FINAL REFLECTION

Well, now we have finished this course and we had to say good bye to our students from the social service. After it was really difficult at the beginning because the different ages of my students, when I had to work on activities for three different levels and when it was hard because there were some students from 1st grad. I had to work very hard on this project to finish it and to do it, but when as a teacher I see my students learning and getting better step by step it can become very satisfactory.  

Most of the students worked very well and learned a lot, they now are able to build simple sentences and even write correctly the words. The best thing of it is that they now like the language and they say it. On the other hand, there are students who didn´t have too much advance and the reason is that the language is very difficult for them, they got to learn some, but they still have to work more to get better. In fact these students that din´t advanced are not likely to learn english and they say that they don´t like it. 

These last week we were working on oral activities, where they had to go in front of the classmates and give information about them. When we finished the activities I asked some question like: if they like the language, how they feel when they go in front, how they feel now when they finished the course about their learning and their advance and they answered my questions. Most of them said that they like the language, that they have learned a lot, and that they still feel a little nervous when they go in front of the classmates. 

To finish with, it was very good working with them and very satisfactory to see that changed their idea of the language and how they learned with thesde classes.  

Working on general review

Over the past week and this one that already finished I been working on a general review with the students. Last week we were working on the last topics of the course and we started with a review covering the topics seen during these months in order to make students remember what they have learnt so far. The first days of this week we worked on other activites covering the review after that we also started with activities to prepare them with their english test that will be next Monday and Tuesday, they almost don´t like to work on that, but I help them trying to clear their doubts. 

After the week and these activites I think that they cleared some doubts and will be more prepared for the test. In my  opinion they have learnt too much and they have gotten better in the subject. 

Joint Productive Activity

ACTIVITY 6: JOINT PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY

REPORT:

The activities I choose were according to my students´ age. They like to play, so I looked for activities where they could play and learn at the same, but working in teams. The focus was on review the objects from the classroom and to learn by using a task based lesson. I separated them by having in each team students from all the stages, on this way the teams will be equal and if they were in a competition the oldest were going to help the youngest to finish faster.

RESULTS:

The students were likely to work on these activities, they had some problems on solving the activities because they were a little difficult, but by helping each other they finished faster. On the first activity that was to solve a “sopa de letras” with objects from the classroom: some groups took just 12 minutes to finish, but there was one that needed 23 minutes, at the end they were happy for finishing it.

The second activity was to read about the Komodo dragon and answer some questions about its characteristics: some of them even the oldest had some problems, but I explained them and helped them at the end. And the last activity was to play when they finished their questionnaire. I thought they were going to be bored, but it happened just with the students from 1^st grade, the others were really worried about finishing the activities.

REFLECTION: 

I liked the fact that students work in teams. All of them participated and helped each other, in fact I almost never apply activities like these ones I mean teamwork, now I see that it doesn´t matter the age of the students they are able to work together and help others in order to finish their work. 

Observation report

I´m sorry I´m late with my report.

Well, first parents got to the classroom, students were already in the classroom. I had everything ready before parents arrived. We did the activity in the classroom, but I had to take more chairs to the classroom because they were not enough for everyone.

Then parents got in the classroom and sat down, they were a little nervous, that´s why they were not very dissposed to participate at first. The children had already chose the games we were going to do in the class. Some of the parents had a little difficult because they don´t know the language, so when they had to answer something in fact their children answered instead. In one activity they made a circle for the first game which was (la papa caliente) one child, one parent and so on, we played and they had fun. The second activity was (loteria ) of verbs one that I made. When we finished that game we started other one were they had to draw in the whiteboard what they heard and it was the activity they liked the most. The activities finished and everyone left the classroom, some parents said thanks.

Dealing with differences

This last week I worked on simple present tense with my students from 3° to 6°, the activites were easy for them and they finished them without any problem. They copied from the whiteboard and without asking they worked. Talking about my students from 1° to 2°, they worked on objects, quantities and colors, those were a little difficult for them, but they understood and worked on it. The last two days of the week I started working on speaking activities where they went in front of the whiteboard and talked about them and then we read a tail, that after they one by one were reading it. 

