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The first day finally arrived. After years of studying and working on developing our carreer, the time has come to do the first observation in a real classroom. Although I have been teaching for years, this whole experience is totally different. Now, I am a teacher and a student at the same time.
It was time to enter into the classroom. Miss Miriam Balogh welcomed the students by greeting them and asking to sit down. The group is quite talkative and so Miss Miriam found it difficult to get everybody silent.  Nevertheless, I could notice their eyes looking at me like curious little birds.
When they settled down, first the teacher checked a photocopy they had to colour at home as homework and then, they sang their 'Hello song'.
They were very enthusiastic about it. They moved their arms and sang happily. Through this song, I noticed how eager the children were to unconciously develop their kinaesthetic skills. Inmediately after, they sang another song about numbers and colours.
When they finished, they played a game called 'What's missing?', in which the teacher drew five items on the board (book, chair, 1, 2 and square). Then, she asked the students to close their eyes and she erased one of them. Next, they looked at the board and named the missing object. They continued doing it until there wasn't any object left. After that, they sang the second song again.
The teacher reminded them that the previous class they had been working with colour red, so this time  she introduced blue as the new lexis topic through a photocopy with the objects they already knew to colour with it. Miss Miriam used this opportunity to correct their homework.
Finally, they cut and glue the photocopy on their notebooks and got ready to have lunch.
The whole experience was nice and exciting. I could observe that, although students are extremely talkative, they are eager to work. They get noisy and distracted between activities, and that is the reason why the teacher found it difficult to find silence. But when they are working, they are quieter.
finishing my first class observation, I feel happy to say that I really enjoyed it, and that I am looking forward to the second one.

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The second day of observation began,and, again, I felt very happy to be there.
Miss Miriam started the class by greeting the students and asking them their names. They answered all together directly with their names, without using the structured phrases such as 'My name is...' or 'I'm...'.
Next, the teacher asked about Danny. He is the main character of the core book she takes the activities from, so she showed a picture of him and asked them to look for it in their notebooks. Inmediately, they pointed to a photocopy with an image of a blue dinosaur in their notebooks. The mistery was solved: the Danny named in the 'Hello song' was a dinosaur.
After that, she asked students to point something blue and red. Following by the 'Hello song'.
After singing, they played a game. Miss Miriam named some of the previous vocabulary and the children had to point what they heard. This time the little birds flew around the classrrom pointing to the items like jumping from flower to flower.
During the class, the teacher tried to use English as much as she could, but she had to speak in Spanish some times when the students were not able to follow instructions in the foreign language.
Before continuing the lesson, Miss Miriam made a pause to speak about the importance of having lunch. She said some of the students did not eat at the canteen and that was not good for their health. Let's remind this is an eight-hour school, so it is very important for children to have lunch.
Going back to the class, the teacher told the students they would write the date together, she asked which letter she was writing one by one.
To close the lesson, she drew a book and a chair on the board and gave the pupils pictures of them to colour as homework.
As the previous class, they tidied up and prepared to have lunch.
This time I could notice they felt more comfortable with my presence. Some of them came to me at the end of the cass to ask my name.
To conclude my observation period, I can say that I am sure this is a very interesting and exciting challenge. Next class will be my first practicum, so I will prepare myself the best as I can to fulfill my aim: being able to teach the students in a friendly and catching way.

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The big day finally arrived. My first practicum. So many expectations and thoughts went around my head until I entered into the classroom. Then, everything was different. As the minutes went by, all those nerves disappeared and I just enjoyed the class.
Although it took some time to make children settle down, I could catch their attention to greet them properly and start the class. I had planned to sing their 'Hello song' before handing in the name tags I had prepared, but the teacher didn't have the cd player so, while she was looking for it, I gave them the tags and then when sang the song. I had previously asked for the cd but the teacher told me she would have it in the classromm so that is the reason why I couldn't prepare it in advance.

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Once we sang the song, I introduced the two characters who are going to be with us during our four lesseons. I showed the learners two posters, one of a girl, called Sophie, and the other of a boy called Tom. In this moment, we learnt about this new lexis and it was very satisfying to see how quickly the students understood and repeated the words clearly.
Then, I handed them in an envelope with boys and girls cardboard images in different colour. They had to show the image I named, for example, 'a red girl'. During this activity, students were very happy to work with this images. They took part of it and payed attention. I think they enjoyed being able to understand the instructions.
The next activity was to work with a photocopy which showed some boys and girls in the park. Students had to listen to my instructions and paint the number and colour of the boys or girls, according to my instructions. Even though most of them worked fast and understood clearly, some of them took too long to do it, or didn't pay attention to the instructions. The activity couldn't be completed, so I think this kind of activity is not so suitable for this level. For next class, I will have to adapt the activity in some way so that they can finish it but not taking too much time.
As this is a double schooling institution, children had to get ready for lunch. This ment I that I had to finish the lesson five minutes earlier. I told them we would continue next class and that I would sing the 'Good bye song' while they prepared for lunch. Unfortunately, not many of them paid attention to it, but I will keep on trying to incorporate it.
To describe the experience through a metaphor, I would say that today I felt as a juggler: going from one seat to the other, explaining and guiding each of the students through the tasks and, at the same time, keeping an eye on the rest of them so they didn't 'fall' and continue working properly.
I can't think of one specific quotation for this first class, but I can say that everything we have studied came to me today. Being flexible with our lesson plan, using mother language only when necessary and, most importantly assess learners all the time, giving them confidence to practice and guiding them to succeed in constructing theirown knowledge.
It was a beautiful and enriching experience, and it left me with new challenges for the next lessons. Things to improve, things to change and things which were fruitfull. So, I am eager to take this challenge.

