Lesson 11 – (09/09/2014)

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

• Time: during the day
  
• Place: -
  
• Participants: People, children
  
• Topic: weather, seasons and clothes
  

REVISION:

• Notion: Days of the week
  
• Function: talking about the days of the week
  
• Exponents: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc
  

TEACHING POINT:

• Notion: weathers
  
• Function: talking about the weather
  
• Exponents: it's a cool and windy day – it's a cold and snowy day– it's a wet and rainy day– it's a hot and sunny day
  

About my teaching

When I entered the classroom there were students from another class. I suppose it's because I arrived late (it was raining like crazy and the transport was very slow) and the teacher thought I wasn't coming. Or perhaps their teacher was absent, anyway nobody explained why. There were some students absent on the day of the exam and the teacher wanted them to do the exam. So three boys were working on the exam, half of the students were from another division and the rest were the ones that I had to teach. This lesson was a mess. I started a new unit with new theme and it was so hard to deal with the teaching point. I think I might re-do this lesson because I don't think they learnt anything at all. It could have been a wonderful lesson but it was a disaster. I got really angry with them.

About the students

Only two students were paying attention, the rest were chatting with students from the other course. I had to stop the lesson many times. I was about to give up.

They were very distracted today and they were hardly listening to me. We did some activities but it felt like they were on a completely different place.

Lesson 1, again

About my teaching

This lesson was an introduction. I presented myself to the students and there wasn't much teaching. I recycled vocabulary from the previous units and introduced some animals like "whale" and "shark" to link them to the unit we are about to star that is about wild animals.

I felt comfortable with this group. I might have to look for a way to attract their attention when I want to check an activity or explain something because they get distracter easily and talk a lot.

About the students

The students are highly participative and they really enjoyed the activities we did today. They are not used to the teacher speaking in English all the time but there are plenty of translators and when they don't know the words they grasp the meaning really quickly.

The only problem I noticed today was that they stand up a lot. When they finish an activity and they come to the front to ask if it's ok. Since there are 32 students, that could create a big mess.

Lesson 2

About my teaching

The timing I estimated for the activities was right. I did the revision, the teaching point and the correction of the drills with no problems. There are some students that I think attend private English lessons and they were of great help when presenting the new topic.

There were some students who had to sit for a math test so they weren´t paying attention at first but then their main teacher told them to stop and go on with the English lesson. Again they were all standing asking if things were ok. I should probably explain some key points about discipline, for example, that we are going to check all the activities either on the board or orally so they shouldn't stand up.

About the students

They don't enjoy songs very much, at least not the songs from the book. They didn't sing or dance, they were just looking or me or reading from the book. I think on Tuesdays they are a bit more distracted because the lesson is near lunch time and they are hungry.

Some students kept asking if we were going to make more origami. I suppose they liked it, so perhaps I'll include some other activity like that in the future.

They are great and willing to participate in every activity but they get so desperate they jump about the classroom like monkeys.