I think they are responding well to the activities and that is good for me. 

A hard, but happy week!!

This week as we know was a very special week for children, so I was very kind with them.
Three days of the week, we worked on activites for review, because they had their english test last Thursday and Friday, so I helped them with the activities. They were very accesible and disposed to work on that because they wanted to remember what they worked on in the normal classes and get a good grade on the subject. 
They copied some activities, I explained what they had to do and they worked and asked all the questions they had. 
On the other hand, because it was their special week, I played with them some activities in order to make them feel happy, they really enjoy to play in the class. When they play, they learn without notice themselves. I always play a lottery that I made and sometimnes they say (oh nooo, no that game again), but I explain to them that they need to learn the verbs and this is a very good way to learn them without  being writing. 
I´m happy to see that they are leaning so much, but on the next weeks we will start working on speaking activities which will be very good for them.  

Partner proffesional dialogue

It was a very good activity that I liked because it was diffferent to the others. Students had some problemns as I said  before with the simple present and on the other hand the students on first and second didn´t have problems with the quantities. For the conversation they had a little problem with pronouncing the words.  

This activity was very useful and funny. There were some reasons why I think that. At first I was nervpus about the parents going to the classroom and work with me and they looked anxious too, some of them don´t know the language. The students had fun working with their parents and also their parents learned too, about how to use the verbs. Finally they were happy and said that they had fun, but they still have some problems on writing sentences in simple present tense.

Post-reflection dialogue report

1. What aspects of the development of your unit plan did you find useful? I think that all was useful, but the fact that students had to write some opinions about the class and that their parents go to the classroom was good. 
2. What did you find was not useful? I think that all what we were going to do was good and useful.
3. Suggestions for improvement? I think that if students give opinions about the classes can be good to find more and better ways to work. 
4. Do you have suggestions for how we might continue or follow up this work and dialogue? It may be good if we as teachers do a dialogue at least once a month with others to give some advices on how to improve our classes. 

Lesson plans:

What we did?

This week I worked on simple present tense with my students from 3rd to 6th grade. This topic that we can think that is not too difficult. for some students it is very difficult and confusing, so they get in troubles by trying to understand it. even when they have problems, they give their best and try over and over to write complete and correct sentences. We just started working on simple present tense in affirmative and I am entrusted that they will be able to get the idea. 

I want them to learn it because it is a very important part of english, on that way they will be able to talk about situations of their everyday lives. I will tell you how it will be when they have tolearn in negative or interrogative, maybe it can be more difficult or easier, who knows, every student is different.  

With my students on first and second I worked on quantities, they had to say what they can see using objects and numbers. It is a very easy topic for them, in fact they don´t need me to explain them, some of them get very fast the idea. And for last as it has been done we played on Thursday and Friday, we play the lottery of verbs and numbers, where they a card with a number and in two teams they will go in front and form the quantity the heard. They get confused, but I really like this game, they are learning to build quantities in the two languages.  

Situated learning

Well, first sorry I´m late I didn´t see we have to do this activity.

Now after I read the article about situated learning, I understood that is when the students learn from helping each other and being a part of a community, students can also learn by practicing what they learn. Besides students learn from observing the environment. 

Now according to my receiving institution and the work I´m doing with the students there I found some points on where I see that situated learning is matched to my social service. Learnig is a process where students need to acquire the knowledge taught by the teacher. Since the moment when students get in the classroom in fact they can learn many things talking about the environment, social behavior, friendship and topics seen in the classes. All these can be done in the classroom working with my students.

As I have seen learning a subject can be matched to other one, according to the topic is being worked on. Being a teacher in elementary I have seen that as a teacher we have to teach using transversality, that is when students learn about two subjects at the same time. I think this is one of the parts of situated learning. When I work on numbers for example I can then work with my students on math problems, as an example, or children on first grade that are learning the alphabet, they can learn it in english and spanish at the same. In my opinion transversality can be one of the points.

