Blog 1_SS2015

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Permalink Reply by Katherine Brillante on March 2, 2015 at 6:45pm

Hello Jose, I loved how interactive and involved your lesson was planned, from the beginning to the end. You both did a great job at keeping the class attentive, and involved. I believe this made the activity fun, and easier to understand by using pictures to teach the students different emotions. As someone who doesn't speak Spanish, I was able to follow through almost 100%, so kudos to you both! I also like your ideas on challenging your students, instead of just handing them everything. I believe this method of in-taking new material has a better impact on the brain, and therefore stores into the brain faster by challenging the student to take the extra step to get to an answer. As per culture, just an idea: maybe you could use technology or photos by introducing what people generally associate different moods with in their country. For example, excitement can be associated with festivities and celebrations, and you can introduce the Spanish culture by showing the class which holidays they celebrate. Overall you guys did a great job! 

Permalink Reply by Sindy Caceres on February 28, 2015 at 5:01pm

            In the activity that my partner and I presented in class we decided to use visual pictures so that the students can recognize words and when recognizing them they would be able to create sentences. In other words, instead of just knowing a vocabulary word such as “sad” and what it means in another language they can visualize that word with the picture of an emotion which would be a sad face and it would help them completely understand the word better. This would allow them to feel more confident when creating sentences using those words. I feel that showing visual pictures to the class can benefit the students understanding on vocabulary words. Just seeing a word written on the board and hearing the word is sometimes not enough for most students to understand. Some students are visual learners who need to see things in order for them to understand. Therefore, I feel that this teaching technique could have a good impact on the whole classroom.

            Due to differentiating instruction something I would have done differently to accommodate every student would have been to make lessons using auditory means. In other words, as well as showing students visuals through pictures I would have added some auditory lessons in which they can hear and also have provided them with hands on activities. All students have different ways of learning and one as a teacher has to see which way works best for them.

            Incorporating culture into activities can be very challenging. However, there are many ways too incorporate culture into a lesson. One way in which I would have incorporated culture into the activity we presented would have been to call on a student and have them introduce themselves using the vocabulary words we would have taught them and at the same time telling us where there from in a sentence. From there one as teacher can elaborate on that topic and give the class some information on every students different culture. 

Permalink Reply by Sarai Herreros on February 28, 2015 at 10:10pm

Hey Sindy, I like the idea of adding culture to the assignment by allowing the students to introduce themselves and indicate where they're from. I think that that's one of the best ways to engage a student and to make them feel more involved in class. Especially because your activity in class was reared towards the younger crowd, it was an introductory course that required you to fully grab the students attention. I too believe that adding culture can be a challenge because culture is slowly fading away and there are different customs day by day that are being added that are more modernised. I also like that you would've provided different ways to suit each students learning capabilities to see which was more convenient and that way you can help a student with much clarity. (:

Permalink Reply by James López-Navarro on March 1, 2015 at 11:26am

Hey Sindy,  

I like the idea that about differentiation instructions because as you have stated, we all have different learning abilities in which some fall short to others. The thing is that you basically will be covering most of the basic abilities, which leaves me in a curious states on to how you would exactly present it and come about it in a more profound way. You have a point about how culture would be hard to present,  but maybe your idea is the same as mine. Elaborating on what I just said; you can use audiovisual tools such as videos to show how certain cultures have family gatherings, therefore creating a state of being happy because you are with the people you love; such that you can also show what they don’t like and think its unappropriated making there mood sad, disappointed etc. Overall you guys did great !.

Permalink Reply by Janeth Puma on February 28, 2015 at 6:22pm

My group objective was to teach native Spanish speakers how to use adjectives and at the same time encourage students to practice writing, reading, speaking, and listening. I find that our group came up with a great strong activity. To begin, the activity was good because the whole activity was taught in Spanish so that the students can start getting more familiar with the pronunciation and other new words in Spanish. Another reason I think it was interesting is because they had to work in partners and describe themselves and write what they learn about each other. In this part of the activity the students practice their speaking and their writing skills. In the last part of the activity the students were asked to read their sentence and by doing this the student were practicing their reading skills. Our goal was successful because students practiced many parts of the language structure and learned at the same time about adjectives and how they work in the language.

Based on the feedback from my classmates and my own observation there is a lot of things I would have done differently, the first thing that I could have done better was to manage the time better of the activity. The activity was long and the students didn’t have enough time to complete the activity. Other huge things I could have done better, was to make the activity less mechanical. Instead of me telling them what are adjectives and the rules I could have made the students give me an explanation instead or ask them to use it in a sentence. One more thing I could have done better is my diction. I speak too fast and students sometimes can’t understand instructions because is too fast to process the information. I have to speak slower so that I make sure the students have time to understand when I speak. One last thing I would have incorporated to the activity is culture. I feel that culture helps students understand more the language therefore I think I could have used picture, video, or a type of audio that connects the students to the language. Culture could have helped the student engage more with the language and make it easier to see adjectives and its use in the language. 

