Ambar, Isabella, Olivia, Francisco,Valentino and Segundo enter the classroom. They look enthusiastic. Camila, their teacher, smiles and all are very happy to see each other. Camila tells the children that there is another miss (seño.)I am with them in the same place, in other words I share with them the classroom space. They smile at me; they are lovely.

Firstly, children are allowed to play with toys.Children play and share ideas among them.They talk in Spanish. There is a variety of toys to play with. Then the teacher tells students to put all the toys in boxes. The class is going to start soon.

Secondly, the teacher plays a song. She uses a computer as an audiovisual resource. The song is about greeting and parts of the body. The teacher sings and moves. It is a very short song.After that, Camila invites Ambar  to choose a song (youtube platform) and the student clicks on a song about Halloween. The children dance and move while singing the Halloween song; only one boy called Segundo expresses to be frightened because of the topic.Then, Francisco chooses a song and all dance and feel happy. Suddenly,  Olivia tells the teacher that she feels bad and the teacher touches her forehead. The teacher tells the secretary to call Olivia's parents. Olivia leaves. 

Thirdly, the teacher introduces flashcards. They revise numbers. They sit around a circle on the floor. Children express which number when the teacher points at numbers which are stuck on the wall.  She says: “Which number?...I don't hear!” Then, the teacher is invited to close eyes and choose a flashcard in order to mention which number is. All students do the activity. 

Fourthly, they go to meal time. They sit at the table which is outside the classroom. It is in the corridor. They share a moment while drinking juice and eating biscuits. After that “tea time,”they enter the classroom and make a very short activity about numbers and they revise food. Pictures of food (chocolate, orange, apple) are hung on the wall while the teacher mentions each food and then asks children to name them aloud while pointing at them in turns. 

Finally, the teacher tells children to put their coats and school bags on. They stand in line to form and go to the door. They say goodbye. They greet the practising teacher kindly. 

The first day of observation was very comfortable to me. Children are amazing and innocent; all they need is a smile. Despite the fact that I felt a bit nervous, it was a nice experience to be in touch with them and see theory into practice. As the teacher says about concentration, movement and play, they have a very short concentration span. They enjoy moving, playing and singing while learning. 

Only two children enter the classroom:Ambar and Francisco. The teacher waits for the children in order to start the class. Francisco expresses that he is bored. He plays with toys. 

They go to sit at the table outside the classroom; the teacher provides modelling clay. There is a variety of colors:  green, blue, white and brown modelling clay. As the teacher is arranging things to start the class, Segundo arrives at the place. Suddenly, he starts to cry and expresses that he wants to go with his mother. The class is interrupted; the teacher Camila is with Segundo. She asks me to take care for children for a moment. The children wait for the teacher. They chat with me and share forms of things with the modelling clay. I look at what children build and mentions things such as : “It looks like a dish” “Oh, it is another dish.” They say it in Spanish. So I mention the name of the element in English: dish. Different forms are built while waiting for the teacher. She is with Segundo and she is trying to keep him calm in order to join the class. Once he joins the class, the teacher introduces four pictures about food and drink:  chocolate, orange, apple, and a bottle of water. 

The teacher chooses one picture (orange) and shows it to children. The picture is stuck on her forehead. Children form an apple. Then,another picture is shown (chocolate) and then another is shown (orange) Finally, the last picture is about a bottle of water. The teacher calls one child and asks him to point at the pictures one by one. As pointed out, the rest of the students should mention the name of the food. 

After that activity, the tea time comes and they share a moment. 

Finally, they enter the classroom and practise vocabulary of food by sticking pictures on a wall. Then, all put their coats on and go to the door. 

It is a rainy day. Being a practising teacher, I feel good. Helping to Miss Camila to look after chidren make me be closer to students and interact with them. Children are charming. Francisco tells me that he would like to invite me to his birthday. 

Some minutes later, Segundo enters the classroom. The teacher invites children to keep toys and go outside. The weather is beautiful. 

The routine starts; the teachers sings the greeting song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNBC8jQFgHo Despite the fact that children like singing that song, Segundo is dispersed. 

After the song, the teacher puts flashcards on the table in order to revise numbers and add two more numbers (eleven and twelve.) Children are dispersed and the teacher calls children’s attention. Isabella said that she loves going to English classes. 

The teacher asks children to mention numbers after her mentions one; Miss Camila says number one and children repeats after it. Then Camila says number two and children repeats after it and the same happens with the rest of the numbers. Then she mentions two numbers more: it is eleven and then it is twelve. 
Sitting in a circle, the teacher choose one child ask him/her to say the number Miss Cami shows. Then, this is a turn of another child and so on.