Sometimes students need to learn in other contexts not just in the classroom, being sitting on the chair and listening to the teacher talking all the time. Students need to learn outside the side, studen ts can learn a lot being out of the clssroom, because the practice what the learn. It is not the same when a student just write and copy from the whiteboard than when they practice it,for example they are learning verbs, so it will be easier if they go out of the classroom and act out the verbs by listening them or even in the classroom, but playing a game board using the verbs. It is proved that students learn a lot when they play too not just by writing.

For last, beign a part of a community is very important, too. Here is where students learn by helping others. In the class, when students finish their activity first, some of them tend to help others who hasn´t finish, they also learn by helping because they see again what they did or maybe explaining to others, they can remember more by repeating.

In my social service I think  that these can be the most important, working on transversality, practicing,changing the environment (the place) and helping each others. Here I share a picture of the cards for a lottery that I made some years ago and I still use it to play and they learn the verbs at the same.

   

Getting to know

I know it is late, but after trying to find how to direct my plan, now I´ll start writing about my work in school. Well, I´m doing my social service in the place where I work, but in the afternoons. I´m going to work with students from 1st to 6th grade in elementary. These students go because have some learning problems, so I will help them to develope some skills. The first class was a little difficult and complicated, because the difference of ages. I took some activities to work with, but first we introduced to our classmates using sentences like: my name is, I´m ------ years old and they had fun on doing that. After that, I started explaining the wy we will work in the course and how they were sexpected to react about. Then I ask them to write down in spanish a text where they say how they like, enjoy or don´t like the language. The I revised them to see their comments about what they feel or not. That day we worked around two hours and is the time we will work every class. It was good working with them and they were very

Working on different topics

As I said before, I work with students from 1st to 6th grade in elementary. I divided them on three groups, this in order to work with each group the same topic. We are working on different topics and vocabularies according to their age. 

This week I worked with group 1 (1°-2°) some verbs in gerund, at first they didn´t remember the meaning of them. Then we worked on quantities with objects, they had to read and draw what it said, I think they liked that activity because it wasn´t difficult. 

For groups 2 (3°-4°) and 3 (5°-6°) I started to work with simple present tense on the three different ways. They first started with some verbs, next with personal pronouns because they still get confused with them, then they combine ten verbs in present tense  and finally we started with the structure of simple present tense in affirmative. When they started with the last activity that was to build sentences using the structure they got a little confused, but we will be working on that until they get how to do it. 

I like to see how they are learning and advancing on the language, obviously they have no the ability to write complete paragraphs, but they are working to continue learning. Some of them have some understanding problems , I see that it is hard for them to learn how to build sentences, in fact there are about three the ones that have that problems. I hope that when this finishes they will have gotten better. 

Back to work

After the holidays we started working again, as I expected the children wanted to work, because they like to work in the class and more because they already know that their days to play are Thursdays and fridays, well those are the days I gave them to get relaxed after a hard week working. We have been working om Monday to Wednesday and on the other two days we work less time and we play. 

I think they are enjoying the classes and I see that they are learning step by step more vocabulary and structures that were difficult before. They like to work but they also like when they are going to play. Even when they go getting better, it is difficult to work with them the principal reason is why they are a mixed group, so  it is too complicated to work different activites at the same with children from 6 to 12 years. Some of them still have some problems on the subject even the oldest ones.

One day I was amazed, they worked an activity on dictation the same for all the group and when I was checking the notebooks one girl on 1st grade had from 11 sentences like " The house is orange" just 2 mistakes, she is so smart and on the other hand a boy on 5th grade had all of the sentences wrong. It is terrific to see so smart children like that girl, but it is too sad to see children with those learning problems. Now after years teaching english I have learnt and as a personal opinion I think that to learn english one of the most important things is that we like the language, on that way it will be easier to learn it. 

Nice weekend all!!

