the picture personally to every kid so that they would be able to see them. That's definetely a resolution that only great teachers can think of. The way she explained the new vocabulary was also great. I wish there were more teachers like her in that aspect because even though it was too repetitive, that helped a lot for the kids to keep that information on their minds.

Daniel
Then, it was my turn to perform my part. In my case I had to use the images again, but there was no problem even for me, because the kids needed to walk towards the board to develop my first activity. No wish to show off, I demonstrated that we can save some money by not printing this kind of works and doing them on the board with recycled images or flashcards, which I did, and again it didn't represent any problem. Then I had a hard time by checking the letter soup activity (which I wronged called crossword, I'm sorry avout that, but I am a human, things happen, let's move on) but I thought I could finish the checking so I tried to do it as fast as I could. And then, the memory game was good, I just didn't know how to keep the items uncovered, but nothing serious. I personally have to say, that I really enjoyed my class, it is not a secret that kids are not my favorite kind of people, but in this opportunity I forgot everything about that. I kind of loved them this time.

Astrid
Then, Astrid demonstrated again that she is a great teacher by making the kids work and speak about their favorite professions, thing that I considered impossible at the beggining, but she made all of them pass in front of the class and show what they learnt. She lasted 2 minutes more than planned with the wrap up, but it was just a moment, the parents were not there at the time (except for one) and kids were having fun so hard that they forgot about the time.

Things that I would change.
Now, I see that we would have changed three things and everything would have been perfect. The amount of words in the objective. The size of the images and two minutes less.

I think that we'll have another opportunity to do this in a better way. See you next time my friends, love.

Karla, Kevin and Mirasol's Second Class

Hello everyone, today I'm going to be talking about the second class of Karla, Kevin and Marisol. This is their decond and last class and in general they did it in a very professional and excelent way.

Karla

She was the first to develop the class and there's a lot of good things to talk about her. She taught a lot of new vocabulary and that's great because the kids understood every single word. And as the first time she looked very confident and sure about what she was doing. But I noticed a little bit of more angryness in her voice.

Kevin

I think he did a very good job, but I couldn't observe too much about his performance because I was with two boys outside when he developed literally all his part. So I'm really sorry. I heard from the feedback that there was a part in which he did something with the lesson plan that was not acurrate. In any way, he has always demonstrated to be very focused on what he does.

Marisol

I think her weak point is the giving of instructions, that may be the point where she has to work more. She got mixed up with an activity, that even us as the watchers couldn't understand what she meant. But as she saw that this was taking so long, she did a good job by telling them to finish the activity at home. At the beggining I thought this was bad, but perhaps it wasn't. Then she always left one of the kids to work alone, and I don't think this can be good, when he sees that everyone else is in group. But a point on favor may be that she did a great monitoring.

Things that I could have changed.

In general I don't have to much to say, that was a good class and I would change just the thing of getting stick to the perfect lesson plan they made and see that the instructions are well given. And to take care that nobody is left alone.

Things to improve.

I already mention all the things that they have to improve in the future. But I will add: more smiles to the kids and care for them. Also the instructions point is very important... So, that one is the most important.

That's it partners, see you next week.

Rebeca, Ariana and Federico's class

Hello everyone, today I’m going to provide my opinion on Federico, Rebeca and Ariana’s class, it was a grammar class about animals, and it was their second class delivered. Let’s talk a little bit about their general performance. Their work was such amazing, their activities were just well developed almost in every sense and also they were well structured. They were easy and kids also understood everything. A negative point on general was on the lesson plan, since I had not watched it, I don’t know if they followed their own structure but as the teacher noticed it, I guess that it was something that I was not able to perceive.

There’s not much to say about their general performance but we can talk about individual work for them.

Rebeca:

She was just great, it is pretty obvious that she has a special connection with kids. Personally I had the chance to work with her because of my social hours and we worked as teachers and I can tell that she has the vocation, her group was not just kids-centered but she demonstrated to be great with the infant part. Continuing, it was the first time that I watched her delivering classes properly to kids and the aspect that I enjoyed the most was that she made the kids do every activity, and also pay attention when she was explaining and even participate when they didn’t have to. I don’t know what did she do, but I want to have that activity. Honestly I don’t have any negative aspect to talk about her performance.

Ariana:

She also did a great job. At the beginning she was kind of serious and this made the kids get a little distracted, but as the activities went on, she had more chances to catch their attention and accomplished it. The part that I enjoyed the most was an activity that she developed in the board, which caused the kids to pay all their attention that was missing. I also had the opportunity to work with Ariana on my social hours and as Rebeca she also possesses this vocation. As I heard, they (including Ariana) did a better job than the last time.

