Blog #1: Reflection upon the in-class teaching slice

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sindy Caceres on October 1, 2015 at 9:34pm

Hi Janeth, I enjoyed watching your group’s presentation. I thought that the way you guys separated the class into two different groups which were the Spanish heritage speakers and the non-native speakers was a great way of using differentiation instruction. Being able to access every student’s needs is the most important role of being a great teacher. You don’t want to teach a student something they might already know because then the lesson can become boring for them. Therefore, what you guys did was a great way to challenge most of the students. Even though the activity for the heritage speaker seemed a little simple I believe it worked very well because not only was it entertaining but as well we used what we were learning in class. Overall I thought you guys did a great job.

Permalink Reply by Joel Peña on October 14, 2015 at 3:15pm

After Sindy and I taught a lesson on the verb “tener”, I received very useful feedback that I will take into account for the second language classroom. Overall I believe Sindy and I did a very good job with the lesson taught. I felt that the class was very engaged and we had pretty much full control of the classroom. I felt that I communicated enough with my students and everything given to my students was straightforward. Yes, we did have a mistake a two but this is why is good to make mistakes because we can learn from them especially with the feedback that we received. One feedback that my colleague and I received was, to have maybe more images when speaking about a vocabulary word that might mean something else to someone else. I really did take this into account because it is fairly true. I imagined myself in a second language classroom and speaking to a student. This particular word could mean something else to this student and it would a big plus to have more images on the board so the student can have a full understanding of the vocabulary word we are speaking about. I believe that it is very important to have many images to show the students because visuals can give a better understanding in every way. Another suggestion given to us was that maybe we should have been a bit more clearly on our instructions for the second activity. We gave out instructions but it was not clear enough and I knew it was not clear enough when Janeth called me over during the practice part of the class to get a better understanding. This is very important in a second language classroom because students need to be able to understand. They need to feel comfortable and feel confident but if the instructions are not clear, they might feel as if they are not capable of completing the task. That was a very helpful suggestion. A few positive feedbacks we received was that I was very clear and my pace was very good. It is very important in a second language classroom to be clear and to project yourself good enough so the students can fully understand you and keep them focused. I thank all my colleagues for all the feedback and recommendations. Any feedback is great feedback for the future. 

Word count: 399

Permalink Reply by Sarai Herreros on October 19, 2015 at 8:39pm

Hello Joel,

I just want to start off by saying that you and Sindy did a great job presenting your teaching slice in the class. I really enjoyed the presentation and how the both of you brought across your thoughts and activities. Your PowerPoint presentation is what ultimately help engage the students because the information that you display is meant to interest the student. With this being said, I would suggest that in your future presentations you should add more visuals. Since you were dealing with presenting the verb "TENER" and describing objects in a household, more images would have been efficient. I also really liked that the both of you used clarification to make sure that all of the students were on the same page as you. The theme of your presentation was appropriate since students need to have knowledge in this area. When we were discussing suggestions and giving feedback, one that I definitely think that you should work on is incorporating different types of words that mean the same thing. The use of variation Don't be afraid to use language variation. After all, if you incorporate an explanation of the meaning of other words, you're in fact contributing to the use of culture. Overall, you both did a great job. Keep up the great work!

