CONCLUSION

After all these experiences I can only say that I am very greatfull for the oportunity that we as STUDENTS had to continue to understand the depth in our career. It is truly important to consider that we learn as we go but our students can see the gap in betweent, therefore, it is not only something that affect us but our students, and as the lessons kept on going I realized that to put in paper the activities that you try to achieved is something that changes completely once you are in action, and that many times when you try to innovate and change standarized ideas or concepts of teaching, you must put a lot of thought and time to completely get the hand of it. Now that I understand better this, I appreciate more the knowledge that is on books about these topics because they are truly experts in their area, and time-savers and base on them I can edit and choose whats best for the particular lesson I am giving.

So, as you try to learn yourself, you as well, have to put it together in front of your students, this I did not understand as much as I do now, because in the previous practice they were younger and probably they could not sense our mistakes as much as older students. Therefore, as we move on, we will be questioned a lot more and I am looking forward to demonstrate that everything has its reason in the lesson. This was the perfect prelude to our last practice where I am sure that, by working with adults, we will have to be more conscious about our actions in the classroom and that we will have to be more confident and strong so we stop understimating ourselves about the knowledge we can give and how we can give it.

To conclude, I am glad to say that this exeperience helped me to see the different layers that this carreer has and that we have to be aware about the image we portrait to our students by editing and choosing whats best for our classes and taking advice from people that have been doing this for longer. I am glad to say that now I see the importance of being confident about the skills that I can share and to show that the lesson that its given has a propouse. I am very thankful and excited to continue to develope this sort of "social skill" that can be only achieved with exeprience. 

NINTH CLASS: Friday, May 17th, 2013

GRAMMAR LESSON

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT. Tell how many family member they have by using has and have when completing the chart with their own information and their classmates' information.

                  

The first activity was a warm-up. The activity was designed to help me identify the students rapidly. It is necessary from the very beginning of the class to get the students relax. Before this activity, I felt optimistic about the result that I wanted to achieve. I was sure about the activity, because it was very well designed. I was conscious about the importance of this activity to the class. During the task they worked as good as I expected. I took the opportunity to check their skills when I asked them spell their classmate's name. I realized that they were really into the working mode. After this activity I noticed that I was a very nice warm-up to present in the first class. Honestly, I felt relieved because of the effectiveness of this activity. To present this activity in the future, I would bring color bond paper for them. They would match the classmate with the color of the paper they received.

Activity 2: Sample pictures 

The second activity was divided in parts. First, I wanted to know the students' prior knowledge. I decided to start the second part giving to each of the students a set of colored papers. Each set of papers had a scrambled sentence so they can make sense out of it. Later, they shared the sentence with their classmate. Second, I showed them the chart with the structure. Intentionally, I omitted the subject "they" from the chart with the idea to ask them to do a sentence using the subject previously mentioned just in case the students had not questions about the structure. Effectively, It was a nice technique, omitting one subject with the aim to know whether they got the topic or not. Third, they did a sentence using this structure. After this activity I noticed that the usage of colorful papers in the material helped a lot to catch students' attention. To improve this activity, I would include more structures. It would be useful for the students to know how to create a question using the structure. Another important aspect to highlight could be, to include the negative structure for doing sentences.  I would add this arrangement not only in the chart but also in the pieces of papers.

At the time I was designing the third and the fourth activity, I thought about the possibility to 

present different materials. I wanted to show the students interesting material.  I decided to bet

 on visual learners this time. I decided to use a "fill in the blanks" activity because of the level of

 the students. During the task the interaction was promoted in each of the parts of the activity

.

  The activity was totally centered on students as the rest of the activities. They reacted very 

well. They finished the activity and they answered the questions bellow till the moment I asked 

them to do it. After this activity I was sure that the objective was achieved. If had to do the same

 activity again, I would add more information to the chart, therefore, more questions to the 

second part. Another aspect to change would be adding a conversation at the beginning.

 Indeed, it could bring the possibility to ask more opened questions giving the possibility to

 share more information

The final part of the class was intended to students to produce the grammar point. Before this stage, I decided that it was appropriate to develop this activity   the usage of a box to fill in their information. I felt optimistic about the possibility to reach my objective. It was important to promote interaction among them; therefore they were working in pairs for this activity when I monitored their work. During the activity, the students worked very well. Indeed, I was surprised because of the students’ performance.  I asked them compared their answers and to ask about the classmate's information.  After the class I felt pleasant because the activity was very effective. To do this activity in the future, I'd rather to include more than one chart. The idea is to persuade the students to ask the questions to more than one classmate. 

 UNIVERSIDAD DON BOSCO

NINTH LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING PRACTICUM II,

By Carlos Melara

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT. Tell how many family member they have by using has and have when completing the chart with their own information and their classmates' information.

