WEEK 8         

                                                                                                           

DATE 19/11/2012    

                                                                                                                                   

The structure of a lesson

The microteaching presentation was interesting for me because the activities are focused in Miró. Our CLIL project is about the room painting of Van Gogh as well, so we could see how to work with the art topic with children in Primary level. However, most of the activities can’t work with children in Preschool. However, the microteaching was similar as ours. The activities were original and manipulative, which I found appropriate for the age they have chose.

I found this class very productive and interesting for me, because we talk about one of the aspects I'm worried about. This is how to prepare and organize the structure of a class lesson.

After the microteaching presentation, we discussed the ways of planning well-structured lessons for effective language learning to take place. As I’m doing my internship now, I have to prepare a complete unit project focused in a topic the children are working now in the school. My challenge is that my group of P5 never did English before, and I have to start with very basic concepts as introduction.

Some aspects we talked in that class and I think are useful in my program can be:

-Hello and Goodbye songs.

-Basic activities.

-Repetition.

-Reminding what we did in other sessions.

-Summing up the concept at the end of the class.

Moreover, we saw the structure the classes have to follow. First of all, we start with a routine, which include a general overview about what we are going to talk in the class; sharing aims; and warm up. Secondly, we will do in practice the main part of the lesson we prepared. Finally, we have the end of the lesson summing up the concepts.

After that, we saw different examples about exercises we can do with our students in the different moments of these three parts of the lesson.

DATE 23/11/2012           

                                                                                                                            

Preschool and Primary activities

The microteaching presentation of this session was about the states of the water: solid, liquid and gas. Analysing the presentation, I have to say that it was clear, makes the students participate with the activities which were entertaining and appropriate.

One of the positive aspects is that they checked the pronunciation of the words and they introduce new vocabulary related with the topic. However, some of the points should be corrected or improved are in the explanation of the activities, which some were not very clear to understand the aims or what is supposed to do. Moreover, it’s necessary to give some examples to show what they want in the activity.

The second part of the class consisted to analyse different textbook activities, both for preschool and primary education. We had to take into account the concepts and skulls every activity develops, as well as the methodology. At the end we have to summarize the assets and drawbacks we found, and wrote them down. 

WEEK 7 

                                                                                                                       

DATE 12/11/2012   

                                                                                                                                    

Organization

The first session of this week was divided in two parts. During the first part, the second group class did their presentation of the Microteaching: Ancient Egypt. The topic was interesting and they did a good job looking for so much resources, images and explanations for children. Moreover, they provide the activities with examples and models.

On the other hand, some parts were repetitive and not really catchy for us. I think that they focused the microteaching with too much theory parts. Moreover, the coordination of the group wasn’t that good as the other day, and the presentation was a little bit long.

The other part of the class the teacher organized the tasks we still have to do, individually or as a group, and the deadlines we have. She reminded us the days of expositions, recommending to everyone how to improve the Personal Learning Environment.

For this reason, I’ve been completing my PLE with more useful links, and adding my Google Drive documents we have as a task: Present yourself as a future teacher and Poems, rhymes, songs and riddles.  One of the links I added, for example, is the BBC CBeebies* website. We worked on it in class with the video Winnie the Witch. I was looking around the website and I found it useful because I found some resources like songs, stories and videos for children.

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/

This is how my Personal Learning Environment looks now:

DATE 16/11/2012         

                                                                                                                              

Reading comprehension

On Friday, the group who exposed the Microteachings talked about The Solar System in a very original way. They used lots of resources and performance we can do as a teachers in class to exemplify how the solar system works. Moreover, they prepared appropriate activities for it.

The second part of the class was centered to talk about reading comprehension. We said that to develop comprehension children need to develop other aspects as background knowledge, discover how English language works, have various proposes for readings or strategies for construing meaning.

It is important to know for my future as a teacher that comprehension is an active process that involves all these strategies and behaviors, in order to make meaning from the texts. We saw four readings styles –skimming, scanning, extensive and intensive -.

After that we saw different examples of activities we can do with children, always giving them a context. One of the important points I can use in my future is that we can do lots of actions to maintain the motivation of the kid to read.  

WEEK 6                 

                                                                                                       

DATE 05/11/2012          

                                                                                                                             

Children routines and storytelling

This week we started focusing the class in preschool children, concretely with their routines. We saw that the repetition part is really important, also using short sentences. It’s common and useful to use short expressions in the beginning and last of the class, in order to make them memorize it.

We saw a video with Catalan children attending an English lesson. I really liked how the teacher did it. For example, when they say a word in Catalan the teacher repeated in English as well. That makes them to associate the same word in both languages to the same object or concept.