Permalink Reply by Kimberly Romhin on October 14, 2015 at 4:52pm

The lesson taught by my colleague Eulalia G. and myself was focused mostly in the lexical goal. The lesson was about teaching an inter median low class  new vocabulary that is consider one of the 3Ps, production, whereas the students will put in practice the input received once outside the classroom. The title of the lesson was "Los alimentos"  which was criticized by one of my students colleague because we should of use a kind of hook to attract the students' attention  and some source of motivation. The lesson was suppose to be given in the following aspects: I would start the class by presenting the new topic that the students are going to be learning and ask question about the main topic so that they get involve with the lesson once that is set. My colleague was suppose to teach the vocabulary not just read it, once the students have written down the new vocabulary in their notes with the meaning of each product shown by professor Garcías. After that is when both of us come in and start given a handout to the students with two different kind of activities related to the topic just learned. Then if the students were able to proceed and not have any question after one of us had asked we'll move on with another activity, for this activity the students had to work in pairs because they were assign to create a dialogue which will be later presented to the class. One of the critics of colleagues is that we did not interact or have a connection with the students which I agree with. Another critic was that I corrected a student while participating in an activity and I should of let that go and incase the students still make the same mistake I should call him after class and correct him or record all the mistakes all the students make and at the end of the class go over it so that they can stop making the mistakes. The last critic made was that we should of make the images way bigger, they were good images but were not big enough for the students to compare. Professor Salgado mentioned that everything should be written in the target language because in our presentation we wrote the headers in English while the content in the target language and that was criticized by them.  

Word count: 400

Permalink Reply by Sarai Herreros on October 20, 2015 at 10:49pm

Hello Kimberly!

I would like to start off by saying that you and Eulalia did a really good job during the presentation. I really liked that you both decided that it would be appropriate to teach the students about being healthy and the foods that I should be learned. you both incorporated lists of foods but as a suggestion for next time, I would like to see more visuals to represent the material that you are presenting. Also, though your activities were fine, I do believe that you distributed them at a different pace. You had three activities which thoroughly keeps the students' attention centered on you at all times. You have a really astute way of teaching a classroom and you're very precise when teaching a topic. One last suggestion that I have for your future presentations is the use of clarification in English when students are very confused. We want to engage our students and make them feel window welcome and very helpful. Over all, you both did great :)

Permalink Reply by Eulalia Garcia on October 15, 2015 at 10:10am

My reflection on the teaching slice that Kimberly and I presented in class. I was thinking about on how important to have students is engaged in class. Our presentation was for on intermediate low class. The feedback that we received from our classmates is important to improve the areas where we did not teach the right way. Considering that in class we as teachers are open to listen to our classmates’ comments and to make the changes while we are learning how to teach. To have the instructions correctly and understandable it should be easy to learn. Therefore teaching a lesson with an objective in mind is interesting. For example at the time that our professor asked us what kind of a lesson we had, since our lesson did not remark exactly the kind of assessment. Kimberly and I figure out that was a production presentation because students were still practicing in classroom to communicate outside of class as well.  I think I need to put into practice how to teach the words of the lesson and communicate with students frequently. Communication and instructions between teachers and students in class gives students a clear understanding of the task. One of the assessments that Kimberly and I did was to have students participate. Students interacted about some questions we provided. My colleague and I asked if the students were doing well but I did not make sure if the words write-down were correct or made sense. Our activity of “Los alimentos”, was about to learn how food is important for us and the classification of each food. Our classmates mention that providing students with a detailed explanation of the words as well as to correct students at the moment they make a mistake is important. Our instructions should be explicit and simple to facilitate the learning. Since we were using PowerPoint we could have included more visual images. To have the student’s attention and have a variation of the difference styles of learning it should be reminded. We could also include the different foods around the world and how is related culturally. The food has an extended vocabulary with can be connected to student’s diversity. The time management for our presentation need it improvement because we cannot talk about one subject the whole class. In explaining and teaching students what is really remarkable for the assessment is essential and to keep in mind how to take time for each section. Projecting a lesson before time should include the main objectives and make sure that all of the students can collaborate in the discussion. As a future teacher putting into practice the target language inside classrooms will give students’ abilities to communicate. To that purpose class-management takes an important rule of how to set up a classroom.

Permalink Reply by Janeth Puma on October 20, 2015 at 10:06pm

Hello Eulalia, I really like the way you had planned the lesson and the explanation of your reasoning of the lesson plan. The idea was good but when it came time to apply that idea in a classroom you did not transmitted the point of the lesson. One of the things that the lesson was lacking was culture. You could introduce culture when you present the vocabulary for example, you can give a variation of names for the word “pig” such as “Puerco, cerdo, pernil”. Other way to introduce culture is by just telling the students what is the typical food in Mexico or Venezuela using the vocabulary that is being presented. The last suggestion and one that everyone in class has not done is do any type of assessment. You can collect the production part or you can give homework so that you are able to assess the students.

