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Friday 23 April 2010

Second Week of Teaching Practice

The second week of our teaching practice was about me and Katka teaching English to the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th grade. After the first week of observing we knew very well that it is possible to have all lesson in English and the pupils would understand. We weren't quite sure about the 5th grade because Rebekka did not use much English when teaching this class but we tried.
To sum up activities we did:

  • 3rd grade: We used computers to make the lesson more attractive for pupils. They usually use www.manythings.org but we found another website: www.britishcouncil.org/kids and taught them a song: "I Can Sing a Rainbow". Moreover, we played some icebreaking games such as: Saing names as quick as possible, Simon says and How much do you like. Next lesson we also used computers for about 20 minutes to introduce the fairytale about Little Red Riding Hood to children. After that me and Katka played the fairytale using puppets. Some children really loved this activity. We made them more active by giving them puppets and everytime they heard the name of the character they were holding they had to raise their hand. I think that teaching English to the third class was a succes and we made it without difficulties. We also managed to use computers in our class but not for whole 45 minutes because it would be boring both for pupils and teachers.
  • 4th grade: Teaching English to this class was a kind of challenge because there were 23 pupils. Some of them are already very good at English. However, some of them refused to talk to us. Because of the big number of pupils and not enough space in the classroom it was difficult to use some movement activities. We chose the topic: "Birthday" and "Parties". In the first lesson we taught pupils some new words and they also learned a birthday song: "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". They also created a birthday invitation and it was quite a nice lesson. Next lesson we wanted to teach them some verbs concerning preparing a party. We intended to use Total Physical Response but it did not work in the end. The mood in the class was not suitable for this activity so we had to change our plan on the spot. This lesson lacked a moving activity, so it was a bit boring, although we prepared it carefully.
  • 5th grade: Altough pupils from the class are not used to having whole lesson in English, we hade to do it in English because our Danish really sucks.:) Surprisingly, nearly all pupils understood our instructions without difficulties and everything worked well. We talked about food with this group. We used a drawing activity (pupils had to draw their favouritte meal and others had to guess), we played: "How much do you like", we sang" Five Fat Sausages" (without the music because the recording did not work :), and played another game which included clapping. Our next lesson was supposed to be about learning a pancake recipe and practicing cooking verbs. We really planned it carefully but however the lesson was canceled because of a concert. So we went to the concert instead. The last lesson with the 5th grade was about preparing pancakes and milkshake. We gave pupils instructions in English and they were also given a handout and they worked very well. We were amazed at how nice pancakes they prepared.:)
  • 8th grade: Teaching English to the 8th grade was wonderfull. All pupils were very nice and friendly and it was a pleasure to teach them. We did not do much grammar with them but a lot of speaking activities. We talked about stereotypes and images that represent certain countries. We used role play and they really enjoyed being "someone else". We also talked about travelling and searching for a holiday destination and we had some jokes as a conclusion of our teaching. We also revised adjectives derived from countries.
To Sum Up: Teaching English to Danish pupils was a wonderful experience. Due to their good level of English it is easy to have all lesson in English only. I specially enjoyed teaching English to the 3rd grade because the children were very sweet and keen on our activities. We could also use activities that we cannot do with adult learners because it would be too childish for them.
Else was also satisfied with the job we did and praised us a lot, which made us happy.:)
At home I will try to use English more when teaching beginners because I could see that when you use very simple English and help yourself with gestures and mimics they can understand you very well.
It thrilled me that there were mostly 15 pupils in each class. It is ideal for language teaching because pupils have more opportunities to talk.
It was also to teach in pair with Katka. We complemented each other very well. While I was asking pupils, she wrote on the greenboard and vice versa. Also planning lesson in a pair was much easier and funnier.

3 comments:

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  3. Mate moc pěkný blok p. učiteli V. Rychtář Kukleny minulá 6.A Ty co VÁS zlobili: Dtabule učiteli V. Rychtář Kukleny minulá 6.A Ty co VÁS zlobili: D

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