Great experience

Now that the social service is almost over, it´s kind of a bitter sweet situation, with this experience I really got my first opportunity to be a teacher, and I love it, I really did, it´s such a rewarding profession, now I am more that happy to have decided study this carrer. I keep following my action plan, and I think it has worked perfect with the kids, I actually feel that they really enjoy my class, and the principals have told me that they feel the kids are in a better attitude than before, and I also feel that they are more relaxed to the situation, so they are actually learning the language.
Another aspect of being a teacher that I realized was,  how it´s almost impossible to not become fond of the kids, and now that is almost over I´m feeling sad about leaving them, they actually offer me to stay, but it has being my plan since the beginning to move out of Xalapa, anyway I loved the experience and I will enjoy it till the last minute.

JOINT PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY

For this Activity my students and I decided to make a video where all my students introduce themselves, this activity is part of an interchange of letters that they have with ESL students in Italy.

The project was designed for them to be able to see their pen friends of Italy, and to have a faster way of communication.

Since the beginning of the activity each student decided what they wanted to say in the video, I gave them a couple of days to practice it, the students first were grouped in groups of 3, so they were able to help each other practicing, the day that we make the video each student had the time to talk in front of the camera, at the end the video was very successful and they enjoyed a lot the process, and it was a great joint productive activity.

TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A – 2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Pen friend’s video preparation

GENERAL GOAL:

Students will write down the information they want to share about themselves

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Notebook

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Greetings of the day, T will ask each So about how they spend their weekends

·         T will tell students that they are going to prepare a video for their pen friends in Italy.

·         T will drill the type of information they have to share in the video

·         T will tell the students to write down in their notebook 5 sentences about information that they want to share about themselves

·         Closure of the class  

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Pen friend’s video preparation

GENERAL GOAL:

To practice what they are going to say in the video

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Notebook

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Greetings of the day

·         Teacher will check each student´s information

·         Each student will have to read out loud the information they have in their notebook and they will have to practice it

·         Closure of the class

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Individual work

GENERAL GOAL:  To practice what they are going to say in the video

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Notebook

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

Students will be called one by one and will have a T-S one and one sessions

FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Making the video

GENERAL GOAL:  Ss. will share personal information about them in the video

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Video camera

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Students will record the video for their pen friend´s in Italy

I hope I´m able to upload the video as soon as possible

Partner Professional Dialogue

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Earth´s week

GENERAL GOAL

Students will prepare an exposition for this week commemorating the earths day

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Notebook

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Greetings of the day

·         T will talk about the earth day and divide the group in pairs to organize the information for the exposition

·         Students will talk about the problematics like:

Ø  Natural resources

Ø  Animals

Ø  Contamination

Ø  Possible solutions

·         Students will start with the preparation of their exposition

·         T will ask students to write in their notebook what they want to say in their exposition

·         T will help students to write what they want to say in their exposition

·         Proper closure of the class

TUESDAY, APRIL 23,  2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Earth´s week

GENERAL GOAL: Ss will still preparing their exposition

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Piece of paper

Colors

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Greetings of the day

·         T. will handout a piece of paper where students working with their partner are going to draw something related with their exposition for being the background of the exposition

·         Closure of the class

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013

LESSON PLAN

Taller 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Earth´s week

GENERAL GOAL: Students will keep preparing their exposition

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Piece of paper

Notebook

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE

·         Greetings of the day

·         Ss. will keep working on their draw, while teacher will check one by one what   they are going to say in the exposition, checking  pronunciation

·         Class closure

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Expositions Day

GENERAL GOAL:  To develop speaking skills

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Exposition Materials

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

·         Greetings of the day

·         Each group is going to expose in front of the class their feelings about different earth problematics

·         Class closure

·         Cleaner of the day routine

FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2013

LESSON PLAN

TALLER 2A-2B

LESSON PLAN TITLE: Individual work

GENERAL GOAL:  To develop Ss. reading skills

REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Reading about earth´s day

STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE:

•          Students will be called one by one and will have a T-S one and one session for Ss. to read out loud and clarify any doubts of the week subject

Rubric for Classroom Observation
Based on the Five Standards for Effective Teaching