Word Count 150

Permalink Reply by James López-Navarro on October 21, 2015 at 11:21am

 

Howdy Eulalia! To start off, let me congratulate you on your teaching slice presentation. I found you more confident on stage, your pace was slow enough to be comprehended, and you had the students engaged: overall, you did a neat job! When you and “your coach” presented the food (Sullivan & Glanz, 2013), one thing I indeed liked was that it was an extensive vocabulary –albeit necessary and meaningful for our target student population– from different categories, e.g., fruits, vegetables, dairy, and you did very well with the selection of the basics. Another positive aspect on which both of you did very well was on the incorporation of images, in order to give meaning to the presented lexical items. Thus, not only do they know what it is now, but they can also reflect back on it in the future.

 

One of the recommendations I would like to give to you concerns the concept of culture (Shrum & Glisan, 2016). That is, I believe that you could have touched more on the cultural aspect (one of the 5 C’s based on ACTFL Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21^st century), for instance, by naming a specific item (e.g., “banana” from the fruit category), you could have incorporated pictures which showed a varied range of names (i.e., lexical variation) on that particular fruit in different parts of the Spanish-speaking world (Geeslin & Long, 2014). Moreover, rather than having the students repeat the vocabulary items with you, you could have made them work using those words individually, in pairs, or in small groups, (Lee & VanPatten, 2003). Thus, you could have reviewed it later with the class as a large group and it would have been then when you could have clarified issues, for instance, related to pronunciation, or simply those questions the students may have. Having so said, let me reiterate that overall you did a great job! 

Permalink Reply by Sindy Caceres on October 15, 2015 at 8:59pm

Receiving feedback from my colleagues was very helpful. Like they say we learn from our mistakes. The lesson that my partner Joel and I taught together was at a high novice level. Our main focus in our lesson was being able to tell what one has in one’s household using the verb “tener” along with the new vocabulary words that the students learned. With the big hook that my partner and I used at the beginning of our lesson gave the students a good understanding of what the lesson would be based on. This is something one of our colleagues had mentioned they enjoyed watching in our presentation. I believe my partner’s interaction with the students as well as mines was very well developed. I think us asking the students constantly if they understood and walking around the class when they were completing the activity was a good example of the interaction between the teacher and the students. I believe our implementation of the 3P’s was very well developed throughout our lesson. We started out by presenting new lexical words and the conjugation of the verb “tener” that the students put into practice with the activities they were assigned. Then the input they received throughout the presentation and practice part of the lesson we were able to see as an output in the production part of the lesson. Receiving all types of feedback whether it’s something positive or negative is what makes one a better person. My major focus before presenting my lesson was for my colleagues to focus on my timing and my voice whether it was clear and understanding. Other feedback I received after presenting my lesson was that I should have included more visuals or pictures for the lexical words that I had mentioned in one of the slides. Another thing that was mentioned was my timing when assigning a student an activity. I should be able to control the amount of time I give my students when having to complete an assignment. One of my colleagues had mention that my voice was clear throughout my presentation however, I need to work on projecting my voice more when it comes to the volume. The feedback that I received from my colleagues was very useful and now I have a more clear understanding of what I should improve on. 

Total words: 391 

Permalink Reply by Janeth Puma on October 20, 2015 at 10:04pm

Hello Sindy, I enjoyed the lesson that you and Joel did. One of the things that I believe you did really well was making a clear input while you were doing the presentation. The images that you used helped the students understand the vocabulary without the need of explanation or translation. The volume of your voice was fine for a small class like ours however for a bigger classroom where there is the double of the students you will need to raise the volume of your voice. One recommendation to you and Joel is to use more culture. One way to introduce culture, could be telling the students that some objects of the vocabulary words may have more than one name. The last thing that I will suggest you and Joel is to do assessment. You could do assessment by collecting the activity we did in class or to give homework. 

Word count 151

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