My second class planning and results.

Date: September 21st, 2013

Class: #2

Level: Basic 1

Length: 2 hours

CLASS PLANNING

Topics: English Basics – The verb “To be”, simple adjectives, numbers (21-50) and structure of a simple sentence.

General objective:  The student will be introduced the first important verb, the structure of a simple sentence and the names and spelling of the numbers from 21 to 50.

Specific objective 1: The student will reinforce the spelling from the last class in the spelling of simple adjectives.

Specific objective 2: The student will reinforce the numbers from 1-20 and will learn the numbers from 21 – 50.

Specific objective 3: The student will be able to recognise and use the conjugation of the verb “to be” in simple present, describing himself / herself or describing others with simple adjectives.

Dynamics:

1.    The student will hand in his/her homework while they write in the whiteboard the numbers from 1-20.

2.    The student will spell the adjectives they have investigated and he/she will try to describe them.

3.    The students will spell the numbers and repeat their sound.

4.    The teacher will conjugate the verb to be in present simple.

5.    The teacher will give examples of the use of the verb to be.

6.    The students will create simple sentences using their adjectives and the verb to be in simple present.

7.    The teacher will show to the class the structure of the simple sentence.

Observations:

1.    Problems with the “th”, “v” and “ine” sound.

2.    The student asked me to skip the numbers from 21 – 50 and start with big numbers of the sort of the thousand range and above.

3.    The verb to be was no difficult task to understand.

4.    The student could easily understand the simple adjectives and their appropriate use.

Homework:

1.    Name some random numbers I gave him/her.

2.    Investigate some nouns and the family members.

My very first class

Hi there! I present you my first class planning for the first level of English:

Class: #1

Level: Basic 1

Length: 2 hours

CLASS PLANNING

Topics: English Basics – The alphabet (sounds and letters), the colours and the verb “To be”.

General objective:  The student will be introduced to the English language, its sounds, vocabulary and the first irregular verb.

Specific objective 1: The student will be able to emulate the correct sound of the words in a specific accent. He / She will study the letters of the English alphabet and will be able to spell easy words and their names correctly.

Specific objective 2: The student will be able to recognise the name of the basic colours and will be able to spell their names correctly.

Specific objective 3: The student will be able to recognise and use the conjugation of the verb “to be” in simple present, describing himself / herself or describing others with simple adjectives.

Dynamics:

1.    Introducing the students to the alphabet by writing it on the blackboard. The teacher pronounces the letter and shortly after that the students reply on one voice.

2.    The teacher selects one student to read out loud some of the letters.

3.    The teacher reaffirms the sound of each letter and then the students repeat the sound of every letter.

4.    The teacher asks one student to pass to the front and then the teacher spells the first name of a colour and the students will write down either in their notebooks or in the whiteboard.

5.    The teacher selects another students and spells another colour to the student.

6.    The teacher explains the importance of the first verb, the verb “to be”, to the students and explains the general idea of the use.

7.    The teacher explains the dynamics of the simple sentence and its parts: personal pronoun / noun, verb, complement.

8.    The teacher explains the components of a simple sentence: noun, substantive, verb, adjective, object and article.

9.    The teacher explain a single round of adjectives and objects (common daily vocabulary) to the students so they can create simple sentences.

10. The teacher spells his/ her e-mail address so the students can send them the homework.

Homework:

1.    Send a mail to the teacher to the given address in order to explain in their mother tong why they are interested on learning English.

2.    Investigate the following adjectives: Short, long, dark, light, good, bad, pretty, handsome, ugly, tall and small.

3.    Write 10 times in their notebooks the vocabulary seen in cla

This were the problems I noticed:
1. Since I arrived late to my first class, I was only able to give just one hour. This will not happen again –I hope. So, I only fulfilled two of the three specific objectives and as far as dynamics, I only got until point 5.
2. The pronunciation is a vey hard problem to eradicate, even if the students are basic-level-students. The problem gets bigger when they are older because in my experience as a classmate of this kind of people, they tend not to change their voice of faking sounds while younger students (generally) are more comfortable changing their voice tone.
3. The problem with the sound of letter A, E, I, Y and Z. Most of the times my students forgot what sound was for E and I since they are used to their sound in Spanish.

Possible solutions:
1. As for the sound of the letters A, E, I, Y and Z, I am asking them to spell every new word I teach them and I think the problem will disappear sooner this way.
2. As for the pronunciation, I ask them to repeat several times the same word so they get used to that strange and new sound.

My profile (as an English teacher)

Hi there!
I am starting this blog in order to tell you about my experiences about the terrific experience of giving classes of English as a Second Language (ESL). I am Mexican and I am currently 25 years old. I have never been in front of a classroom to give classes, but I always been eager to share my knowledge with my classmates as a tutor. I like to think I have a very good command in English since I was a very good student and, as I told you before I tutored some of my friends and classmates. I am good at languages, in fact more than speaking Spanish –as my mother tong– and English, –since at school we have that class since 1st year of primary school until after graduating– I have studied French and I am a current student of Chinese.
I have not been given the chance to take any of the courses in order to become a "real" English teacher such as the Teacher's course at UNAM or IPN nor any certificates of that kind. However, lacking of that kind of certificates, I own the FCE, CAE (which course I took with English teachers only) and TOELF "diplomas" in English. If you want to try to take any of those exams, I highly recommend that you take a course because in fact the exam is quite hard to pass (at least for me).
Some of my self training in English is that I like to read not translated books.,I usually read them either in English or French, I have not read any in Chinese, though (since I would not be able to understand them.... yet). This kind of "hobbie" is to learn several ways of speaking because languages are constantly changing, so it is not the same the way a teenager spoke 20 years ago that nowadays, for example. There are also interesting facts in books, such as vocabulary and cultural topics and, since I as a not northamerican person, I do not have a very good perspective of those.
So, here is my story and my new adventure as a freelance English teacher. I hope this stories can help you to design your own class planning and realise some facts of teaching.