Working on bad habits

Hello everyone!!
I have been working this last week with the Students with learning problems. It has not been easy at all, first because the difference of ages they are very different. To give an example while students from 1st grade take a long time to finish the activity and they use to talk and laugh in class, on the other hand I have students on 6th they are children whon nedds more time to work and others finish faster. This last week we were working on speaking activities, where they rarely have to write. The aim of this is to make they like the language and they learn in a funny way,but when children see that they won´t write they say that they won´t work.When they say that I exaplain them how learning english is. So, last week we worked on activities using cards and after that when they already practice that vocabulary then they worked on dictation to parctice writing. It is good to see how students go developing their skills in the language, this step by step, what can I say Rome wasn´t made in one day. I think we will have good resultss whith this project.
Nice week all!!

New topics

This week now we started working on new topics. The toppic is to build sentences starting with one object simple sentences like (The table is brown, the houseis big) and so on. Here what I´m looking for is to make students recognize names of objects by writing, listening and saying them. The first acivity is that I write on thge whiteboard names of objects and I give one card to every student, so they go to the whiteboard and stick the picture. Then we say the names of the objects and we check pronunciation. After that they have to say one sentence using the same structure that I mentioned before. When we finish sayng sentences, then they go to the whiteboard and write one sentence to remember writing. 

This is just one of the activites, but the last ome of the class is that the take out their noteboook and I have to dictate some sentences to check writing. SS think that if they just do that kind of activites they are not working or they are doing nothing, so I try to explain that learning english is not just to write over and over they need to practice speaking, too.  

Work and help

Well, the next week where we worked they had exams, so I helped them to get prepare for them instead working with new topics. I used the books that we use to work in normal classes (in the morning) then, I wrote in the whiteboard different activities for the different groups to copy and then they have to solve them. When they finished copying the activities I  explained one by one and group by group each activity to help them understanding better each topic. We worked with review the whole week in order to prepare them as better as possible. Everyday when they fimished te activites we worked one game for about 20 minutes just to help the be relaxed. As soos as the exams finish we will start working on new topics. 

Starting to work

After deciding on how to work on my plan and after developing it, at least I have it. I was waiting to have correct to start writing about my experiences. Well, first I have to say I´m working with some students from the place where I work but in the afternoon. These students go in the afternoon because they have some learning problems, so they have some extra work. There is where I am, working with SS in one group but from different stages from 1st to 6th grade.I have to say it is not an easy group, but I´ll do my best to do a great job with them. The first day where we worked was kind of difficult because the different ages, but it was a goos day. First we introcud ourselve using sentences like (my name is... I´m ------years old) and we played one game. Then I asked them to write a text where they said why they´d like to learn well the language. It was a good but difficult day. 

DESICIONS FOR MAKING AN ACTION PLAN:

After thinking and seeing the behavior of SS in the class I decided to take some weaknesses from my SS and make them work on that. 

Statement of Goal(s) and Objectives:

In this project I´m going to work with students from the place where I work, but these children come 

in the afternoon to reinforce what they do in the morning with their teachers.  These SS will work

 the language two hours of classes five days a week.    

Goal: Students will improve their skills in the language which is a little difficult for them. Students will 

develop a better understanding on the topics.

Objectives: 1. Help SS with learning problems in the language. 2. SS will learn in a different environment 

than the one they usually work in. 3. SS will be more monitored than they usually are. 4. SS will have more 

opportunity to participate and will learn in a different way.

