What have I learnt from the microteaching

Well, after all these days of class, of planning and, of course, of learning, I've been filling my backpack with knowledge and new experiences that, for sure, I will use in my future job as a teacher.

So, now I have to answer this question: 

What have you learnt from the microteaching?

And, in one hand it seems to be easy to answer, but on the other hand it's difficult, because as there are a lot of content, experiences, ideas, knowledge, etc that I've learnt, I'm sure I will miss or forget something to be written. But I will try to write generally. 

While doing the microteaching and by being part of my classmates' microteachings too, I've learnt the importance of having in mind the age of students and to make sure that the content and activities are acording to those levels. Because if not, the children and also the teacher will be lost.

Another point that goes, more or less, hand in hand with the last one, is the checking, make sure that our students are understanding everything, every step of the activities and that they know how to do it. We have to ask a lot of useful questions, or use some activities to verify the comprehension.

As teachers we have to be motivated in class. Because, what's more boring than having a boring teacher? and if we aren't motivated in teaching, we will not motivate them to learn. So miming, intonation, eye-contact, powerful expressions, modeling, and cheerful spirit is what we need to do as English teachers, in this way we will give meaningful and joyful classes and children will be excited to learn and participate in class.

I also have learnt to talk slowly, because it's been always difficult for me (I speak very quickly in my mother tongue, sometimes I get confused even in my own language...), but for the children is very important to take it easy in this point, not only because they need to understand what are you saying, but because you are a reference of language for them and they will probably copy us.

Finally, I want to highlight some improvements that we can do with our microteachings that our ELT teacher has said, apart of the ones that I've mentioned before:

- When we teach vocabulary we don't have to teach it randomly and without meaning.Per example:

Teacher:(showing a flashcard)This is an apple, repeat with me APPLE. 

Children: Aaapple!

This will be an incorrect way of teaching vocabulary, we have to use structures or incorporate structures when we teach vocabulary, so in this way the children know and see how they can use this word in a sentence. A correct way will be this one:

Teacher:(showing a flashcard)This is an apple, Pepita, do you like apples? I really like apples. 

Pepita: Yes, I like apples.

Juanito: Teacher, I don't like apples.

(...)

- Another thing that our teacher said was, that we have to take advantage of the children mistakes and answers. If a children make a mistake when we ask them something, we have to take advantage an make a refresh of the content to the whole class, or do a little game or activity to ensure the content. Also if the children say something that can be profitable to talk about an specific topic, about the content of the last unit or about values, of course it's well worth it to take advantage of it.

And I'm sure that there are a lot of things that I'm forgetting, but  these ones are the ones that I'm sure are more helpful and inspiring for our job as teachers. 

So, that's all! 

Have a great day! 

- 7/11 & 11/11 -

Monday:

We started this lesson with a video filmed in a real class. It was about an activity focused on a monster project. 

In the first video a student appeared counting the parts of the body of her monster and in the second video appeared another student counting the parts of the body of another monster, but this time next to the drawing, that he was pointing, there were a lot of other monster drawings. 

We were thinking and explaining that an speaking activity makes more sense when the students are using their own models (their monster drawings as in the example).Because we foster their creativity and we motivate them to talk about their creations. 

Furthermore, we said that we have to take care of the activities order to give cohesion and meaning to the full lesson and project.

We also seen different book activities and talked about how useful or useless they were. We discovered that:

"The children have to write for a purpose not only for writing"

At the end of the class we learnt a poem about seeds and plants growing. We thought about different useful and meaningful activities that we can use to teach the poem. I discovered that there are plenty of ways to teach a topic or to make an activity. 

Friday:

"1,2,3,4,5

once I caught a fish alive

6,7,8,9,10

then I let it go again.

Why did you let it go?

Because he bits my finger so.

Which finger did he bite?

The little finger on the right."

_____________________________________

We started the class with this song, that can be useful when the children are restless, it's a funny way to keep their attention, but also a way to learn the numbers in English. 

Then, we started talking about maths in English. Our teacher showed us new materials that in my case I didn't know, this material is called 10 frame. It's very useful to teach mathematics, but more specific to learn the numbers form 1 to 10, to know the possibilities that we have with the number 10, and also to teach about addition and subtraction. 

We reminded that it's very important to make questions to the students to ensure that they are understanding and to make an engaging lesson. 

We also saw mental arithmetic and different exercises we can do. It surprised me how useful is to teach maths in English, because the students are the same time are using different English skills, but practicing mathematics too. 

We talked about different types of exercises: Counting backwards and forwards, telling the smallest or highest number in a set, saying the number that comes after or before, use patterns (what relation have all the numbers?), say a number between 2 numbers, etc. 

We also said that we have to be careful with the level, because is not the same teaching maths in our first language than in the second. Our teacher said that when we teach maths in English we have to teach the content of the past course or level. 

Finally we were doing some practical learning by doing sums of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We thought the power of questions to correct, to observe and to encourage them to improve. 

We also saw the mathematic vocabulary that we need as teachers in this field: plus/ x times or X by X/ take away or minus, etc.    

- 4/ 10 -

Friday:

Which skills do you know?

This was the first question in this lesson. As we can se, we were talking about skills, and we were learning about new things, different that all the aspects that we were accustomed to hear and learn about English skills. 

It was interesting to learn the different types of skills: When we talk about the receptive and productive skills we talk about the direction of the communication, and when we talk about the written and oral skills we talk about the way of communication.

I've learnt that, as teachers, we have to use, if it is possible, all the skills togethers, transversally, think activities that keep all the skills in work. It's relevant that when we use the skills with our pupils we take care of the level and age of the students, because there is a fixed and natural way to use them. 

We also talked about one aspect that I've never heard about, the SILENT WAY. It's when a children never talks an writes, he's only receptive, but then one day they start talking and producing.

If a children it's in this silent process, we have to be respectful with it, because is another way of learning and even if it seems he or she is not learning, he/she is doing it.

This process is called, as well, passive knowledge and is the opposite of active knowledge.

This lesson has been very useful for our future job as teachers!

- 24/10 & 28/10 -

Monday: 

In this day we were talking about the importance of grids to make our work and job easier, and also to organize all the content and objectives of our project or lesson clearly. 

We also saw a powerful video about the power that brings comparison to the class. This one is a powerful tool, because the children can improve together and use the language skills. 

Doing this, they are giving advices in a constructive way and they are practicing about being critique and give feedback. 

In other hand, by watching the final result, they realize that work collaboratively allow them to improve and do things better. They also can realize that giving advice correctly ( with respect, being honest, etc.) helps the others to succeed. 

Here you can watch the video:

Friday: 

We were focused in one project about PETS. 

While organizing and planning the activities and objectives, we saw that it's essential that the teacher observe what the children are doing and their questions, in this way we can watch in which field they find difficulties, and later we can make an emphasize in this fields. We can also use questions t help the children think of vocabulary and previous knowledge, and also to guide them to an answer without breaking their effort and process to get the answer.

In this project we found that one activity can be exploded for many point of view. 

In this class I learnt that it's very important not giving answers to the children, just guide them, because, it don't matter how it slowly it will be, but they can find the answer and questions by themselves. 

- 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!