Week 10: some days you miss some classes.

Week 10
Date: Monday, September 23rd to Thursday, September 26th, 2019
Topic: Introduction to Unit 5 (11°) and Unit 7 (10°)

     Only six weeks left for Practicum to be finished. Incredible how fast this semester has gone. Anyway, along Monday class, I feel my students a little tired. The lesson plan for that class was about Reading skill, I had to work with the student's book and also to follow some criteria for teaching. However, I felt that this was going to be a mess for the girls, so I decided to show them a short video about the topic the Unit 7 was about: Extreme Situations. I asked them for some aspects and characteristics concerning these situations, they participated and the class was saved, at least. However, I've discovered my students do not have a high reading skill and it is difficult to them to understand some words, even the easiest ones. This is a challenge, I've tried to explain them the most I can but time is not the best ally a teacher has in the educative system. It is impossible to me to cover all poblation of students at once, in one class, to explain them carefully. I want my students comprehend what they are doing. Anyway, we did the reading part, but when we started working on it, I found they were bored, when you do not understand what you are doing you are not going to have fun at all.

     Although I could not explain some words to them neither carry out a good strategy for the reading part, I improved a new one in Thursday class with other group (10°13). The outcome was a positive and successful class. I brought the reading in parts, I mean, I printed the text (the same the book proposes) and then cut it in paragraphs, so the text was not in order, the objective was students had to structure the text according their understanding and previous knowledge. From this activity, I discovered that students sometimes just need different activities. Even though they were not able to organize the text, this worked as a previous activity to understand the reading in the text. They asked for unknown words and I showed them the same video I showed in Monday class as well.

     Well, I had my classes with tenth grade along the week. However, I could not work with 11° with Modal Verbs (Unit 5), and this situation pissed me off. I had prepared a great class, with images, flashcards, even I create my own video about songs with modals but students were in a photo session for their grades ceremony. One as teacher, must understand that some days you miss some classes even though you had prepared the best class ever. The worst part is that I think I won't be able to teach this topic because next week they had another activity and the next is rest week and I do not have to come to school. Anyway, I left my material to my cooperative teacher, I explained my objectives with the lesson and she really liked. I think one should not be selfish when teaching.