IMPLEMENTATION				EVALUATION
What needs to be done?	By whom?	When?	What resources (human and material) are needed?	What evidence indicates progress?	How and when will that evidence be collected?
These SS have problems on paying attention to the class, so we are going to work on activities that call their attention.	Teacher               Students	After every class SS will play a game related to the activity they worked on that day.	Teacher Notebook Pen Whiteboard         Games          Cards	Class by class Students will show how their attention is going and if they are improving their learning.	Teacher will check their work and their progress.
The next step is to make SS know what they will do in the following classes. When students are conscious that they have to take it seriously, they will write a text saying why they´d like to produce language in real situations and why they think it´s important to learn English. This will reinforce their idea to learn and practice english.	Teacher Students	Since the first moment when activities start.	Maybe some presents to give SS when they are showing interest like stickers for example to reinforce their interest on the class.	The same SS will indicate if they are interested or not. Even when they are not interested they will have to do it, too.	Next class T will check the texts where SS say why they want to learn to see their opinion and what they expect from the subject.
In every class we will see different topics using grammar and tenses. They will also work on topics that are the most difficult for each of them.	Teacher Students	Every day they will on the work topics at least one topic per week to reinforce it and work on different ways.	Teacher Students Whiteboard Notebooks Whiteboard Markers Pictures	The students will read the sentences they have seen to check pronunciation and understanding.	In each class notes will be taken to have a record of their advancing.
SS will choose at least five lectures to be read in the classroom. These readings will be task –based, so they will not just practice reading skills, they will expand their vocabulary and will learn about some topics.	Teacher Students	One day a week will be used to practice their reading skills. This will be useful because they will not just work on writing activities, they will find a variety of learning ways.	Teacher Students Notebook Reading	The way on how SS talk and they are able to work their reading skills. Also the speed and comprehension will be taken into account.	Every class a record will be written to see how SS are working are learning.
SS will present an exam in order to prepare themselves to future exams in their real school classes.	Teacher Students	Every month they will present the exam.	Teacher Students Whiteboard Exam	The results of every exam will show their progress.	The exams will be qualified to keep a record of their work.

Report on strengths and needs.

Well to be honest the place where I´m going to do my social service is the same place where I work. After time teaching at this school I have found some problems. In my opinion some of them can be: there is only one teacher for 206 students (me), some groups just have two classes per week, some parents don´t support their children and others don´t understand the language, also there is not enough time to practice reading and oral activities. On the following lines I´m going back up my opinions.

There is only one teacher for 206 students (me): Well, this can be a problem having in mind the fact that I´m the only one English teacher in the school. I have to teach to 11 groups and the problem here is that I only teach twice a week to some groups and just three of the eleven groups receive three classes per week, every class is 50 minutes long.

Some groups just have two classes per week: As I said before I only teach two classes per week to eight groups, this can be a problem because I don´t have to much time to work as I would like to. I only have to focus on the book and I rarely use the notebook.

Some parents don´t support their children and others don´t understand the language: There are parents who don´t support their children, I mean they almost never do the homework and there other parents who don´t speak English and even if they want to is more difficult for them to help their children.

 Also there is not enough time to practice reading and oral activities: Taking into account the fact that I just have some classes, I almost don´t have time to work activities that aren´t in the book.

These last reasons are the most important for me and are the ones I could considerate to use in my needs analysis. 

ACTIVITY1

My experience and development as a teacher

At first, it was hard for me. When I started, about five years ago I wasn´t a good teacher, I was starting, I had no experience on working with children, well I had no experience on working as a teacher. I can say that I got I big opportunity, because the owner accepted me even when I had no career on teaching and I didn´t have any experience as a teacher. Other teacher in that school didn´t accepted me, I knew the language, but I didn´t have techniques and I didn´t know how to control or monitor a group. It was difficult for me to learn.

After some time I started knowing the behaviors of a group. The groups were a little difficult, because there were about 20 to 25 children between 6 to 12 years in the classrooms. I learnt how to control children in a group, how to talk to them, to convince them, to call their attention, etc. Even when at first I used to play a lot with the children, I found that it wasn´t good for them and for me, I mean for my status as a teacher, because they thought that I was their friend. Now, I work seriously and I developed techniques to work. 

In class, I have improved a lot the way I teach. I always plan my activities; I take my books, CD player, CD, pictures and the material I need to work in class. The way that I explain to the groups is different, because the stage, the age and the necessities. I have found that each group has its own weaknesses and strengths, so I work different with each group. It is not an easy job because in fifty minutes I have to teach, work with the students, listen to a record, check homework, explain the next homework and if I have time I show pictures In order to students say what they see. In general, I can say that I have improved my skills as teacher, but I still have to learn a lot.