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Class number seven: REVIEW

The teacher asked me to make a review until unit 5 of the course book. They worked until this unit before the winter recess.  I gave them a review task therefore. They could finish it at home in order to seat for the final exam the following class.

| Unit 1: Past Simple vs past Continuous. | Unit 4: Modals | UNIT 7: 1st and 2nd
Conditional
| Unit 2: Present Perfect + ever,
never, already, yet, just, since
and for. Present Perfect vs
past simple | Unit 5: Will/going to.
Present simple and
present Continuous
for future. | Unit 8: Past Perfect and 3dr Contidional
| Uni t 3: Gerunds and infinitives
Present Perfect continuous | Unit 6: Passive Statements
Passive questions. | Unit 9: Reported speech

I tried to work on the students doubts asking them the things that needed to improve from every unit until unit 5. I also gave them some activities from the activity book that they never did when they worked with the units at the beginning of the year. The aim of this class was a kind of giving them the support and guidance to unify the subject contents in order to sit for the final exam. They took advantage of the class very well. This was my last class with them. A wonderful group and supported teacher.

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Class number six: They continue doing reported statements. In an extra class I brought my TV and DVD to the school and students could watch the movie “Four weddings and a funeral”. Previously I upload a full questionnaire in the Classroom site with specific questions of all chapters that would help them to understand the story. Later the course teacher will evaluate orally on the novel. So I asked them to complete the questionnaire during the classes but those how couldn´t finished, should bring it and try to complete it while watching the video or soon after watching it. They also were asked to report some dialogues from the novel that they had already watched in the film. They continue doing book´s activities and I also asked them to imagine different endings for some scenes. They really enjoyed the activities. They told me that my way of working was different from their teacher but that they liked it. I told them that as well as every student learn differently, every teacher teaches in her own way.

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Class number five: They continue with the book´s unit in relation to Celebrations and to activate students` prior knowledge of weddings and celebrations, such as describing events, places or clothes related to those celebrations. In order to follow with the topic “Celebration” the students watched a segment from the movie “While you were sleeping” starring Sandra Bullock. It is her wedding with the man of her dreams but during the movie she felt in love with his brother so it is a very funny scene and students were asked to report some dialogues between them. In order to do this I brought two computers of mine to group students. Half of the class watched a segment and the other half watched another. The reported activity was done on the board. They also introduced new lexis that would be required in the following lessons. As homework they had to report some sentences from a letter and upload it to the Classroom site.

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Class number four. In this class we started working with the course book. The unit was named “Celebrations”. I started the class eliciting answers for the question:

T: Well kids tell me for you what is necessary or even essential for a perfect party?

I received LOTS of answers because they had great ideas for fun and parties which was not strange since they are adolescents.

In this class I had to introduce report statements therefore I gave them images with people saying what someone else had said in the past. It was a group task and they enjoy a lot because I make jokes and they felt confident all the time. They also worked with activities from the book because they needed to finish it so I helped them to complete the tasks. They also practice some phonetics sounds. It was the first time a teacher made them doing phonetics activities. At the beginning they were a bit surprised; the activity was about differentiating voiced from voiceless sounds. I made them put their fingers on their throat and to pronounce different words with /ʃ/ /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ sounds and after a while they could feel and hear the difference. It was very satisfactory to me watching them to perform the task, to enjoy it and to reach the aim of differentiating sounds. They were happy and I was happier.

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Class number three was very nice because they were already used to my presence and they knew how the class was going to be done. After the warm up stage (very necessary for them) I introduced them the class theme. Before start the class I explained to them the use of two different tools that they could download and install in their cellphones, a traditional dictionary and a collocation dictionary.  It is true that it was time consuming but I decided to do it because I believed it will safe time in the future and in fact I was right. I explained them how to install these two tools and how to make use of them. By that moment they were already working in the Classroom site, they also learnt to work with the word cloud app and Audacity recording program and now they started to work with two different kinds of dictionaries. I already explained them how to use a collocation dictionary and what a collocation was. I believe that teachers don´t have to forget that in 21st century we are teaching technologies´ natives therefore it is really important to introduce ICT tools in our classes. It is outstanding how fast they learn to use these tools. It is more time consuming for teachers to learn the uses of these tools than for students. The key is to help them using these tools for learning subject contents.

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In my second class students continue working with the Funeral chapter of the novel “For weddings and a funeral”. This time I brought them the part of the movie where one character read the poem “Stop all the clocks” by H.D. Auden. It was very motivating to them because they had the poem in the book but the fact of watch it and listen to it, its pronunciation, the intonation and all the phonetics issues helped them to understand it meaning. This time some of them read the poem and practiced some intonation features. I asked them to write in their cellphones´ word cloud app the most relevant words of the poem and them to write a small text with them. They were asked to talk about feelings, emotions, and to analyze the small scene of the funeral that I brought to them. It was amazing how different reactions and responses emerged from watching that video. Every child thinks and feels different. To end the class I asked them to think in a different ending for a specific dialogue I also brought to them. This time they have to record themselves with a tool called Audacity. This was new for them and they were a bit reluctant to do it but after proving the tool in class they felt more confident and in the end they brought me a lot of wonderful productions.

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I started my first class working with the novel. The novel was called “Four weddings and a funeral”. My first approach to the class was telling them an anecdote about a 40 years old birthday that I assisted that ended being a Wedding. I told them about the family and friends surprise when a priest and a judge came into the room and we realized that the “Birthday” was in fact a Wedding ceremony. This way the students started to talk about friends and family´s weddings and we got into the topic. They also needed to work with “Funerals” therefore I brought them pictures with a brief description of different kind of funerals. There were pictures of funerals from different places of the world, some of them ancients and some of them current funerals. They worked in group talking about the different kind of funerals and explaining to me and to the whole class. Next they read the Funeral Chapter of the novel and they were asked to write a small text summarizing what the chapter was about. I also introduced a ICT tool. I opened a Classroom site to be in contact with my students. They started working with the novel in the classroom site through a questionnaire I uploaded of each chapter to make them easier the novel lecture.

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My second observation was very similar to the first however the teacher introduced the use of the novel. Shortly the novel´s work was reading a few lines from one of the chapters. She explained me that it was necessary to read a bit in class because there were some of the students that didn’t read at home and others needed guidance and support during the reading process. Something that called my attention was the speed of the class. The dynamic was very laborious there was no time for relaxing. The teacher used to walk all around the class checking if the activities were understated and accomplished. I realized that as soon as she moved around the class the students started to call her for explanations.

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My first observation class was very motivating because I already knew the group therefore there was a kind of confidence among each other. What called my attention was the fact that the teacher worked 100% of the time with the students’ book and the workbook and there was no room for other kind of activities.  In general, students behaved well, they participated in the activities and many of them raised their hand to answer the questions.

The group is very big they are more than 30 students. It is a talkative group therefore it was necessary to call their attention and bring them back to the activities in a few occasions however the work in class could be done without many problems or interruptions.

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I am starting a new period in my training. Secondary stage is more challange and demanding. I will have to work hard but it is also a new world of opportunities because children from 3rd year have much more tools to work with a second language. So let´s start working!!!!