Some minutes later, the teacher invites children to go inside. As they move, Miss Camila sing a song. They enjoy it. 

It is meal time. Children sit at the table. They eat biscuits and drink juice or water. They share conversation. Some minutes later, the teacher asks if they are ready. Some of them said: “Not yet.” When they finish, the teacher sings the song clean up in order to foster children to put things in order. 

Once in the classroom, an activity about Halloween is introduced. They revise the vocabulary items they remember. The teacher wants to know what they remember. An inference question is introduced while showing a flashcard “What is it? “ “Which color’” 

Children answer:” Black cat” Then the teacher shows a hat: “Who uses it?”   “A witch.” 

Then as pointing a spider, the teacher asks if they remember the name of that Halloween vocabulary item. Some children remember and tell that it is a spider. 

Finally, they are invited to put their coats on and go to the door. It is time to go home. 

October 21th, 2021

Day of the week: Thursday

The teacher prepares the song to be played on. Children are prepared to sing the song Hello, Hello. Can you clap your hands? Children move according to the song rhythm. I move and sing the song enthusiastically. 

Miss Camila says children they have free time to play with toys. Some students play with puzzle. Ambar chooses a puzzle about a mummy cat and kittens. Ambar calls Miss Camila to tell her that there are cats. Miss Camila says that there is a mummy cat and five little kittens. She asks Ambar if she remembers the name of the others elements such as butterflies and flowers. Segundo wants to show me other puzzle about animals. There is a cow and its sons. I ask him about the color of the cow; he answers that it is white and black. 

Miss Camila comments that I am going to review some vocabulary items about Halloween. I ask them to sit and look at me while I show one picture and then the other and so on. The activity consists on while I show a picture and saying what it is about, children should pay attention. Then, I show again the pictures and children should mention all together what the name is for the picture.  After that I invite to pick up a picture from the table and show a classmate; she or he should tell the name of what the picture reflects. 

After that, the teacher invites students to enjoy the meal time while having a rest. Children love sharing a moment with their mates while chatting with me and Miss Camila. 

When they are ready, they sit on the floor and Miss Camila introduces a game. Miss Camila explains that when she asks students to mention words aloud, they should do it aloud. And when she says that they should do it quietly, students should respond in that way. The teacher says with a loud voice the following phrase:  black hat. Student repeat and then the teacher says quietly the following phrase: orange pumpkin. Students do the activity; they look dynamic. 

Finally, the teacher starts singing the chant clean up, clean up clean up in order to foster behavior to put the classroom in order. Children respond to what the teacher asks. 

Finally, they put coats on and form a line to get the door. It is time to go home.

I feel happy and comfortable to be a teacher for a moment. 

The teacher invites them to sing the Hello song. Isabella expresses that she knows it. Olivia does not want to sing; she wants to play. The teacher calls her attention. 

After singing, the teacher invites children to sit and pay attention to the pictures that she shows. There are numbers up to ten. The teacher points at number one (flashcard) and says  one aloud. Then she does the same with the rest. She calls one student to say a number. The teacher calls Ambar, points at number two and waits for Ambar's answer. The same happens with the rest of the numbers and children. 

After that, Miss Camila tells  them that there are two numbers that are new. The teacher sticks two new flashcards (11-12.) She says: “Eleven while pointing at the number and twelve while pointing at the number.” 

The teacher asks  children to say the new numbers in a loud voice. They shout:  “Eleven!” “Twelve!”

Then, the teacher asks students to repeat again; they should say : one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Then the teacher asks one child to say the new numbers. 

Then, the teacher tells children that they should pay attention to what Miss Delicia wants to say and show. I invite them to sit and stay quiet while I prepare some flashcards about Halloween. I tell children: “ I will show you pictures of Halloween.” I show a spider, a pumpkin, a ghost, a witch, a mummy, a skeleton”  Children look to be interested in the topic. Then I show one picture and ask them to say what the picture is about. I do the same with the rest of the vocabulary items.  Children like mentioning vocabulary items. 

After that, I invite children to draw. They may draw what they like. Ambar draws a witch, Olivia a bat and Isabella a witch too. The boys also draw. They look enthusiastic. 

Some minutes later, the teacher says to the students that their drawings are fantastic. And she expresses that they like the bat and the witches. 

Isabella expresses that she loves going to English classes. 

