- 10/10 & 14/10 -

Monday:

In this week I've seen some examples of projects that children have done in class. 
All the class, we started an example of project with the main topic of "The gold fish". I discovered that it's not the simple as it seems, the most difficult part is when you want to find activities that will or can help to achieve the objectives that you thought for the pupils. It's difficult because everything has to be related with the topic, each activity has to got a meaning. 

With a simple activity I also realized the hard work it takes to put the activities in order to make a better lesson plan for the project. That's, because is not the same starting with a song that with a puzzle, per example. In one way it will be more structured and organized and it will make more sense to start the project. It will be easier and "catchy" for the students.

Friday:

This day we saw a video of a real class and a teacher asking some questions after making storytelling to her students.
I think it's quite good to see other teachers doing lessons,so you can learn from them. 
In the video I discovered the importance of miming, so in this way the children can understand better what are you saying; it's also a good idea to give different answers and the children can choice the correct one;another thing that surprised me was that the teacher was always encouraging the weak students to talk and that she had achieved a peaceful and respectful environment with those pupils. 

Furthermore, I learnt that there's no only one type of reading questions I found out that there are 4 type of reading questions that are very useful too. 
The 4 types are :

- About the PLOT of the story.
- CLIL, that means related with other subjects.
- About the experience of the students.
- To develop cognitive skills. 

- 3/10 & 7/10 -

I want to explain something very interesting I've realized in the first day of this passed week (Monday). It's something I think it could be useful and so, I and we have to take example of it. What I want to tell you is that my teacher starts all the clases till now by explaining what we had done the last day of class, making a review. Checking if we remember and if we understood all. 

Well, now that I told you let's continue with what I learnt in the Monday class and it's about how to start a PROJECT. In the beginning it's essential to know the previous knowledge of your students, thereby you will know how to start and with what you can count with. 

Then, after you know the previous knowledge, you have to do some questions to yourself.

- Where am I now?                     - Where am I going?                  -How can I close the gap?

Once you have the previous knowledge and you have answer this 3 questions, you have to write the outcomes, and to arrive to that outcomes from de pupil's previous knowledge you have to start thinking in some activities for the project, by using the topic.

At the end of this class our teacher show us another activity example of how grouping students and also learn about opposites and adjectives. 

ACTIVITY

It consists in bringing to class some objects that are rounded, thin, thick or other adjectives, and learn this adjectives with the pupils. Once they have learn them, they have to make a circle, put their hands back and close their eyes and you will put in their hands some objects. They don't have to look to the others, nor saying anything about their objects. We will put the same object to some kids, to make sure we can group them by the objects. They will have to describe the object and guess who have the same as their. They have to group with this descriptions. 

On Friday the teacher talked about two books that will be useful to our future job as teachers and also for growing in education knowledge.

We also talked about a video that criticized the school system(you can check it out here. We realized the differentiation that exists in each class of each school of the world, and how this can enrich teaching and learning.

I will put some of the thoughts of the video that I liked the most:

- "Children are 20% of our population, but 100% of the future"

- "It's so important to connect with the kids and create collaborative environment bot a competitive one"

- " There are different ways of learning, but the same way to teach"

- "Curriculum are made by politics who probably have never been in a classroom" 

This few quotes make you think a lot about the school system and the responsibility that we have as teachers... 

- 30/09 -

Well, this week I was able to assist only to one of the two classes of the week for personal issues... So, this entry will be only about Friday.

That day we learnt about class management,and here there are some super ideas: 

-Keep the attention of the children by moving hands or singing songs.

- Give instructions correctly and check if they've understood. 

- Tell your feelings/ how disappointed you are with them ☞ NO PUNISHMENT

We also talked about what and how children need to learn. They have to learn by structured sessions, so the teacher has to do it properly; we have to give them routines and learning environment; search for interesting and meaningful topics; contribute to variety; connect with the pupils (feedback) and review.  

We learnt that for starting English sessions it's important to guess the topic, know the age of the students, put some learning outcomes and finally use a specific methodology. While teaching it's relevant to use ordinary classroom language, in that way the children will understand you better. 

It was surprising how we ended the class. The teacher brought a box and told us about The magic box idea.

It's a great idea to encourage the kids to talk and speak.


Firts of all, you have to make a question:

WHAT IS IN THE BOX?
That will help to use prediction/ Foster the use of language/ play with curiosity and attention/ Interaction

Second one, you have to make the second question:

WHAT CAN BE IN THE BOX?
Possible answers: Pictures/ Toys/ Story book/ real objects/ Video/ Nature elements, etc. 

I thinks this idea will be effective with kindergarten but it can also be done with 1st and 2nd grade of Primary Education. 


Hope you like it!

- 19/09 & 23/09 -

Last day of class we were talking about what we are going to learn, and I'm expecting great things to come ...

The point of the teaching plan that most has caught my attention was about Class Management... But today, let's talk about this week!

On Monday, in one hand, we were talking about one resource called Symbaloo. We have to use it to gather good information and also good internet resources for our future students and also for ourselves as English teachers. 

I was creating this website and using it for the first time and it's quite simple, easy to use, and especially useful, not only for English teachers, also for all the teachers and people who wants to gather information and internet resources that are interested in. 

On the other hand, we were talking about the difficulties of being a teacher: 

- be innovative                       - creative                  - motivate the children and ourselves

- achieve good atmosphere     - parent's meetings    - be organized 

- be adaptive                          - be perseverant 

And I think these are difficulties, but also challenges, we have to see it as an opportunity to make changes for the better and also to improve as teachers. And why not? It's always good to have a challenge, because challenges help us to grow in our passions.

We answered to 3 questions and my group answers were:


1- WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING OF BEING A TEACHER? 

To deal with the diversity of the class and give every kid what he need. To know    the background of each child.

2- WHAT DO TUTOR TEACHERS AND THE ENGLISH TEACHERS HAVE IN COMMON?

They both have to know the kids in order to help them. They have to work together like a team and have to be in contact. They both have to set up rules in class.

To sum up, the most that they have in common is the students. 

3- WHAT DOES THE ROLE OF CLASS MANAGEMENT PLAY?

They make the class more effective not only for the teacher, but also for the students. Because they give them security and comfort.

These questions open my mind to a thinking: We are not only English teachers separated from the kids. We don't enter into the class, we don't do our teaching and we don't go as nothing has happened than just transferring all the knowledges to the kids. Every child has a heart and has his/her own problems as we, the grown-ups, so being an English teacher is more than just transferring this knowledge, is working on all the problems that involves every pupil, try to help them and also give them a guide to learn... 


On Friday the teacher gave us a lot of beautiful ideas, and showed us that songs help a lot to learn and to teach. This is pretty useful in kindergarten but it also works with older kids, especially to catch their attention, she showed us an example and some mimics:  

Thi is the song:

Furthermore, we were also talking about the importance of learning by manipulating things and by doing things by ourselves, because it's by doing that we learn the most and children are irrepressible doers, because it's by doing that they learn.


So, that's all for this week!

PRESENTATION OF THIS BLOG

Hi! My name is Sharon, I'm a student from Barcelona University studying Primary Education but most of all studying to be an English teacher in the future.

The target of this blog is to gather all the knowledge, ideas and resources that I'll learn for my future job, in the subject called English Language Teaching, but also to share it with everyone who wants to know more about it. So, here you can find something quite similar to a diary and plenty of good ideas to your class, and also for this interesting journey called teaching.

Hope you enjoy it!