METHODOLOGY 6

PORTFOLIO

2016
REMEDIAL CLASS REFLECTION

On May 6th I had to give my remedial class. Honestly speaking I wasn’t enough
prepared as I would have liked. Class was very simple but students participate
and gave good answer. This topic has been studied for the students so most of
them already know the topic, so it was easier for them to do the exercises in the
worksheet prepared.

There were twelve students in class. First, my partner explained the topic to
students. He gave some examples and said when to use the present continuous.
On the board he write an affirmative sentence, then he transformed it into a
negative one and finally he made a question and show how to make positive
and negative answers. Students understood very quickly. It seemed that for
them it was just a review since they have studied that topic days before. After
explaining some structures, my partner wrote some verbs in the board and ask
students to write them in the ing-form in the board. Students liked to
participate. After students wrote the answer on one side of the board. My
partner used the free space to explain some rules to make verbs in an ing-form.
While doing it, he corrects some mistakes students have made.

Then it was my turn to continue the class. I hand out one worksheet to each
student. The worksheet had 4 activities. The first activity was about matching a
picture with the correct sentence. They did it quickly. I asked students to read
the sentence and say the correct number of the picture. After that they had to
write the correct ing-form of some verbs. I asked students to write their answer
on the board. There was one supposed mistake but I explained that it was ok. I
explained and students got it. After that they had to complete some sentences
using present continuous. There were many sentences so I preferred to get
students’ answers by asking them to read the complete sentence. After finishing
that they had to match some questions with the correct answer.

We finished the worksheet in the expected time. Then my partner made them
practice again and bell rang. Students showed us that they really know the topic
and they were very fast when doing exercises. I would have liked to make more
challenging exercises but I didn’t know they were like that. The time that I had
for preparing that class I think it was ok however I would have liked to have
more time.
REFLECTION CHAPTER 16

I think this chapter was one of the largest chapters in the met books. Even
though it took time to finish the chapter, reading it was worth. It gives a lot
of techniques to use in classroom. Some of these activities I wouldn’t have
been done it in future classes but after reading it I changed my mind. Some
activities such as Dictation or sound-effect recording were difficult to me to
understand how to use them in class; however, I found them quite
interesting to teach using some activities related to them.

Some activities that I really liked was Getting to know you activities. To my
mind, it is difficult to get along with your students or they to get along each
other and these activities make easier that task. One topic that I wasn’t sure
was dictation. I always have hated dictation because it’s boring. However
there are some activities about dictation that made me think that teachers
can be interesting and sometimes funny for students and for the teacher.
One tool that was mentioned in the chapter that I really like are flashcards.
They are very useful for students. I used to use them just to show meaning
for some words but there are more used for them like telling stories, or
remind specific grammar points. Flashcards are very useful and this book
make syou see that they are very important for classes. Another technique
that I really like was the use of song in class. I have seen that some teachers
used song just to relax friends or put it to make some noise when classroom
is quite. This chapter gives plenty of ideas of how to use them. There are
activities that can be very useful for students, from listening to creating a
song. These activities can be helpful for students to increase their listening
skill and to be creative.

I liked almost all the activities mentioned in this chapter. I think that using
them in future classes will be a great idea and it will help students to have
fun while learning. Sometimes it’s difficult to get students attention and to
be engaged with the activities but with these activities that won’t be a
difficult task.
REFLECTION CHAPTER 15

I liked this chapter because it has useful ideas to work in different classes.
Class with teenagers or larges classes some times are difficult to deal with
and find some ideas to work with those classes can be frustrating. This
book gives many ideas how we can deal with some problems in these
types of classes.

Working with teenagers can be difficult. I get bored easily and sometimes
I feel embarrassed when doing an activity. Many teenagers feel like that.
As teachers it’s our job to find some ideas to avoid this. Involving students
in class it’s easier than I have been thought. Teenagers are difficult to
entreating such as adults. They can think some activities are childish and
they won’t want to do them. Sometimes we have to adapt some activities
we have depending on the class we have. Another interesting topic it is
working with large classes. I’m on a large class in the academy. I think my
teacher should read this book as soon as possible. The only thing he does
is to shout us because we are not paying attention or others are working
on another subject. It’s boring and sometimes I feel bad when the teacher
start to shout and say bad thing to us. This chapter has wonderful ideas
that would work well in my class. Last topic that I liked was about the ESP.
I didn’t know that exist this kind of classes. To my mind, they are good
ideas for those people that want to learn English for some specific topic.
Instead of studying general vocabulary or expressions, it would be great to
learn things related to your topic or learn for the job or anything else that
you are aiming for.

