WEEK 12           

                                                                                                         

DATE 21/11/2012        

                                                                                                                               

Last day

The last day they exposed the last microteaching related with the different coins around the world. I think it is an original and interesting topic to work with children in Primary level.

During the other part of the class we watched some videos about different programs to motivate parents to be implicated and collaborate more in their children tasks and school process. One of the most important points in the school is the participation of the families, which must follow the same way as the school.

Finally, we talked about the PLE presentations we have in January. This consist in a 10 minutes presentation where we have to explain the organization of our PLE and how useful was for us to create it. Moreover, we have to explain briefly some tasks we include and we can use our Blog entries to complement the presentation.

WEEK 11        

                                                                                                            

DATE 10/11/2012      

                                                                                                                                 

Last' Microteachings

This session we dedicated it to finish all the microteaching presentations. The three of them were for infant education: 5 years old.

The first one was my group’s microteaching focused in the painting of Van Gogh’s room. We finished the presentation very satisfied with the result and the activities development. In general, all the comments of our classmates were positive.

The second group presentation was around the Halloween topic. They used a real character of a witch to introduce the topic, which I think it’s really catchy for the kids. Moreover, they have used a storytelling and flashcard, very appropriate for these ages. Finally, one of the activities was more focused to work with the senses (touching) to determinate the characteristics of elements.

Finally, the last presentation was so interesting to work with 5 years old children because all the activities are thought to work with music. Discriminating sounds, for example the different sounds of the animals. Some others were related movement with sounds as well. They have used storytelling as well and proposed dynamic activities. Finally, one remarkable point is that they played song in live with a guitar which can be so original and different as the kids are used to.

DATE 14/11/2012   

                                                                                                                                    

Library day

We dedicate this whole class to expose the different books we analyzed with our groups. I have to say that I’m very proud of my group presentation because was consistent but at the same time clear. The result of the activity done in class was excellent as well.

Our book presentation:

About the other groups, I enjoyed with most of the presentations and I think some of the books can probably be useful in my future as a teacher. Even if we had a short time to expose, all the groups respected and we could present all the books correctly.

WEEK 10      

                                                                                                              

DATE 3/11/2012        

                                                                                                                               

Comet – Learning English through content and literature

We had the pleasure to have two speakers, Jane Howes and Peter Loveday, talking about aspects related with the education and teaching in English.

The first point was sharing our experimental learning. The activity consisted, in pairs, to analyze the positive and negative aspects of children textbooks, based on our experience. Unfortunately, most of these points were negative. Jane recommended us to present the exercises to children without opening the book. For example, preparing the images apart, writing a poem in the blackboard and to the exercise all together, before to open the book.

The second point was the communicative methodology. They gave us some advices and explained their experience, and we shared opinion. In the third point we talked about CLIL, where we saw two important concepts as:

TAVI – Text As Vehicle for Information

TALO – Text As Linguistic Object

After that, we saw and analyze different English activities for children. Some of the parts we did it working in pairs our groups, and then sharing with the rest of the class group.

I think it’s productive to have some real experiences of English teachers, which can show us the reality in class and give us advices and tools to teach this language. 

WEEK 9                   

                                                                                                 

DATE 26/11/2012            

                                                                                                                           

Preschool and Primary activities 2

We didn't have any microteaching presentation in this session. Because of that, we continued analysing different textbook activities, both for preschool and primary education. We had to take into account the concepts and skulls every activity develops, as well as the methodology.

DATE 30/11/2012    

Textbook activities

The first part of the class was about a microteaching presentation: Christmas around the world. As a task, we have to analyze it and post in on moodle as we did with the first microteaching presentation.

After the microteaching presentation, the teacher gave us different textbook activities which we analyzed and exposed, in pairs, our first impression. Every 10 min., more or less, we had to change the book with other classmates and analyze it too. At the end of the class, every pair has got a book and the task consists on work with one and analyzes the assets and drawbacks points on it.        

                                                                                                                        

WEEK 8         

                                                                                                           

DATE 19/11/2012    

                                                                                                                                   

The structure of a lesson

The microteaching presentation was interesting for me because the activities are focused in Miró. Our CLIL project is about the room painting of Van Gogh as well, so we could see how to work with the art topic with children in Primary level. However, most of the activities can’t work with children in Preschool. However, the microteaching was similar as ours. The activities were original and manipulative, which I found appropriate for the age they have chose.

I found this class very productive and interesting for me, because we talk about one of the aspects I'm worried about. This is how to prepare and organize the structure of a class lesson.

After the microteaching presentation, we discussed the ways of planning well-structured lessons for effective language learning to take place. As I’m doing my internship now, I have to prepare a complete unit project focused in a topic the children are working now in the school. My challenge is that my group of P5 never did English before, and I have to start with very basic concepts as introduction.

Some aspects we talked in that class and I think are useful in my program can be:

-Hello and Goodbye songs.

-Basic activities.

-Repetition.

-Reminding what we did in other sessions.

-Summing up the concept at the end of the class.