EIGTH CLASS: Friday, May 3rd, 2013

READING LESSON

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT. Describe where objects are by using new vocabulary (Dresser, desk, wastebasket, wall, bed, chair), and the prepositions of place (Next to, in, on, under, between, behind, in front). So they are able to use it  in a  daily life conversation. 

The warm-up was designed to be interesting for the students. Based on our previous experiences, the students enjoyed the hot potato activity. It was a ball with questions inside. During the activity, the students had to pass the hot potato, the one who got  the hot potato when the teacher said "stop!" had to take a layer of the "hot potato". Each layer had a question on it. The questions were: where is the cat? Each question was based on the different places where a cat was located. I used a set of flash cards regarding some objects from the vocabulary. To be clearer I decided to name the cat “Jerry”. After this activity, I noticed that they were not that bad identifying the prepositions and the questions. The objective was to have a short introduction. If had to do this activity again, I would include some music for the hot potato. I also would think of different questions to make a challenging activity. I would alter the difficulty of the questions. In other words, first an easy question after a difficult question, and then, the other way around.

SAMPLE OF THE ACTIVITY 1: FLASH CARDS.

The second activity was made to be an easy task for the students. The objective was to practice the students' reading skills. The students had to read a dialog and circle the vocabulary words and underline the prepositions.  Before the activity I was not worried about the difficulties that the students might have during this activity. But, I decided that five minutes was more than enough to finish this task. Some students finished the activity successfully. These students compared their answers with their classmates who had not finished the complete exercise. Everybody was energetic this day. When the time was over, I asked for answers to check the effectiveness of their performance. If I had to do this activity again, I could look for a different letter size. I could include a different image. It could contribute to improve the material, therefore, increase the attention that the students could present on the activity.

SAMPLE OF THE ACTIVITY 2

I felt eager to do the third activity before it started. I thought that It might be a good idea to ask the students a true or false activity. From my perspective, using the True or False system was easier for them to get the correct answer. This activity was strongly related to the previous one. All of the questions were based on the previous dialog. Somehow, It was a re-reading the second activity during the third one. They, did it better during this task, because they had already read the dialog. After this activity, I did not get the one hundred percent of correct answers that I expected. However, most of the students got the answers correctly. It was absolutely relieved to the get that. If had to do the activity again, I would include more questions. It could be difficult an easy pack of questions.

SAMPLE OF THE ACTIVITY 3

The fourth activity was a little bit more challenging for all of them. I was totally aware about the difficulty of the activity before the class started. Even though, the students had read the conversation previously. This activity was a difficult task for them. They were not used to solve information questions during the lesson. Even though I asked them to compare their answers with their partner some students did not have the same correct answer. It was an enriching result to me. I think to keep this activity in the future, I would try to summarize the instructions. I also want select accurately the questions for the activity.

SAMPLE OF THE  ACTIVITY 4

The last task was intended for practicing reading comprehension as well as the previous activity. Before the class, I was sure that this activity could be a piece of cake for the students.  I decided to play a track for this activity. During the task, I noticed that most of the students got the idea. Many of them completed the task without mistakes. I noticed that they were some who really enjoyed the activity. After this activity I concluded that not only summarize the instructions but also to add visual materials for this group helped a lot to develop a successful lesson. To include this activity in a future lesson I would avoid using the track. Instead I would include more images for the students. I could read or ask somebody to read and ask more open questions.

                                                     ACTIVITY 5: WHERE IS THE BAG?

                                 SAMPLE OF THE EIGHT CLASS: FRIDAY, MAY 3rd, 2013

 UNIVERSIDAD DON BOSCO

EIGTH LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING PRACTICUM II,

By  Carlos Melara

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT. Describe where objects are using the vocabulary (Dresser, desk, wastebasket, wall, bed, chair), and the prepositions of place when they have a daily life conversation. (Next to, in, on, under, between, behind in front)

READING
Warm up:  Using hot potato paper Ss. are going to be asked to answer the questions about prepositions. Where is the…..? Where are the…..? They will get a picture to answer the questions.	VA	Hot Potato	5	To have a short introduction to the question and activate ss energy.
T. presents the structure of the answer and the questions on the board and asks them examples. Using pictures and the projector T. presents the reading activity 2 on page 39.  Ss read and circle the vocabulary words and underline the preposition, then, they compare, and share. Ss. to a true and false exercise based on the conversation 2 Language focus on page 39 Ss. answers comprehension questions based on the same reading. They share. Ss. are going to number some pictures based on the listening. There are going to be three pictures with a backpack located in three different places.    .	VAK        VAK                     VA	Handout	5 5 10 5	. To practice questions and answer structure. To practice reading comprehension

SEVENTH CLASS : Friday, April 26th, 2013

GRAMMAR LESSON

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT talk about objects they are interested in by asking about and answering what the object is in a conversation with a friend.

