The Most Difficult Challenge

     Doing my teaching practice with teens has been the most difficult challenge I faced last week. Since I have a large number of students, it’s more difficult to work with them. First of all, preparing my lesson plan for the class was a pain in my neck. Then, having developed a forty-five minute class made feel so exhausted because to make my students being engaged in the class and to get a good class atmosphere was so difficult; even though, I tried it, I could not do it as good as I wanted, so I got very frustrating. At the end of the class, my tutor told me that my class was very nice and that she was satisfied with it. Since her words made me feel so happy, at the end of the day I was so proud of myself because I was able to fulfill the most difficult challenge I had last week.

     Thanks God; most students in basic education are having their tests this week, so no teaching practice this week neither the next one since everybody is going on vacation. Knowing that I having two weeks out of practices make me so happy!!!!!

Missing a Class

     Missing a class is one of the worst things you can do this semester.  Last Tuesday, I went to the hospital instead of going to classes; to my fortune, that day my classmates saw a power point presentation and after that, made a pop quiz. I had to do the same quiz last Friday, but without seeing the power point presentation, so I did not know what to do on it. Even though I copy the notes a classmate took, I was not able of answering the quiz which was related to specify the four main things objectives must contain (which are also called the ABCD’s of objectives).

     Nowadays, after reading the handout related to the power point presentation, I still feel somewhat confused. I consider that missing a class is the worst thing you can do this semester because in order to learn and clearly understand your classes, you have to go step by step; you cannot go to the next step if you have not understood the previous one. That`s why, I still do not understand how I can write instructional objectives.

     Even though most people think nothing happens if you miss just one or two classes, I think that when you miss a class, it is more hardly to focus and understand the following classes. So attending classes every day, will help you  not only to succeed in your studies, but also to be a lifelong learner.

What is a lesson plan?

     All teachers must be well prepared before going to teach a class. All teachers must know what they are going to do in their class and how they are going to do it. In order to be well prepared before going to a class, teachers must create a lesson plan which is the one that tells them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and what to do next; that’s why, all teachers must have their own lesson plan at hand.

What is a lesson plan? 

     A lesson plan is a map, friend, helper, and a guide that all teachers should follow in order to develop a good class.

A lesson plan must contain the followings elements:

1.       Objectives

2.       Materials

3.       Time

4.       Warm up

5.       Presentation

6.       Language notes

7.       Practice

8.       Homework

  

Obviously, a lesson plan will tell you exactly what do and will help you develop a good class management. All teachers need a lesson plan no matter the beginner or the older  ones.

Warm Ups and Time Fillers

     The most funny and interesting  topic I have studied this semester until now is Warm ups, Icebreakers,  and Time Fillers because they bring to the classes energy and also make it funny and enjoyable. They are used to break the ice with new students, to introduce a new topic, to create a positive atmosphere in the classroom, and also to replace a lesson when it is not working and the students have gotten bored.

     The warm ups and Time fillers are activities that make students feel comfortable and relax and that make students being engaged in the class. By using Warm Ups activities, teachers make their students to remember some learned knowledge and also let students have the chance of playing with the language and create their own learning.

    

 Here are some useful links where you can find  lots of funny and interesting Warm Ups.

http://www.englishclub.com/english-clubs/english-club-warm-up.htm

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/icebreak.html

http://allabroad.us/parents/additional_warmup_teacher1.php

Front of the class

 

Front of the class is a great movie which reflects what is a great teaching process, and this movie can help you identify what makes it. In this movie, I could see what makes Brad`s teaching great; it is passion for teaching: Brad loves teaching which means that he loves his students and he really care about their needs and interests.

Also what makes his teaching great is that he is a very optimistic person. A teacher can transmit his or her feelings to his or her Ss. This is one of the things that Brad did; he transmitted to his Ss a positive attitude to learning which helped him to make his teaching effective.
 

Brad is not only a great teacher but he also is a great learner; he is a great model to follow because besides his teaching, he taught his students the most important values in the world like cooperation and friendship in order not to become a common teacher, just someone else, but to be someone who makes a difference in the world.

Therefore, the movie shows many troubles that Brad had to face in his life. He also had to face many bully people who were teasing him a lot.  

Sometimes these people made him feel disappointed; many of them rejected him. As you can see in the movie when the teacher made him go to the front and say to his classmates “Excuse me. I’ll never do that kind of funny and strange sounds again.” I think that in such way, his teacher, classmates, and even the principal rejected him, so that his mother had to take him into another school.

Even though those problems annoyed him, they helped him to be a better person in the future. And all of that helped him to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher.He also had to face a lot of troubles in order to get a job, but he never gave up; he continued trying and trying again.

At the end he became the teacher of the year, he continued studying, and his parents and everybody were really proud about him.

Everything Brad did to become a teacher inspired me to continue fighting for what I want, becoming a teacher but not a simple teacher; I want to be a teacher who makes something great and special in everybody’s life.

What struck me about this movie is that Brad was an enthusiastic person that never gave up; he got everything he wanted. If he could do it even though he had a sickness, I can do it, and everybody can do it, too.

The most valuable lesson that this movie presents are  that being different is okay and also no matter what obstacles the life presents us; we have to overcome all of them; we have to try and try until we get what we want! 

Thinking about TVYL

I think that working with TVYL is not something easy, but you can do it really well if you find the right techniques to do it. Working with TVYL is more difficult for the teachers who do not enjoy teaching, but for the ones who really love teaching, working with TVYL is something easy, funny, and satisfactory to do.

To work with VYL is necessary to know that the only way in which they can learn is by doing; that’s why, this blog is called Learning by Doing.
As I said before, VYL  learn only by doing activities: funny activities which make children being in the mood of wanting to continue learning.


Why do I think this about TVYL?
I think this about TVYL because nowadays, I am doing my teaching practice at a public kindergarten, and I am working with six years old children. I still remember my first class at a kindergarten; it was overwhelming. I had prepared a forty minute’s class, twenty minutes to develop my topic, but after the seven minute of class, the class became boring, and I quickly realized that I had to change it into another activity; I had to improvised two activities in which the students could practice the new vocabulary they have learned because spending a lot of time in the same thing was making my students feel bored.

At the age of five to seven years old, children are more likely to learn a foreign language, but at that age playing, singing, coloring, and painting are what matter most for them; that`s why, I decided to change the way I wanted to teach them into activities because the learning process will take place only if the students and the teacher enjoy what they are doing.

If children love playing and singing, why don’t you teach them through playing or singing?

I think that you should take advantage of it and you should start creating a positive atmosphere which makes students being involved in the class by doing that kind of  activities, and you also  should take time to discover which your students' interests are. This is what I have done in my classes, and it is giving me good results as you can see in the next video. I am trying not to spend a lot of time explaining what the topic is about; I am trying to teach my pupils the topic that I have to through activities that are of high interest for my pupils and that they love.


                    This is a video of one of my classes...

 Talking about the presentations...


Having observed and studied all the presentations about teaching English to children, I can say that those presentations have helped me not only to improve my classes but also to make them interesting, funny, and dynamic.

All those presentations gave me a lot of ideas to make in my class, for example, I learned many funny songs for children, many things to use in my class like puppets, and some useful materials. Furthermore, I learned how to plan my work to create an effective learning process .


Something really important that I also learned is that I cannot go to the next topic if my students have not understood the previous one, and  that's something that I'm taking into account in my classes as you can see in the previous video.
That video shows that my students have clearly understood the previous class and that they were ready to go to the next topic.