Permalink Reply by Kimberly Romhin on February 28, 2015 at 9:48pm

What we did was a summary of how we would teach students that do not speak Spanish practice pronunciation by learning the Spanish alphabet and the vowels, after they have learned pronounced and memorized the letters and vowels we will jump to the next step of pronunciation which is combining the letters and vowels together to start forming words that will be easy for the beginners to remember. This could be an "intro to Spanish" class. We would like to start really from the level zero, so that, the students could learn the language as they have learned the numbers, what I mean by this, is that we will teach students step-by-step to learn Spanish as they did when learning mathematics, for example; they started counting numbers, then, once they have memorized the numbers they jump to the next levels which are Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying, and then the hardest one Dividing. I want my students to learn Spanish as easy as the learned mathematics. So my technique will be: teach my students by levels (step-by-step), step #1 is use methods for understanding, step #2 use pronunciation for speaking, step#3 is start giving exercises for reading, and then step #4 put in practice all of the above to start the writing (grammar).
When presenting my activity, it was not that creative in terms of using pictures, written examples, or asking questions to the class. Being creative when teaching, is something I will keep in mind for the future. To incorporate more culture into my micro-activity I will use pictures of things such as; food, animals, and national objects of Spanish speaking countries. Also, I will incorporate music in order for my student to improve their understanding and pronunciation. This kind of activity will be easy for the instructor to teach a non-speaking Spanish and it will also be easy for the student to learn a second language.

Permalink Reply by Eulalia Garcia on March 1, 2015 at 9:56pm

     Hello Kimberly, I found your post very creative, because you really have in mind what can motivate a student to learn a language, it is interesting how the examples you expose are similar to the mathematics subject. Students learn if we as teachers follow steps one by one in order increase the vocabulary during time. More over is to give them examples of the matters to learn. The culture of a nation is very important to have in mind at the time to teach a language because it can include their gastronomy, religion, places, history and the variation of the  Spanish language. Therefore including as many examples and tools are necessary for this purpose. As you said the vowels are the basic of the Spanish vocabulary therefore it is convenient to start from the beginning in a easy way to latter include little by little the vocabulary.

Permalink Reply by Joseph Mansur on March 2, 2015 at 8:43pm

Hey Kim, I really liked the way you and your group presented in class. Your activity stuck out to me a lot because it was very creative, and it can definitely be expanded in various ways. You can definitely expand your activity to target different subjects, to use different ways of incorporating differentiated instruction, or simply to just make it to teach culture in the classroom. Your post here is also a clear example of what you could do with your activity, and the potential is has.

I also really liked how you explained the material and the activity. I think I speak for the whole class that we would have definitely liked to see more, but HEY thats for the next "teaching slice"! I'll be looking forward to it.

Permalink Reply by Sarai Herreros on February 28, 2015 at 10:00pm

The micro teaching activity was fantastic! I felt that it was a great activity that allowed students to get a glimpse of what it will be like to stand at the front of a class and teach. It is one thing to be a student and sit and watch a teacher talk about a topic and explain a subject and another thing to be at the front of the class trying to grab everyone's attention. As a student working my way up to become a teacher, it was a good challenge to see where my readiness stands. It takes lots of confidence and practice to conquer a class and take control but with experience everything is possible. This activity was certainly interesting because it allowed me to see the way that my classmates unraveled themselves and how they conveyed their material to the class. It was definitely a strong activity because for ten minutes we were in the shoes of teachers who had to figure out a way to engage everyone with material about a language. The students may or may not have knowledge of that language and as "teachers", we were in charge of making it possible for them to understand.

My partner James and worked on the micro activity together. It was a challenge of an activity because at first it didn't seem that complicated but putting words into action was a completely different story. Our assignment was to chose an activity from the first chapter of a textbook and to change it up a bit. After choosing an activity relating to careers, we started making additional changes. The current activity was to choose the name of a person and match it to the belonging profession. It seemed a bit obvious. So, we thought that adding a vocabulary list with the tools that these professions involved would be even more more challenging. Adding the vocabulary list was much challenging for the students to identify the tools they would need for that specific career.

Due to differentiating instruction reasons I would have took more time to add more professions on the activity that weren't already mentioned to expand the minds of the students. There are numerous amounts of careers and different professions that students have little or no insight about and they should know. After all, the youth of today is the future for tomorrow and they should not be limited to the options that they have. Students should know that there's more out there than just becoming a doctor, which is not a problem, but in case someone wanted to switch it up, there's more out there. I would have also had the students bring in an already written small assignment asking what their ideal career was, where they would work, and how their profession would impact the world. Simple questions like these can get a students brain processing new ideas in terms of their own future.

I would have incorporated more culture to the assignment by asking the students of they knew what their family careers were or anything that they worked in before to compare and contrast with the different professions that there are now. I would've also added more culture by asking the students to go home and speak to their parents about what careers were popular in their own countries. Also to research briefly on other careers all over the world and how they differ to ours in the USA.

Permalink Reply by Joseph Mansur on March 1, 2015 at 6:52pm

SARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAI!!!!!!!!!! You and James make a great team, and I really enjoyed your lesson. You definitely had the classroom under your control, which isn't easy. The way you and James taught the lesson definitely has room for expansion. There are many things that you can do. The vocabulary list you guys created on the board was great, and that can also be expanded to include more words, or even pictures to go along with those words. I also remember that you and James explained your lesson very well. Whether you guys did it as part of your plan, or you did it because you thought the class looked confused, the explanation was very natural. Great job!!

Permalink Reply by Sarai Herreros on March 1, 2015 at 7:29pm

JOEEEEE!! You're amazing!! Thank you so much for the feedback! You and Katherine did fantastic as well! :D

Permalink Reply by Kimberly Romhin on March 2, 2015 at 4:26pm

Hey, Sarai! your presentation was really interesting because you and James asked questions but also gave explanation of what the images were showing or holding. I liked that you used images to make the lesson lot easier for the students and that you also handed out sheets to facilitate the students understand the topic that you meant to teach. You and James make a good team.... keep it up!

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