Moreover, we saw the structure the classes have to follow. First of all, we start with a routine, which include a general overview about what we are going to talk in the class; sharing aims; and warm up. Secondly, we will do in practice the main part of the lesson we prepared. Finally, we have the end of the lesson summing up the concepts.

After that, we saw different examples about exercises we can do with our students in the different moments of these three parts of the lesson.

DATE 23/11/2012           

                                                                                                                            

Preschool and Primary activities

The microteaching presentation of this session was about the states of the water: solid, liquid and gas. Analysing the presentation, I have to say that it was clear, makes the students participate with the activities which were entertaining and appropriate.

One of the positive aspects is that they checked the pronunciation of the words and they introduce new vocabulary related with the topic. However, some of the points should be corrected or improved are in the explanation of the activities, which some were not very clear to understand the aims or what is supposed to do. Moreover, it’s necessary to give some examples to show what they want in the activity.

The second part of the class consisted to analyse different textbook activities, both for preschool and primary education. We had to take into account the concepts and skulls every activity develops, as well as the methodology. At the end we have to summarize the assets and drawbacks we found, and wrote them down. 

WEEK 7 

                                                                                                                       

DATE 12/11/2012   

                                                                                                                                    

Organization

The first session of this week was divided in two parts. During the first part, the second group class did their presentation of the Microteaching: Ancient Egypt. The topic was interesting and they did a good job looking for so much resources, images and explanations for children. Moreover, they provide the activities with examples and models.

On the other hand, some parts were repetitive and not really catchy for us. I think that they focused the microteaching with too much theory parts. Moreover, the coordination of the group wasn’t that good as the other day, and the presentation was a little bit long.

The other part of the class the teacher organized the tasks we still have to do, individually or as a group, and the deadlines we have. She reminded us the days of expositions, recommending to everyone how to improve the Personal Learning Environment.

For this reason, I’ve been completing my PLE with more useful links, and adding my Google Drive documents we have as a task: Present yourself as a future teacher and Poems, rhymes, songs and riddles.  One of the links I added, for example, is the BBC CBeebies* website. We worked on it in class with the video Winnie the Witch. I was looking around the website and I found it useful because I found some resources like songs, stories and videos for children.

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/

This is how my Personal Learning Environment looks now:

DATE 16/11/2012         

                                                                                                                              

Reading comprehension

On Friday, the group who exposed the Microteachings talked about The Solar System in a very original way. They used lots of resources and performance we can do as a teachers in class to exemplify how the solar system works. Moreover, they prepared appropriate activities for it.

The second part of the class was centered to talk about reading comprehension. We said that to develop comprehension children need to develop other aspects as background knowledge, discover how English language works, have various proposes for readings or strategies for construing meaning.

It is important to know for my future as a teacher that comprehension is an active process that involves all these strategies and behaviors, in order to make meaning from the texts. We saw four readings styles –skimming, scanning, extensive and intensive -.

After that we saw different examples of activities we can do with children, always giving them a context. One of the important points I can use in my future is that we can do lots of actions to maintain the motivation of the kid to read.  

WEEK 6                 

                                                                                                       

DATE 05/11/2012          

                                                                                                                             

Children routines and storytelling

This week we started focusing the class in preschool children, concretely with their routines. We saw that the repetition part is really important, also using short sentences. It’s common and useful to use short expressions in the beginning and last of the class, in order to make them memorize it.

We saw a video with Catalan children attending an English lesson. I really liked how the teacher did it. For example, when they say a word in Catalan the teacher repeated in English as well. That makes them to associate the same word in both languages to the same object or concept.

Moreover, some word the teacher said in English she repeated them in Catalan or the opposite (ex: Molt bé / Very good). The teacher used storytelling to work in her lessons, and they can be a useful resources for my future. The first book was about animals, where they work the colours and the names of the animals; Duck is dirty book, where she uses songs during the story; Bee and Sara, where a Bee asks the Is this a flower? and makes the children involved with vocabulary of the parts of body; finally, the story about Miss Polly had a dolly.

I think storytelling is really useful and productive working with young children. Usually can help to introduce a new topic or project, and it’s catchy for the kids. In my future, I will definitely use storytelling with my students and get the most benefit of it.

DATE 09/11/2012          

                                                                                                                             

A practical class

In Friday’s class we started working with our groups. The teacher gave us the program of a “possible” class, and we chose a “teacher” in the group to guide it. The rest were students and we prepared the class, in order to expose it in front of the rest of the groups.

Most of the activities consist with routines, songs or ideas of how to present the names of the children in class. I think they were original and they gave me new ideas to work with children. A question I've raised is: Is it always useful to work with songs with children? I think that some songs are repetitive and they help them to memorize some concepts, but some can be difficult for them. As a teacher, I have to choose the correct and appropriate song for each moment and topic.

At the end of the class the first group has exposed the Microteaching they had prepared. The activities were original and I think that they did a really good job. The resources they prepared were appropriate for the activities and they used them to achieve the lesson successfully.