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I believe that teaching is like a journey. We go to different places together, discover new things, and, the most important part, is that we share an unique experience of learning and growing up.
The second class has just finished, and I am happy to say I was able to go through all the lesson plan.
At the beginning, the children sat quickly so I could greet them and we sang the 'Hello song' as part of their routine. It was nice to see how they started getting used to my presence in the classroom and how they were able to follow some habitual parts of everyday class. As Pearse and Davis stated, 'many of these interactions recurr naturally, class after class. They can quickly become routines for the learners, just as they would learn common interactions if they were living in an English-speaking country.' (Pearse and Davis, Success in English. Oxford,2000. p. 6)

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After giving the students their name tags, we revised the 'boy' and 'girl' words with our posters. It was gratifying to see that some of the pupils remembered what we had learnt the previous class.
I showed them a flashcard with Tom and Sophie at the park to introduce the activity we had to finish from the previous class. This time, I gave the instructions and told them that we had one minute to finish it. Although it took us more than a minute, being in a kind of race made the activity more interesting. Students concentrated more and it was done in a short time. Anyway, some learners didn't keep to the instructions.
For the following activity, I had plan to stick a series of flashcards on the board, but the primary teacher needed what was written on it, so I decided not to clean the board and hold them up during the task.
We continued working with our imaginary friends, Tom and Sophie, This time, they were at school. I introduced different commands. We performed them first showing the flashcards, and then with a song.
This activity was very successful. Even though some students got distracted at the beginning, they were eager to do the movements and enthusiastic about the song. This activity, based on the kinaesthetic development of learning skills, showed how combining speaking and listening with body language is extremely fruitful, especially with young learners. At the end of the class, I tried to talk with them about paying more attention and speaking less in class, but, honesty, I don't think it worked.
So, my second practicum has finished. I am so happy about my results and I am eager to the third one.

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'TPR appeals to a number of learning styles. It most obviously appeals to the kinaesthetic learner who learns best

through physically doing something or connecting to memory through actions.

However, visual learners will take visual cues from seeing

the actions associated with the instructions given.

Auditory learners will particularly benefit from

TPR chants and songs in which the words and

rhythms associated with movement will be

memorable to them.'  (Children Learning English as a Foreign Language. Leone Dyson, author of My Little Island series. Pearson. p2)
I chose this quotation to start this post because I though it clearly summarizes the aim of these classes: to make students acquire new knowledge by the Total Physical Response approach. I took into account that tasks refering to listening, observing and copying are extremely successful with young learners, as babies and toddlers develop their mother tongue by parents stimulation. Once more, I could see this approach really worked with this specific group.
As this was my third class, I had already placed the name tags on the desks before we started. So, when the children entered into the classroom, I greeted them and we sang the 'Hello song'.
We started with a revision of the lexis previously learnt through the posters and flashcards.The pupils immediately knew that they would have to do the movements, so they stood up to be ready to do them. First, we practised without music, only by looking at the flashcards on the board. Then, we sang our song. All the students were very entertained through the whole activity.
The next task was to work with the parts of the face. I stuck a poster with the shape of a face on the board and I asked for volunteers to place the different parts on it. I was glad to see that everybody wanted to participate. Moreover, the joy was doubled when I asked Ariel, a boy who has many learning and socializing difficulties, to put on the mouth and he was totally eager to do it.
After introducing the new vocabulary, it was time for students to form a face on a photocopy in groups. This collaborative task showed that some pupils organized and worked quickly, while others had some problems to share and work as a team. However, the activity was a success, and the little artists did beautiful faces.

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Once the faces were ready, I had planned to sing a song with this new topic but, unfortunately, we run out of time. Learners tidied up their desks and prepared for lunchtime, while I played the 'Goodbye song'. Nevertheless, we couldn't sing it as I had planned because Miss Miriam had to deliver their bags with the hygene sets.
Another practicum came to an end. Honestly, I am very happy with my improvements. I am looking forward for the next class to continue working and see the results of what I have been teaching. What a challenge!

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1st June...We have reached our destination

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1st June...We have reached our destination

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Ellis (2002) said, 'it is the frequency of exposure to linguistic features, and how often certain features are encountered together with physical actions or as part of a routine, that supports learners in acquiring language.' (English learning in pre-primary classrooms: an investigation of their efectiveness. Robinson, Mourao and Kang. p12)
After this four-stop journey, we have reached destination, and I am happy to say Ellis' statement was proved: continuos exposure made pupils acquire most of the lexis and structures taught during the lessons.
This last class started as usual, we settled down and sang our 'Hello song'. Then, we went over the vocabulary related to our characters, Tom and Sophie.
After that, I showed them the flashcards with the commands we had been learning, but this time, they were glued on a stick so they looked like the stop signs children show to cross the street when leaving school. As soon as they saw the flashcards, they stood up and got ready to follow the movements. First we revised them in order. Then, I repeated them in a different one, so that they had to pay more attention to the image and the commands. Finally, we sang and danced with the song. It was very funny and children participated incredibly well.
The next step in our lesson plan was to revise the parts of the face. To do so, I pointed at Tim, the poster with this vocabulary that we did the previous class, and we revised it. Then, I showed them a mask made with a cardboard plate and I asked what was wrong with it. In Spanish, students answer with the different parts of the face, which I repeated in English to recall the lexis acquired.
It was time for them to work again, I handed in the materials every two children and they had to make their own mask. I had planned each student made their own mask but today we had some minutes less because they had to prepare for the Science Exhibition.
The lesson finished with this activity and then, they lined up so I could say good bye and give them a little present I had prepare for them.
The last class finished and I was so happy to see how much I enjoyed it. What a wonderfuland inspiring experience! I have learnt a lot and I am eager to continue at the next level.