Moreover, some word the teacher said in English she repeated them in Catalan or the opposite (ex: Molt bé / Very good). The teacher used storytelling to work in her lessons, and they can be a useful resources for my future. The first book was about animals, where they work the colours and the names of the animals; Duck is dirty book, where she uses songs during the story; Bee and Sara, where a Bee asks the Is this a flower? and makes the children involved with vocabulary of the parts of body; finally, the story about Miss Polly had a dolly.

I think storytelling is really useful and productive working with young children. Usually can help to introduce a new topic or project, and it’s catchy for the kids. In my future, I will definitely use storytelling with my students and get the most benefit of it.

DATE 09/11/2012          

                                                                                                                             

A practical class

In Friday’s class we started working with our groups. The teacher gave us the program of a “possible” class, and we chose a “teacher” in the group to guide it. The rest were students and we prepared the class, in order to expose it in front of the rest of the groups.

Most of the activities consist with routines, songs or ideas of how to present the names of the children in class. I think they were original and they gave me new ideas to work with children. A question I've raised is: Is it always useful to work with songs with children? I think that some songs are repetitive and they help them to memorize some concepts, but some can be difficult for them. As a teacher, I have to choose the correct and appropriate song for each moment and topic.

At the end of the class the first group has exposed the Microteaching they had prepared. The activities were original and I think that they did a really good job. The resources they prepared were appropriate for the activities and they used them to achieve the lesson successfully.

WEEK 5

DATE 29/10/2012 

                                                                                                                                      

EXAMPLE OF EXERCISES

This week we continued watching videos with examples of possible exercises to do with children, in this case mathematics.

We watched another video with a Halloween story*. We talked about what we can work with the kids after the video: colors, traditional customs, parts of the house, etc. moreover, it’s a perfect video because the vocabulary and language it’s not complex and they repeat some parts several times.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_f95a4MX7M

Being a future teacher I saw in any case you can link Science and Mathematics with other resources and subjects. This exercise*, for example, shows how to some Mathematics during Halloween celebration and children really enjoy it.

* http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/

Some of the videos are really interesting and can give me new ideas. The teacher recommended us to download them.

For example, another possibility is doing short exercises when you have some free time in the morning or after the break, and dedicate some parts of the day to work on it. 

Interesting links:

-http://archive.teachfind.com/ttv/www.teachers.tv/videos/group-activities-in-pe.html

-http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Teachers-TV-Primary-Maths-Calculation-6038949/

WEEK 4       

                                                                                                                  

DATE 22/10/2012     

                                                                                                                                  

Glogster

I think that the poems presentations give us more and original ideas of how to work them and interesting ways to do it. The own children can choose how to expose the poems and memorize them all together.

After the presentations, we focused the first class about a really useful platform both for teachers and students: GLOGSTER*. This resource consists in a graphic blog which allows us to be creative and share creations and projects with the group class.

* http://www.glogster.com/

Preschool students can use it with teacher’s help and upload the project they are working and elaborating, different draws, photos of the trips or different activities realizing during the course.

Primary children are motivated to work with new technologies and be the protagonists of their own class blog. Nowadays, they’re used to with this kind of tools and they learn to use them surprisingly fast.

Moreover, as we said in class, this can be a tool for the teachers to give instructions to their students. As a future teacher I think that it’s an interesting kind of blog which offers more possibilities than others. Another remarkable point is that the families can see the whole year projects and the results of them.

In groups, we will see how include glogster in our CLIL Project. 

DATE 26/10/2012     

                                                                                                                                  

Exercises for children

In the second session we talked about creating a Teacher’s Library Week, were every group should present one book, a short activity and an interesting link to the rest of the group class.

The teacher showed us different videos about different exercises for children, exposing them in a short video finishing with a question (for example, a mathematics exercise). Is a good example for children to visualize what’s the situation and what do you want to know.

At the end of the class, the teacher gave to the group different photocopies about exercises we can do with children. The task is to think about how we can use them.

For my future, I think that exist multiple ways to work the different subjects with children, not just using worksheets or books. For example, the videos we saw about the puppies can be an original way to propose them a situation which they have to solve without thinking they’re doing mathematics. 

WEEK 3 

                                                                                                                         

DATE 15/10/2012  

                                                                                                                                     

Integrating EFL, Art and Science

The first class of this week was really productive. We talked about the importance of repetition in order to make the children get familiar with the word and pronunciation. Moreover, working with images helps too. One of the relevant part is make them participate in the tasks.

The teacher showed us some resources we can use to improve English using subjects like Art or Science. We can do it with all the subjects we prefer, and the idea is take advantage of everything. For example, we worked with some Picasso’s paintings, in order to talk about some animals we know.

The National Gallery in London* is a perfect example to see how we can link English with other areas, in this case Art. A program called Take one picture** is, where every year they choose one painting from the gallery and propose some curricular content to work with primary children.

