Demonstrations

Hi everyone! Welcome one last time to the very last entry of my English Didactics blog😩

After having studied all of the four macro skills it was time for us to turn into English teachers and give short demonstrations of different activities that a teacher can use in the class room for students to develop these skills according to the level they're in and this is a very important aspect, all of the activities a teacher plans for their students has to match their level, if their students are in a basic level the teacher obviously won't bring to class a scene of a movie for students to watch it without it even having english captions. The students comprehension of the activity is key!

The demonstrations started last Thursday and we kicked off with the first Listening group.

1. Listening.

This group had two very interesting activities, first we took a listening test. We had to listen to a 1 minute audio while paying attention and then we answered questions related to the audio. The group also played a Twenty One Pilots song and gave us the scrambled lyrics of that song and we had to put them into the correct order while listening to the song. I personally love the activities that include music so I had a lot of fun and I am pretty sure that basic level students or even little kids will enjoy learning while listening to music and paying close attention to the lyrics.

I teamed up with Miriam and we got the right order of the lyrics.

2. Speaking

The activities this group prepared were also so much fun! First, we did a Spelling Bee and of course I had to participate since I loved these contests so much and I even won my school's Spelling Bee when I was in the seventh grade. Some words were too difficult but that was okay since we are supposed to be at an advanced level so we had to be able to spell these words correctly, little kids or students in a basic level can be given simple words like "Mom" or "Hello". We also had to create a story at the same time of observing a random picture they showed us and this also incorporated the collaborative apporach since the story kept going while one of us stopped and the other person had to continue where the other person left off. It was fun! Even the most shy student can participate in this kind of activities and not be afraid of speaking in English, it is important for the teachers to encourage introverted students when it comes to developing their speaking skill.

 

This was our Spelling Bee round😁

3. Reading

This group prepared a reading about cyber security, we had some True or False questions and the last activity was a word search with words related to the reading. The topic they chose is definitely for students at an advanced level and I think that even though many students don't enjoy reading that much it is always important to include readings in classes for them to develop this skill to its fullest.

Everyone was so focused on reading, as it should be!😂

This was the word search related to cybersecurity.

4. Writing.

This group had us write an invitation letter, they gave us the format and they explained to us what are the parts of a formal letter. This was actually one of the activities teacher Orlando mentioned in class, the teacher can provide the students with the format of an essay, a movie review, an e-mail, or a letter like this group did, and then have the students write what they want following this specific format. This is a great activity for students to get creative while writing and I am sure they will do best if they write about a topic they like.

I wrote an invitation to Miriam to my birthday party😂

We continued with the demonstrations on Tuesday and we had four other groups with the same four macro skills for round 2.

5. Listening.

It was my group's turn and we came up with two listening activities. For the first one, we handed out copies to each of our classmates and then we played the song Dark Horse by Katy Perry, specifically the rap verse. They had to mark the words that they listened in the song and we added words that sounded the same as the right ones with the purpose of confusing them and making them try harder. There were a total of 13 words and one of them got almost all of them. Again, I really enjoy incorporating music into the classroom so I really wanted to include this activity.

For our second activity we played the game Telephone and if everyone loved this game I am pretty sure little kids will enjoy it even more! The game consisted of the first person reading a sentence and then they had to whisper it to the person next to them, we made two teams so there was a total of 10 people in each group and the larger the group the more the sentence will get twisted, it was so fun when the last person of the row said out loud what they had heard and it was clearly not the original sentence. With this game I truly felt that joy that I had never felt and I think is what teachers feel when they see their students having fun while learning, I was so happy that everyone was invested in the game and they were working on their listening, it was so emotional💝 

P.S: This was probably one of the last times I was working with my girls, I'm not sure if we will have more group presentations in the next semester but I just wanted to add that it has been a pleasure working with them for the past four years🙆

This was our sheet.

Maru and Eli were the ones that had to start with the whispering in their teams, they were reading the sentence.

Here you can clearly see how everyone was so invested in the game, I really love this picture!

6. Speaking.

This group prepared some questions for their speaking activity, we were given questions about "controversial" topics and we had to discuss in groups and answer them. I think it is always nice for students to share their opinion with their group before socializing it to the whole class, they feel comforted and less shy when speaking to them first. The group had matching purple shirts and I thought it was so cute, I loved that detail💜

We were asked when is person too old or too young to ride a skateboard to and from work.

7. Reading.

This group gave us two readings, I thought that it was nice how the first reading was easy to comprehend and the second reading had a bit more complex vocabulary, they included both levels. With the first reading after we were done we played the hot potato game and when the music stopped that person had to answer a question related to the reading. I'm pretty sure little kids will also love the hot potato game so, it would be great to incorporate it in class and it can be related to different topics. For the second reading the group prepared a game with multiple choice questions related to the reading. I enjoyed both readings.

There were the two readings and just by reading the title you can identify which one belongs to a beginner level and which one belongs to an intermediate level.

8. Writing.

This group prepared two writing activities and I really enjoyed both of them. First we had to write different sentences and each one had to start with each letter of our name, this is something I've done before and I have been written what you call acrostic poems and I enjoyed writing sentences with each letter of  D A N I. Then we played Mad Libs, first the group showed us a clip for context so we could understand the game and then they provided different categories like "A nickname", "An animal", we had to fill in the blanks and then create a story, of course we worked in groups and I am pretty sure everyone got a twisted but fun story, this writing activity is great for students to learn more vocabulary and use their creativity at the same time.

This is what I wrote using each letter of my name.

This is the story me and my group came up with😂

And those were all eight of the demonstrations about the four macro skills: Listening, speaking, reading and writing, I personally think that each group did a great job and their activities were really creative, they are appropiate activities that any teacher can incorporate in the classroom. I'm pretty sure this was just a glimpse of what more can be done with this topic in the classroom and there are many other ways for students to learn and develop these skills to its fullest but I am certain that everyone now knows where to start.

Since this is my last entry for this English Didactics blog, I want to add one last comment and that is that I really enjoyed updating my blog every week, sometimes there was more information than other times but each entry has been written carefully and obviously, with love. I put so much effort into writing my perspective of the different topics we reviewed for the last four months and I really hope it showed in all of my entries. It has been brought to my attention that some of my classmates even prepare for the midterms while reading my entries so I am so happy that I was able to help some of you and I hope you enjoyed reading my entries just like I enjoyed writing them. 

I learned so much in this semester and I still cannot picture myself as a teacher but I really don't know what life has in store for me so you never know! But as I was mentioning before, I really felt that joy of watching students learn and having fun with the activities I provided and I also enjoyed watching teacher Orlando every week doing what he loves! It is actually so sad that we had to take most of his classes online so I was really excited for this course with him.

Last but not least, teacher Orlando, you have been a huge inspiration and a role model at least for me, and I now know what a great teacher looks like and their way of working. If I eventually end up teaching English I just hope I can teach with the same passion that you do and I hope I can become a great teacher like you, thank you so much for a wonderful semester together and I hope we cross paths in the future! 

Thank you for reading this last entry, take care everyone!💗

*BONUS PIC*

Nathaly and me posing like teachers for the yearbook😂😂