It is meal time and children know that. The teacher invites them to sit at the table and enjoy a free moment.Of course, they can share all they want among them. Time passes and the teacher asks students to continue the class. They reinforce Halloween vocabulary items with Miss Camila. They sit on the floor forming a semicircle and review some words such as balck cat. The teacher makes  questions while pointing at the image which is stuck on the wall. The question is the following: “ Which colour is the hat of the witch?”

Children say : “Black.”  Teacher: “And colour of the animal? Which animal is?”

Children:”Black cat.” And then the teacher asks if they remember something that she shows or points at. It is a hat. 

Then, the teacher talks about a spider and she mentions the example of spiderman. The children say “yes!!!!” 

The last activity consists of paying attention to the  flashcards of Halloween vocabulary which are stuck on the wall.  The teacher points to one image and names a child. That child should say the name of the item. All students participate and I do it too. 

The teacher establishes the clean up section and after that she asks students to put their coats and bags on and o to form a line. It is time to go home. 
I feel very good with the children.

Some minutes later, we went outside. There are other groups of children who look amazing for Halloween parties. There are games and a big Halloween  picture to take some photographs if someone wants to. 

My help is to accompany children during the party. Their teacher of course guides them everytime. There is a game about spiders; I tell them to pick up one and they should revise its color. I picked one from a box and it is white. Of course, these are spiders made of plastic!!!

There is music and all deals with Halloween. The head teacher guides the event and children talk about characters and enjoy the party a lot. 

It is a context topic by which all children consolidate vocabulary items. They do it as they play, listen to music and move. 

It is fantastic !!!

Isabella, Ambar and Olivia entered the classroom. They started to play with toys. I prepared the computer to play the song “hello hello can you clap your hands” on. Valentino entered suddenly. 

Some minutes later, the song was played on. Isabella looked happy and enthusiastic to start singing. Ambar looked a bit bored and Olivia was dispersed. I started to sing. Luckily, they started to sing and move happily.  The head teacher was there to observe the class and Camila followed all what was happening. Camila Gonzalez is the teacher in charge of the group.

All children started to sing taking into account class routine. After that, children started to play for a while. Meanwhile I was preparing things to start with activities. Some fruit (two bananas, a red apple, a green apple, two oranges) were introduced; I put a basket of fruit on the table. Children were invited to sit at the table. Isabella asked what we were going to do. I explained that we were going to learn some vocabulary items of fruit. Children looked at the fruit. I said that we may imagine that we are in a fruit store and we need to buy some fruit. 

Then, I started to mention the name of each fruit. Children looked with attention. Then, I hold and said which fruit is. Children repeat after me and then we expressed the name of each fruit. They could identify red apple and green one. The activity was based on visual and speaking skills. 

After that, I played a happy happy fruit song on. Before playing the song on, I told them that we were going to enjoy a song. Valentino said that he did not like it but afterwards he got involved listening to the song. As listening to the song and watching too (audiovisual resource: video) I pointed at each fruit. 

Some minutes later, they were allowed to play for a while. This small break made   children put routine in order and avoid to get tired. Meanwhile, teacher Camila told me about some teaching management. 

Considering these questions, I may say that children reacted to the activities in a positive way. They responded, they pointed to fruit, they touched it. They got involved with enthusiasm; they expressed and repeated. Summing up, they reacted to the lesson very well. 

Considering what the head teacher told me after my first class, I would omit explanations in Spanish. In some occasions, I spoke children in Spanish. I explained the head teacher that I supposed that children may not understand me if I talked to them in English all the time. Of course, I spoke in English too. The head teacher told me that very young learners understand everything in English; they need exposure to language all the time. Despite the fact they do not manage the English language, they understand everything. 

What I would improve is adding more action. As the head teacher told me then, very young learners do not pay attention to instructions. I explained what we were going to do. Instead of explaining, children would react to an activity by which they can see, feel or hear. For instance, a dance, drama/acting with puppets.

I found what the head teacher suggested to me very useful about more action and no Spanish. 

It was when Isabella smiled and started to sing and move. That moment made me feel confident about what was going to happen next. 

It was when children looked at the fruit and was curious about it; they expressed the color of orange and banana. 

After the break, I played a song on. The song was about clean up, clean up. Children were invited to put things in order; then I told them to we were going to revise colors. Children got interested with the computer screen as it was recording the class. They introduced themselves.

Then I prepared fruit again.  Children looked with attention. Then, I covered each fruit  with a paper. We played to uncover one fruit as pointing a mate and ask him/her about the name of the uncovered fruit. Children love to choose a mate to ask a question. We revided  not only fruit but also colors. 
Pictures were added to continue learning. We continued with activities based on repeating. 