*http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

**http://www.takeonepicture.org/about/index.html

Can we work with this kind of programs with children under 6 years old? I think it’s perfectly possible, using for example simple paintings or make them to create their own ones.

The teacher showed us a collection of books Animals in Art. I spy… with some art paintings from different artists combined with a simple identification animal game. For my future as a teacher for young children, I think that this kind of books are really useful because they don’t contain so much words and are really illustrative for them.

DATE 19/10/2012       

                                                                                                                                

Book Trailer

The second class was focused in Book Trailers, which I had never heard of it before. The teacher showed us some examples and different kind of book trailers, created by professionals and by children.

Now, in groups, we have to create our own book trailer using different tools following the story of the book Dog’s Night.

I think that this is a good idea to animate children to read and have fun with books. Moreover, books trailers incite you to find out what’s the story of the book is about. Definetely, I take note of it for my future.

WEEK 2                                                                                                                          

DATE 08/10/2012      

                                                                                                                                 

What makes a good teacher?

In this class we start with the question What makes a good teacher? Following this question we started to associate adjectives that describe it:

Passion, energy, kids and the relationship between them, confidence, comfortable environment, interacted experience, etc.

For me, one of the most important is the confidence the teacher has in front of his job. He has to believe in it and being sure of all the steps he does. However, the energy and dedication every day will not be less important.

After different tasks, some individual and some in group, we talked about teachers roles, and I think is an important part to consider:

1. DIAGNOSTIC: Finds out the needs and interests of students
2. PLANNER: Chooses materials and/or methodology before the course or lesson
3. MANAGER: Manages students and activities during class time

About the questions raised and after the tasks my question is: Does a good teacher exists or depends on the students?

At the end of the class we read different quotations about education and teaching. In groups, we chose the five sentences we really like. Personally, I felt identified with the next one, because I think that reflects clearly the task of the teachers until the students finish their process:

As we don’t have class on Friday, I’ve continued working on my Personal Learning Environment. I customized it and added more different resources. Is a really useful tool to have as a future teacher, keeping all the resources together. 

This is how it looks like now:

WEEK 1                                                                                             
DATE 28/09/2012

A Successful Primary English Language Teaching

Our first task in this subject consisted to think about what is a Successful Primary English Language Teaching for us, and to draw it.

Firstly, I couldn’t draw the image I have about a successful English class. Then, I started to think about my English classes in my High school, the English academy or at University. After that, I mixed all the positives aspects I saw in those classes, and I could start to draw.  However, the main example I have is in the classes I’ve been in my school practice during the second year at University.

The second task was about to write a narrative about our draw. I tried to explain as better as I could what my draw means and how I see a Successful Primary English Language Teaching.

I have to admit that I never thought about this question and sincerely, it’s more important than I think. What about my future as a teacher? Well, this concept makes me think the idea of a well-balanced English class and how I can handle it as a teacher. If I think that some parts are essential to teach English, I’ll apply them with my future students.

In conclusion, my draw reflects how exactly I think an English lesson could succeed and my class in the future.  

DATE 01/10/2012

TALK. 2.0 Apps: Easier and catchier

This Monday we had the pleasure to receive a class of Ricard García, the editor of edu365.cat website and Crea and English professor since 1988, among other specialties.

About the new information gained, he showed us multiple resources to use with our students and teach them English –or other subjects, of course- in a dynamic and easily way. Some of these tools aren’t difficult to use, even for the children. Using it, we will see our students succeed in their learning process.

We can create avatars, new and original stories, share different opinions and points of view. The important part is that they’re creative, esteem and catchy. Some of the resources are, for example:

Voki, thinglink, voicethread, woices, Havefun!, bookr, Go!Animate, Storify or Glogster.

One important thing Ricard told us is that we should be really familiar with these apps and technologies in general before use them. Show them to students; let them see how they work and what can do with it.

However, I have some questions about the talk. I enjoyed so much knowing some new applications and examples of how to use these with our students, but my question is:  Where are the resources for the early childhood education? Most of the tools are focused for children between 8 to 12 years old, as Ricard said. If I have a class with 3-4 years old, where they can’t even read properly, which apps can recommend me?

Finally, as a future teacher I would like to apply technologies in my lessons and to opt for a new methodology with creative activities. Sometimes, original teaching is catchy for the students.

DATE 05/10/2012

Personal Learning Environments

In the last class of this week we started with a draw about our concept of Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Thus, we thought about what content we want to include on it.

In groups, we discussed the different parts of our PLE and the common aspects we had. Then, we included the points we thought interesting and shared it with the rest of the class.

In relation to the new information I think this graphics could be important to apply in my future as a teacher:

Learning to learn -> Critical thinking -> Collaboration -> Creativity -> Reflections -> Evaluation