The warm-up of the first activity was very appealing for the student. Before the seventh class started I considered the importance of this activity. I designed the activity with the aim to make it interesting and enjoyable for the students. During the activity, The lesson was demanding enough for the student. I also made enphasis on each of the vocabulary words as they were discovering the vocabulary prepared for lesson.

The second activity was made to present the vocabulary. I prepared some pictures to achieve this purpose. During the lesson I felt glad because the students could identify many of the objects in the target language. I showed the pictures to the students. I pasted them on the board and I made emphasis in the plural form of the words. I also remember that I clarified which one was written with "a" and "an" in regards the singular form. Identifing the difference between "an" or "a" was not that difficult for them as I previously inferred. To improve this activity, I think that it could be useful to have the words in two separated boxes. In one box the words that in  singular are written with "a" and in another box the singular words that are preceded by "an".

SAMPLE OF THE SECOND ACTIVITY MATERIALS.

CELL-PHONE

 VIDEO GAME

 DESKTOP (S)

 LAPTOP (S)

 TELEVISION  (TV)

Bicycle (s)

 MP3- PLAYER(S)

 ALARM CLOCK (S)

 POSTER (S)

CALCULATOR

To practice the content I decided that a crossword could be a nice idea. To avoid confusions between "accross "and "down" the usage of numbers helped the activity so much. Honestly, the students did the activity so much better as I previously imagined. However, there were some words that  presented some difficulties to them. It was not that easy to remember all the vocabulary. I also have to give them some credit for their effort. Despite of the fact that some of the words previously presented did not have translations,  they did it fast and confident in themselves. There were some words that they do not use frequently in their jargon. To include pictures improved a lot the activity. Finally, to make the activity better for the following time, I could reduce the instructions, because the activity explains it by itself.

SAMPLE OF THE ACTIVY

ANSWERS:

Before the fourth activity I felt relaxed. I choose this page because it had images and the vocabulary on top. During the activity I noticed that some students were doing it very well. However, It was not a piece of cake for some other ones. It was kind of difficult for some students because they barely recalled the vocabulary. They could present a better job in the second part of this activity. As a matter a fact it was easier for all of them because they had an idea already. As soon as the activity finished, I felt relieved because I had fought against the ignorance that wanted to kidnapped my students. To say it in general terms. Many of them got the real aimed of the activity. The aim was to practice content.

 sample of the activity

There is a big reason that made me feel happy about this activity before when I was preparing it. I could anticipate my students reactions. During the activity, I noticed that it was interesting for them to take things out of the bag. I barely needed to give instructions. They got the same images that the activity two. To select the student I used the ball as a hot potato activity. The participant had to answer the question asked by me. The question was what is this? They had to identify whether  the answer was "this is a..." or "this is an..." and the name of the object. After the activity I felt glad that the students had produced the content.

Sample of the Seventh Class planning: Friday, April 26th, 2013.

UNIVERSIDAD DON BOSCO

SEVENTH LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING PRACTICUM II,

GRAMMAR LESSON

By Carlos Melara

OBJECTIVE:  By the end of the lesson SWBAT talk about objects they are interested in by asking about and answering what the object is in a conversation with a friend.

STAGE	Nº	ACTIVITY	TIME	VAKT	MATERIALS	ACT. OBJECTIVE
Presentation-warm up	1	WARM-UP:  Ss. Play hangman. T is going to use words from the vocabulary from them to guess. Bicycle (s), Poster, watch (es),  Video game, TV, laptop (s), desktop (s), computer (s), cell phone (s), a calculator (s), mp3 player (s), alarm- clock (s).	8	VA	Board, markers	To activate schema
PRESENTATION	2	T represents the vocabulary using pictures. T asks about the name of each object in the pictures one by one. T separates the objects in two rows or columns. In one row pictures with the article a, and on the other row pictures with the article an. T. explains the rule about the usage of an and a giving examples and asking.	7	VA	Board, markers, pictures	To present vocabulary
PRACTICE	3	Ss.  Solve a crossword with the vocabulary using a piece of paper. When they finish they write each word in using an/a.	5	VA	Crossword	Practice content
	4	T. gives students the copy of page 32. Ss. Listen to track 47 and complete exercise A.	3	VA	Copies of page 32, CD, and CD player	Practice content
PRODUCTION	5	T. uses the pictures form activity 2. T. puts all the images in a bag. Ss, sitting, catch a ball to be selected by the teacher. Then, the selected s passes to the front with the teacher. The s gets a picture from the box and the T asks: WHAT IS THIS? Yet, teacher gives the answer as an example giving the two options (A/AN…..OBJECT). When the example is given, all the ss will participate at least once.	7	VAK	Bag, Pictures	To orally produce the content