My first teaching practice (1st period)

In this opportunity, August 20^th 2017, I had to teach to my group of intermediate English I the present perfect tense. I felt a little bit nervous this day since it was the first time I taught to this group, but I think I could do a good job. In this class, I was in charge of teaching a new topic for my students. Of course the teacher had explained a few things regarding the topic, but I was going to go deep. To warm up the class, I started with a song called “baby shark” and as I could notice it was the first time they sang it, so I tried to be as clear as possible with them, I also exemplified the way we were supposed to conduct the warm up; however, some students were still lost when I asked them to sing the song. After this, I moved to the grammar explanation, which was based on the usage of “since and for.” 

For this, I brought a chart with a brief explanation and some exercises in which they were going to prove they had understood the topic. During this part, students had some problems with the usage of since and for, but I tried to explain one more time and at the end they succeed with the sentences they were asked to do. Later on, we moved to another activity in which students had to take a page from their notebooks and write at least five verbs in the past, then they had to make a ball and throw it to the front so that they could pick up one that was not theirs and transform the verbs into the past participial form.  Unfortunately, the time flied and as I tried students to understand the usage of the grammar notes I could not finish the last activity in which they were going to work on their textbooks. However, I felt pleased because my students acquired new knowledge even though the time was not enough to clarify every single doubt they had.

My second teaching practice (1st period)

It was August 27^th, and I had to teach my second class. Today again I had to teach the present perfect, but this time it was way much easier for me and for my students because they already managed the topic. 

I started the class with an activity called pass the marker. Students did a great job with this warm up activity because any of the ones who participated hesitated too much when they passed to write their sentence on the board. For the first activity of this day I brought some flashcards for students to create some sentences, but the student who passed was asked to throw a big dice, which I had brought, and was going to create the sentence according to the mood they got. I could notice that students enjoyed this activity because they were paying attention to the way other students said their sentences. 

As soon as we finished this activity, we moved to a reading in which students were working in trios in order to read a passage, but while one student was reading the other two were taking notes about the mispronounced words their classmates read so that at the end we all could check the words they had pronunciation problems with. At the end, we had a listening practice based on the present perfect as well, and students also did a good job with this since they did not struggle when answering the questions. In fact, I can say I enjoyed this class because I achieved what I had expected and students participated really cool during each of the activities.

  

 My third teaching practice (1st period)

Today, August 14^th 2017, I had the chance to teach my last class to my group of students. This time the teacher asked me to reinforce the usage of the present perfect tense, so I prepared the activities based on some suggestions he shared with me. First of all, I started the class with a warm-up called “spiderweb” in which students had to answer a question when they got a wool ball, previously thrown by another classmate, and I could notice students enjoyed to throw the ball to the person they decided. Therefore, as the teacher also told me to bring a practice on the usage of the present perfect, I brought one he provided to me. For this activity, students had to select from the simple past or present perfect tense to complete the fill in the blank exercise, and they did it successfully since they did not hesitate too much at the moment of doing it. 

After this activity, we also had a review on the creating of WH-questions, which was something the teacher asked me to so that I prepared some material in order to have students brainstorm some ideas according to the images. Students were struggling to find the correct structure to make questions, but with a little help they remembered it all. Hence, I asked them to work in trios in order to create three WH-questions using the present perfect tense, and they did a good job as well. Lastly, I had prepared a listening practice, but unfortunately the time was not enough to complete all the steps of the listening, so the teacher told me to work only with the pre and during part of it. Thankfully, students worked somehow hard and fast to complete the task, in which they succeed as well. At the very end, I said goodbye to my students because I taught them for the last time, and I gave each of them a candy in gratitude to their help and participation during my classes.