Federico:

When I watched his performance I couldn’t stop laughing, in some aspects this can be such a great opportunity, since the kids enjoy as they learn. I was kind of blinded because of this, because I thought it was totally right. But as I meditated it, I started to notice that this may lead to some troubles. For example, kids can be easily distracted by this and also they can abuse of the teachers confidence. Also, I think that Federico was the most confused about the lesson plan issue. But otherwise, just as Rebeca and Ariana, he did a marvelous job.

If I were they I would have chance just the lesson plan situation, I would have tried to plan everything in a better way, but more than that, it would have been just a perfect class.

Keep it up guys, honestly it was the best class I have watched. There are less and less things to improve each time and I can tell you have noticed that. With no more to add, see you next time.

Astrid, Daniel and Xenia's class

Hello everyone, today it’s my turn to talk about the class that I myself and my two partners and Friends delivered. To begin a little, I have to admit that it was a scaring experience, I know that some of your groups have not received the best feedback ever, but now I understand you. Being in front of a real class is not easy at all, I already know that you did your best effort but we have to give some advices for us to get better, and now I know that it is not that easy at all to have the perfect class.

Our class (delivered with Astrid and Xenia) was about the family members directed to the skill reading. To be totally honest, our activities and exercises were pretty good in my opinion, and they were also well planned. The only thing that I can tell about them is perhaps the fact that they were too advanced for the level of the kids, they didn’t seem difficult, but, for kids that are starting and that don´t understand some topics, it seemed too difficult. Nevertheless we tried to do our best to explain them in the best way.

Astrid

She did such an amazing job. She was just so creative. She always found a way to correct some situations that were against what we planned and she did it in such a creative way. She cared a lot about the kids’ learning. She tried to make them pay attention, and accomplished it with her charisma and even though the lights went out and the kids’ were not able to see what was on the board, she got the great idea to write the words down again for them to copy. She managed it in a good way in general, the only inconvenient was the time that take to solve this situations, time that after that was going to be necessary. But it was an external situation.

Daniel

Being objective, I think that I did a mediocre job trying to express the instructions, and in a big way it was my own fault that some kids didn’t understand what they had to do. Our teacher, Karla, already told us to use some words in Spanish to make them understand, practice that I totally agree on but I totally forgot about. I really hope to do a better job the next time. Other thing was that I over repeated the vocabulary when Astrid already did it in a very good way, and I didn’t achieve to make the kids have all their attention on me. Of course, even though I didn’t catch their attention, I was very enthusiastic. But, being honest. My voice projection, monitoring and modeling were pretty good, also, it didn’t help that the lights went out again while I was delivering my class. I tried my best to hurry up since Xenia had little time to perform, even though it was not enough.

Xenia

She was the most affected by the time factor, BUT, despite this situation she did such a great job. She was direct in the instructions and made all the kids work, she used the right amount of Spanish words to make them understand and decided very well whish activities to do and which ones not to. It was the best example on how you can do more (the best possible) with less (time). Her voice projection was just so accurate to what was required and the things she asked them to do were more realistic that the things Astrid and I asked.

With no more to add, this was my opinion on what we experienced this last class. I hope you enjoyed it and have a wonderful week. Love, Daniel.

Paola, Lidia and Saraí's class

Hello everyone, good day. In this occassion I would like to give you my personal oppinion on Paola, Lidia and Sarai's class about grammar of "he is", "she is", "who is she", "who is he", "who are they", even though I was not present due to an activity I had outside the University and made me assist just to the class of 3:00 pm. Either way, I had help with notes that some friends lent me so that I can give my oppinion on the class. To begin, students seemed to rememver last topic, which was demonstrated on the Warm up that Paola developed. One of the things that seems pretty important to me is the usage of pictures and images, in this case about family members, because some of the kids may feel remembering last topic kind of difficult and this can help them in an explendidous way. Kids, as I could read, seemed kind of distracted and in the developed of the class the teachers didn't seem strong in making them pay attention. But this is very understandable, since I imagine myself walking a mile on their shoes, and for me it would be (and probaby will be) difficult to make the kids pay attention, since I consider myself as a soft person. To continue with the class. Some monitoring deficience was observed, perhaps being constantly watching the work of the kids is one of the things that the teacher may see hard to do, but we have to, since it is our main concern, making them work and not making sure of it may bring troubles to kids at the time of doing an exam, since we really didn't care if they learnt something or not.

Lidia made an activity that I really liked, even though I didn't see, the comparing activity is alway a good idea, is the ideal opportunity for the kids to correct something that they are not sure about. And also it increases the security of the kids if they are right.

Another good thing I was informed they did is asking in a correct way if they understood the topics, I guess we have to be sure if what we are teaching is being well percieved for the kids, and in this point at least on the side of Paola was accomplished, it is important to remark that this was seen in the presentation phase, and not in the activities which I explain previously on this blog.

In my oppinion it looked like a good class, kids still are being used to assist to this classes and that's why they present this behaving. It is a shame that I was not present to apport a better and more personal point of view. We'll see in the next occassion. Love, Danny.