This chapter was great however I did not like the part of exam classes. I
know that exams are important but maybe they could have been
mentioned, but doing an space for this in the chapter I think that is quite
unnecessary. Even though I think that, the ideas the chapter gives for
these exam classes are interesting and useful.

REFLECTION CHAPTER 17

This chapter was interesting because feedback is mentioned many times.

Personally speaking, I don’t like feedback I know that help to be better
teachers but sometimes receiving some bad comments about our classes, in
which we put much effort, can make us feel frustrated. I learned that If
comments are good we can continue with those ideas. If it is bad, we need to
make it better.

Some ideas to improvise teaching skills I think are great like reading
magazines, go to conferences or seminars, learn a different approach and
give private lesson. I give private lesson and it is a good idea to improve some
skills. First time giving private lesson I thought I did a great job, but then
giving the same class to other children I realized that I improve other things. I
made students practice more and I think they understand more than
previous students. This chapter also encourages students to change as
teacher. Often teachers have their approach and they don’t change because
they think they are good like they are. However sometimes making some
changes in the way they teach is a good idea. Changing can have awesome
results. If the teacher changes and it has positive result, teacher can continue
making changes. If the teacher changes and it has negative result it would be
a great idea to know what changes didn’t work and try to do changes that
will have positive results. One important thing that is mentioned is to learn
from our lessons. Teacher can have feedback from observers. In my opinion
it is a good idea if the teacher can notice what was wrong and what was right
in his class. Learning from his errors and making better some things he made
right is a good way to improve teaching skills.

This chapter was mainly about how to improve the teaching skills. A teacher
always has to be changing in order to be a better teacher. Getting feedback is
kind of threating, for me, but it is good because we can realize bad and good
things in our class. Feedback from supervisor, from colleagues and even
feedback from ourselves can help us to be better teacher and continue giving
good classes.

DEMO REFLECTION
On May 17th I did my demo class. I taught the vocabulary link. It was about
future time expressions. I think that the topic was really easy; however, I had
some problems thinking about what I was going to do in the lead in. Another
thing I was having some difficulties was for students to make some productions.
Even though those difficulties, I did a good demo class.

When I knew what topic I was going to teach. I started to do my lesson plan. I
completed it with all the stages related to the book but I didn’t have anything
for the lead-in and for the post-activity. I was wondering what I could do. I don’t
know why but I did not have any idea for those activities. I asked for help to my
cousin, who is also taking the met course, and she gave me some ideas. I use
one of her ideas as a lead-in. It was still missing the post-activity. I remembered
that in a previous class that I did. I prepare a post-activity in which students had
to make sentences practicing what they have learned so I decided to do the
same for this class. I changed the objective of this activity and adapt it for this
lesson. While doing the demo class, I was nervous because I saw the teacher
write on the feedback paper many times. When the teacher writes, he makes
comments about what things you did wrong so I supposed that I he was writing
my mistakes. I was confused because I was thinking that I was doing well in my
lesson. One thing that I keep in mind all the class was the sitting arrangement.
Last time, I got a negative point in an easy thing (sitting arrangement) I did not
want to do the same error again. I stick some post-it in my book with the word
“go back to their sits” because I didn’t want to forget about telling them to
return to their places. I think that it was a good idea to do that.

The only negative point I had was prompts. I knew prompts were absent. When
I was planning the lesson, I thought about prompts but I didn’t know what
prompts I can use. Also I thought that as basic ten students they will know how
to answer. I made a mistake in omitting the use of prompts. Fortunately, it
didn’t affect a lot of my grade about demo class. I will keep in mind prompts. In
this demo class I wrote some notes to remember to make students return to
their sits. Now I will think in an idea of how to use prompts and what prompts
will be useful for some activities. I enjoyed my last demo class.
EXAM RESULTS