LOGBOOK

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.