Blog III_SS2018

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Permalink Reply by Maria Sciortino on April 16, 2018 at 12:40pm

The micro teaching lesson was about grammar. It was introduced implicitly through a music video that was used for two reasons. One reason was to engage the students, and the second one was to make them listen to words related to the grammar of the day which was the indicative imperfect of regular verbs and of the verb "to be”. “To be” is instead, a particular verb, that has a fundamental role in the Italian grammar, being one of the two auxiliary verbs necessary to build up more complex verbal tenses. The aspect that did not go so well was the management of time. Trying to finish all the material prepared rushed the micro lesson. Too much material was prepared. A better approach would have been to focus on only one activity which would have been enough to review the knowledge of the grammar point previously learned. The students looked engaged and they participated to the activities proposed even though they needed more time to master the grammar. The following lesson should start from the use of the imperfect of “to be” and the elucidation of the complex past tense called "trapassato prossimo”, which can only be conjugated by using both the auxiliary verbs “to be” and “to have”. The point was achieved, but it needed more examples and practice, perhaps including more reading pieces as examples. The lesson could have been done differently by starting from the last activity proposed and by spending more time on it, instead of asking the students to complete the activity as assigned homework. (261)

Permalink Reply by David Vazquez on April 16, 2018 at 7:10pm

Hello Maria,
Your group did very well in my opinion. The use of the music video really helped with the hook for the lesson. The class was able to get into the lesson with that video. Providing big charts with the words and how it's conjugated helped us to conjugate new words. Implicit teaching you guys did was very good, because it really challenged us.

Permalink Reply by Oscar Bustamante on April 20, 2018 at 12:21am

Hi Maria,

Your micro teaching lesson covered grammar which is more difficult to present and explain than culture. However I liked the music video that helped to attract our attention. Mary and you explained the conjugation of some verbs in Italian and your intention was to cover all you had planned, unfortunately, as it was also my case, you were running out of time so you had to rush the lesson. I hope all of us do a micro lesson without any difficulties next time.

(83 words)

Permalink Reply by Maria Rodriguez on April 22, 2018 at 5:55pm

Hello Maria,
Once again, you and Mary did a well-done job. Both of you were able to engage the students in the activities. Through the activity, both of you created a positive and learning atmosphere among students by providing material of the students’ interest. Also, you were able to implement the Standards for Foreign Language Learning into the lesson that contribute a better understanding of the cultural topic.

Permalink Reply by David Vazquez on April 16, 2018 at 7:06pm

One can say that a couple of things went well in this teaching slice. Such as, getting the lesson done. Making the students read the passage about a Spanish tradition. They were able to get visual images through the powerpoints, and getting the pre-reading task was done effectively with the video. The timing was a major factor that didn't go so well. Students did read, but the assignment itself was difficult. We didn't consider the level of Spanish being taught. Talking more and trying to get more lecture could've been provided by us. The students were able to learn about a Spanish tradition. New vocabulary was introduced, as well as, sentence structure for the students to do their “homework.” The students interacted very well. They worked in pairs for the task, but listened all together during the pre-reading. The objectives were meant, except for the last part of the reading, in which questions were to be answered, and trying to see what the students got from it evaluation was not done. They learned new vocabulary, and about a very messy tradition that is very big in Spain. The lesson should begin with reviewing the new vocabulary they learned from the reading. They should be able to answer the “Do Now” questions about the reading for next class. The homework should be talked over, and how they used the new vocabulary to write their essay. There were other ways to teach this lesson. Such as, having them read out loud. Using a different reading, probably a shorter passage due to the Spanish level and time. (264 Words)

Permalink Reply by Mary Mata on April 17, 2018 at 9:13am

Hi David, you and Maria did a great job. the event or better the festivity that you were presenting was something new to me that I've never heard of before. The Spanish you used this time was understandable and you were speaking slow enough for a low level like me to understand.

Permalink Reply by Maria Sciortino on April 17, 2018 at 10:06am

The activity was well structured and engaging. I knew about the topic but I did not know all the little details you and Maria described. I found the lesson easy to follow and interesting because it was introduced through culture .In my opinion each lesson should always introduce part of the cultural aspects of the TL. The activity proposed was easy to do because the language used was simple, and also because the images projected in the powerpoint talked for themselves .You and Maria chose the right images to give a perfect idea of the cultural event.

Permalink Reply by Oscar Bustamante on April 17, 2018 at 11:49pm

Hi David,

The mini lesson of your group was very illustrative and showed us "La Tomatina", a very traditional Spanish custom. You both also gave the textual description of that tradition and interacted with the students. But, as you say, the time was an adverse factor since you could have made, as it was said in class, the students read some parts of the text out loud. It was also mentioned that there was no balance in the participation of your group because someone said that they almost did not hear one of you. Well, all of us are just beginning to know the world of teaching and it is forgivable to make mistakes that in the long run will help us to be successful teachers.

(124 words)

Permalink Reply by Mary Mata on April 16, 2018 at 8:59pm

 

The third teaching slice my group has presented was grammar based. The micro teaching was supposed to be, not the first lesson about the topic but the second. Therefore, the students should’ve already had a prior knowledge of the topic.

The topic was the “imperfetto” tense. Meaning, repeated or habitual actions and routines, physical and psychological characteristics as well as age, the time, the day, the weather, the dates, season, and two actions going on the same time in the past, or an ongoing action that was interpreted by another action.

Overall, one can say that the teaching slice was successful. My group was able to go over the prepared material on time and get both activities one. In addition, we were able to give further explanation regarding couple of things in the activities assigned.

The only problem my group was facing is the fact that the students were not real Italian language learners and they did not have prior knowledge to the topic. For this reason, we spent some time explaining to them how the conjugation works. The only way we could’ve avoided this problem is by stating off going over the conjugations as a review of the previous class.

The following class should begin with brief a review of the previous classes. Also, the class should focus on activities and application of the “imperfetto” tense. One way could be asking the students try to write a paragraph about “come erano da bambini?” which means how were we as children? or maybe setting up a dialogue between small groups of students about what they used to do as children.

Furthermore, one could say that there was a lot of tension and anxiety due to the fact that our Italian professor was observing the micro teaching. But still more or less the group was able to achieve its goals through the activities prepared. (313)

Permalink Reply by David Vazquez on April 17, 2018 at 7:31pm

Hello Mary,
I feel like you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. Your lesson went very well, and yea the fact that we had no knowledge of the italian language, really affected your lesson plan. Overall, the lesson plan was great with the video, and postboard with conjugation words really helped us a lot. Overall your group did very good.

Permalink Reply by Maria Rodriguez on April 22, 2018 at 6:11pm

Hello Mary,
Once again, you and Maria did a well-done job. I agreed with you, we did not have enough time but both of you were able to engage the students in the activities. The materials were of the student’s interest. You implemented the Standards for Foreign Language Learning into the lesson that contribute a better understanding of the cultural topic.

Permalink Reply by Gloria Payne on April 29, 2018 at 5:43am

Hi Mary,

You and Mary did a terrific job in covering grammar in its many tenses.  The presentation was clear and precise.  I was able to follow the path and objective that was being presented through your slides.  For instance, Mary and you explained the conjugation of some verbs in Italian. This was very well laid out, and from my prospective the 5’cs was well presented.

(64 word count)

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