First class with Intermediate I

In my first class with Intermediate I, I didn’t have the chance of observing a class before starting my practice. I just got ready for my practice and I pitched in. I tried to teach a really nice class. I knew the students were going to feel surprised with my sudden presence in the classroom, so I started the class with an ice breaker. Students really love the warm up I developed and even the tutor started to participate in the warm up. They had to guess the action written in pieces of paper but the activity was quite complex because they are Intermediate English students. They, for example, had to mime: to jump “from a bridge.” The game was related to the topic because I was going to teach stative and dynamic verbs. I explained the main use and difference of these verbs and then I asked a couple of CCQ questions. After that I had them practice making sentences and filling in the blanks so that they could differentiate stative from dynamic verbs. They had oral practice by discussing a couple of questions: how do you like to look when you meet someone? I wrote a couple of verbs they were going to use as they spoke.

The practice and the activities were a success and the tutor told me the class was good. She only required me to re-s tart explaining an issue when a student doesn’t understand.

This is my fourth class with Intermediate English I

I prepared a class in which they were going to have practice with phrasal verbs. This topic is very wide and requires the students to have lots of practice due to the large quantity of phrasal verbs. I tried to develop activities addressing the most common phrasal verbs.

I started my class with a warm up in which the students had to guess the phrasal verbs that their classmates mimed. They really had fun doing this and some of them got easily the phrasal verbs I showed.

There are some students that really feel frustrated when studying phrasal verbs because they are hard to memorize. However, I used context and discussions so they can use them in conversations.

I have them use the verbs turn down and ask out when discussing the reasons why women turn down somebody’s invitation when he asks them out. They discussed this and shared their opinion with the whole class.My last class ended well because they could construct sentences using many phrasal verbs.

We also talked about stress and the ways to avoid it. They read sixteen ways to avoid it and in each, there was a phrasal verb included. They also added some more suggestions and discovered the meaning of each verb by reading each suggestion. The class went quite well but my students were not paying attention too much. I called their attention and I they finally worked well.

3rd CLASS

This is my third class with intermediate I. this time I had to teach a quite broad topic; it was comparative adjectives. As you know, there are irregular adjectives and a series of rules that control the proper appliance of the adjectives when speaking or writing.

I started my class with a very fun and appealing warm up. As my class was about adjective, I had them make two lines facing each other; I dictated some adjectives and they had to construct a sentence per each adjective; it was an oral competence. Later, I engaged them in a reading activity and they had to determine how healthy they were by answering some questions. I tried to work fast with them and then I taught some of the rules for using adjectives in comparative form.

They paid careful attention and some of them asked some questions while I was explaining. I tried to explain from my knowledge because students come up with many questions.

I involved them in some practice; they had to fill in the blanks with the appropriate comparative form of the adjective provided. In this part, they asked about some irregular adjectives such as goo; well, they learned to solve an exercise but later I had them speak. They were asked to compare themselves to a relative using comparative adjective. They developed this activity in pairs. They enjoyed it.

My second class with intermediate English

Along this week I have been worried about many things I have to do but when the time to teach came, I tried to concentrate in my teaching. Today I had my second practice with this nice group. They are always enthusiastic about teaching.

I got ready to teach them about direct and indirect object. I had them develop a speaking activity as I think that they all need to practice English. The class was kind of uncertain because my tutor told me that he had already taught that topic but I had to be prepared for questions from them. He also asked me to teach about transitive and intransitive verbs which he had not taught. I assumed that students had clear understanding of direct and indirect object because he told me to engage them into practice, but when I explained the characteristic of transitive and transitive verbs, I got stuck a little because they seemed confused. What I did next is to resume what the teacher had taught the previous day.

The experience I had is that when two teachers explain a single topic, it necessary that the second is conscious about the points he must continue teaching.

The point is that I had to improvise some explanations but I used examples so they could understand properly. When I taught about both kinds of objects, I told them that a very easy way to identify them is by considering the following: an indirect object usually comes first and it refers to people whereas a direct object usually is placed after the indirect object and it refers to things.