Finally, they put their bags and coats on, formed a line and said goodbye. 

 

 

Day of the week: Thursday

Happily, I entered the classroom; teacher Camila was waiting for me and children. The head teacher entered the room some minutes later. 

Valentino entered the classroom. He asked for the rest of his mates. I prepared the computer to play hello hello song on in order to start the class following the routine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN1Cyr0ZK9M.

Valentino continued asking why the other children had not arrived yet. Immediately, I played the song on but Valentino was a bit discouraged because of absent children. I decided to prepared the other computer to introduce a short story in a digital form. http://www.magickeys.com/books/fruit/index.html

 

Valentino enjoyed listening to the short story. I enjoyed reading the short story very much. It was a suitable story for very young learners. I felt a pity that the rest of the children could not enjoy it. 

After the short story, I introduced the activity that I had prepared. It was about repeating vocabulary items with the color of the fruit. The other activity that I had prepared was about tracing and color. But as Valentino was alone and felt a bit disappointed about her missing peers, he wanted to play a game called “What’s missing?” Valentino, Teacher Camila, head teacher Dolores and I played the game and I rearranged in terms of vocabulary items related to fruit and color. 

Time passed and it was time to go home. Valentino waited for his father. 

 

 

I found the short story a useful resource. I had considered that very young learners cannot follow a whole story because they do not know all the words. However, a child likes listening to short stories very much. It provides exposure to language and language in context. 

 

The picture shows a moment during the lesson; as I was reading the fruit story I made a gesture with my hands. I pretended to show him what is the meaning of moustache. Within the story, someone is described physically and has moustache. That gesture is a means of helping a very young learner to understand or learning vocabulary. In terms of concepts, this is scaffolding. 
 

 

 

 

Day of the week: Tuesday

The lesson started with the song hello hello. Ambar, Isabella, Olivia and Valentino move and sing happily in the classroom. 

Then, they played while I prepared to play a song on. This is about clothes. Children were going to be introduced with vocabulary about clothes (socks, shirt, pants, shoes, dress)

 The song was lovely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GDFa-nEzlg

 

Children look at the screen of the computer; they liked the rhythm and content of the song. They listened to it carefully. They listened to it once. Then, they sat on the floor and I paused the video to say and repeat a name of clothes. As scaffolding strategy, each time I paused a video I touched my T-shirt, then my pants and finally my shoes (I was wearing jeans, T-shirt, shoes, no socks.) Children looked at me while showing my clothes and they showed me their clothes by touching it and indicating. 

The head teacher showed us that she was wearing socks. Of course, she was there to observe my third and last lesson. 

Then, the activity that I had prepared was about looking and sticking pictures and ask them about vocabulary. They worked with their own picture book. They sat at the table and expressed vocabulary items. There is an interaction between children and I. Children were involved in all activities.  

After that, children were invited to trace and color drawings. They enjoyed doing that very much. As they were doing the activity, they repeated each name of vocabulary item. 

Finally, as they listened the song clean up clean-up they started to put things in order. Time to go home; children put their coats and bags on. They formed a line and waited their parents. 

The picture that I showed before refers to the material used in looking and sticking activity.

“A teacher is a learning mate.”

 

 

 

 

This is a school; there are levels. Students have a rest during a break. There are many teachers and also sections where students do many activities such as going outside while reading. This is a place to study English: babies, kids, teenagers and adults can go. 

Of course, I am going to do my teaching practice with very young learners. This is Kindergarten level.There are three groups; I decided to choose the group which goes twice a week (Tuesday -Thursday.) There are six children:  three boys and two girls. The classroom space is organized into sections. On one side, there are boxes of toys. On the other side, there is a cupboard full of puzzles and stories. There is a table where children can draw, color and trace.On the corridor, there is a table in which children sit at  and work with modelling clay and crayons. 

The classroom is surrounded by other classrooms so being inside Kindergarten classroom children and teachers may hear all the noise that comes from outside. In spite of this, it is not something annoying. It is even pleasant to listen to the rest speaking in English. 

Why did I choose Green Hills School for my teaching practice? 

At the beginning, I had gone to San Jose School, Sagrada Familia, Arlequin Kindergarten, Santa Cecilia Kinder and none of these educational institutions allowed outsiders to enter due to Covid-19 context. Immediately, I went to Santo Domingo School and Green Hills School.Both head teachers were very kind to me. I decided for  Green Hills Tandil to do my teaching practice.