Some students asked me to solve some exercises I had provided for them because they found them quit hard to solve. I did it using the board so all of them could see how to do it. When I finished explaining some points, some students asked me a couple of questions. For example, “if a sentence has only one object and it refers to people, it is indirect object since you told us that indirect objects refer only to people,” a student stated. The point is that if we only have one object, it must be direct object since indirect objects cannot exist without a direct object. Thank god I still remember something about grammar.

Students developed a couple of exercises in which they were identifying both direct and indirect object; I could notice that they did it well and this makes me feel good. As they shared the exercises solved, I recognized that they are very smart.

At the end I had them dance and compete seating on the musical chair. The ones that remained stood solved a problem orally. They did it great! They are a nice group.

My 5th practice!

I had my first experience with Intermediate English I. it is important to mention that I did my teaching practice with another group of intermediate English I and some of the things I noticed are the class environment is very different among the two groups. I really like the way those students are. They really respect the effort we do to teach. They are humble and that fact lets the practitioners develop our teaching skills. I was given the book and the topic I was going to teach, one day before, so I had to work at night in order to prepare a good class. The students welcomed me and I was really cheerful and enthusiastic and I tried to transmit that to the students. I had observed the class one day before and I had an insight about what it would be like to teach them.

The warm up was an activity in which they were divided into two groups and then they had a competition writing items they get when they go shopping. They were writing at a great speed but the only constrain I had was that since the group is large, they were concentrated near the board; I tried to have them all participate in the activity but they are 27 students and I could not have control of all of them. I tried to order them in a line but the class is not that big. Aver all, the activity was nice and they liked it. After that, introduced unit four; I had them discuss a couple of questions about the gifts they buy for their friends and they gave their opinion. I asked individual questions to the quieter students in order to make them speak.

I explain some grammar points in which I spend about six minutes; the time was meaningful because I solved many doubts about adverbs collocation. When I finished the grammar explanation, I involved them in oral practice. They were very enthusiastic and attentive to my class development. It was a great experience.

Last class with Intermediate I!

This group is very nice and I enjoyed all the classes. In this last class I had them a TPR activity which they enjoyed a lot. There were 2 teams. One of them turned back as the other performed an activity I showed through a flash card. I asked them to freeze and the other team then could turn back and guess the activity they were doing. They practiced past progressive by guessing what their classmates were doing. I prepared a series of speaking activities in order to have them solidify the grammar explanation I gave them. They were attentive and enthusiastic. And they asked questions regarding the topic. The class went so well but the only flaw was that I misspelled three words and the students corrected me. The teacher told me that I turned nervous but personally, I think I managed it. I tell the tutor teacher that I don’t feel confident at all because they are not my students. I don’t feel really committed to them. In the Saturday morning program, it is so different because all the students trust in me completely and I get to know them well.

I like them a lot because they work and understand better, but I need to be their teacher full time so I can do many amazing things with them. I would try many approaches, techniques and ideas to teach them in an exceptional way. This practice experience is really good for my learning! 

third class with Intermediate I

My third class with Intermediate English I was quite hard.  I had to read a lot in order to master the topic; one of the advantages this practice has is that we teach topics that maybe when we were students, we could not master. When we are in charge of teaching, we have to know a lot about the content. I prepared a series of activities for them to practice after the grammar explanation I gave; they really need speaking activities so they can practice their language. When I started the class which was about count and non-count nouns, quantifiers and units of measurement, several questions arose from the students. They found controversial why chicken and broccoli is uncountable; to this I gave a proper explanation telling them that it chicken is not the same when it is an animal and when we refer to it as food.

I also taught few and a few. I told them that few has negative connotation whereas a few has positive connotation. These words dragged them into confusion because they didn’t understand why it was either negative or positive. I gave them a couple of examples: Paul has few friends. It is not good for him because we must have lots of friends. David has a few apples in his bag. When nobody has fruits, David has some; it is good!

Well, students asked and I tried to answer as correct as I could. All I had read and the background I had helped me to answer their questions. At the end of the class, the tutor told me that I was not so confident, but personally, I think I was. She also told me that it is so good that I make them all participate in the class. Overall, it was a great experience.