Name of Observer Ivonne Colin Canseco

Name of Teacher Observed Montserrat Perez Arias

Date of Observation Thursday, April 25^th 2013

	NOT OBSERVED	EMERGING	DEVELOPING	ENACTING	INTEGRATING
EVALUATION	(20%)	(40%)	(60%)	(80%)	(100%)
General Definition:	The standard is not observed	One or more elements of the standard are enacted.	The teacher designs and enacts activities that demonstrate a partial enactment of the standard	The teacher designs and enacts activities that demonstrate a complete enactment of the standard	The teacher designs, enacts, and assists in activities that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.
Joint Productive Activity Teacher and Students Producing Together	Joint Productive Activity is not observed.	Students are seated with a partner or group, AND (a) collaborate or assist one another, or (b) are instructed in how to work in groups, OR (c) contribute individual work, not requiring collaboration, to a joint product.	Students collaborate on a joint product.	Students work in small-group or fully inclusive whole-class activities in which teacher and students collaborate on a joint product.	The teacher designs, enacts, and collaborates in joint productive activities that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.
Language & Literacy Develop-ment Developing Language and Literacy Across the Curriculum	Language & Literacy Development is not observed.	The teacher (a) listens and responds to student talk in ways that are comfortable for students, (b) questions, (c) rephrases, (d) connects student comments to content area knowledge, or (e) explicitly models appropriate language; OR (f) students engage in reading, writing, or speaking activities using content vocabulary.	The teacher assists student language expression and development through incidental use of questioning, listening, rephrasing or modeling, AND there are structured opportunities throughout much of instruction for student written or verbal language expression and development.	The teacher assists student language expression and development through questioning, listening, rephrasing or modeling throughout much of instruction; AND instructional activities generate language expression and development of content vocabulary.	The teacher designs, enacts, and assists in language development activities that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.
Contextualization Making Meaning — Connecting School to Students’ Lives	Contextualization is not observed.	(a) The teacher inquires about students' knowledge and experiences from outside school, or (b) parents or community members participate in activities or instruction, OR (c) classroom activities are connected only by topic.	The teacher makes incidental connections between students’ prior experience/knowledge from home, school, or community and the new activity/ information, OR some aspect of students’ everyday experience or prior knowledge is included in instruction.	The teacher integrates the new activity/information with what students already know from home, school, or community.	The teacher designs, enacts, and assists in contextualized activities that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.
Challenging Activities Teaching Complex Thinking	Challenging Activity is not observed.	The teacher (a) sets and presents standards for student performance, (b) accommodates students’ varied ability levels, (c) connects instructional elements to academic concepts, OR (d) provides students with feedback on their performance.	The teacher designs and enacts activities that advance student understanding to more complex levels, OR connects instructional elements to academic concepts.	The teacher presses, assists, and uses challenging standards to advance student understanding to more complex levels; connects instructional elements to academic concepts; AND provides students with feedback on their performance.	The teacher designs, enacts, and assists in challenging activities that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.
Instructional Conversation Teaching Through Conversation	Instructional Conversation is not observed.	The teacher (a) converses with students, OR (b) uses questioning, listening, rephrasing or modeling to elicit student talk.	The teacher converses with a small group of students on an academic topic AND elicits student talk with questioning, listening, rephrasing, or modeling.	The teacher: designs and enacts an instructional conversation with a clear academic goal; listens carefully to assess and assist student understanding; AND questions students on their views, judgments, and rationales. Also, all students are included in the IC, and student talk occurs at higher rates than teacher talk.	The teacher designs, enacts, and assists in instructional conversations that demonstrate skillful integration of multiple standards simultaneously.

           

Post-reflection dialogue report

Overall I think the development of the Unit plan went good, although my observer felt that I gave too much time of preparation for the exposition, I really wanted that students felt well prepared to talk in front of the classroom

The aspect that I felt was really successful was the fact that students felt really passionate with the subject so they really spend a lot of effort investigating and preparing for the expositions. Thanks to this students learned and used a lot of new vocabulary and they were able to practice speaking skills in front of the classroom, which in my opinion is very important because producing the target language in front of the classroom is something that most of the time students feel very reluctant to do it and with this activity they were happy to do so.

Some of the flaws of the unit plan, was that because students were allowed to give the exposition reading their notebook, some student were too concentrate reading that they lost the sense of what they were saying and the volume of their voices was very low and it was hard to understand them

I think that for improvement students are going to be allowed to use their notebook just for clues of what they need to say, and they are not going to be able to read all the information.

For a follow up activity I thought about an activity were students write a short essay of what they thought about the expositions, the information that they found more relevant and what they learned.

My first action plan week

This week I implemented my first steps of the action plan, for example, for this week to the end of the school year, Wednesday is going to be a one and one teacher student time day, and the students that need more practice of what has being studied in the week are going to have an approximate of 10 to 15 minutes with me to clarify doubts and practice different language skills, this Wednesday I had time to practice with 5 students, and in my opinion it was very successful, for example this week we were practicing present continiuous, several students weren´t able to complete the tasks they were asked for, and after having a one on one T-S they were able to complete the activities, so it was clear that this time was very useful for the students.

Friday was the first learn while playing day and we play¨ Simon Says¨, it was good although I realize that even if it is a game day the lesson plan have to be planed very carefully if not, it could end up being just about playing and not too much about learning, I realize that the children get in playing mood and it is harder to control the group, for next Friday I´m going to look for games with more clearer learning goals.

Overall it was a good week, I´m getting to know the students better, and more important I´m getting more comfortable being a ¨teacher¨, I feel more confident doing the weekly lesson plan and I confront the outcomes with more security.

Action Plan

ACTION PLAN

Statement of Goal(s) and Objectives:

My principal objective is to ensure that students are taking advantage of the English course, in their correct language level, and also to improve students feeling towards the English class

IMPLEMENTATION				EVALUATION
What needs to be done?	By whom?	When?	What resources (human and material) are needed?	What evidence indicates progress?	How and when will that evidence be collected?
Step 1 One on one T-S practicing time	Montserrat Pérez Arias	One day a week	Students with the lowest English level and teacher	That students feel more confident in group classes	With students homework and participation
Step 2 Reading comprehension activities	Montserrat Perez Arias	One day a week	All group students, different readings	That students improve their reading skills	With students participations in reading activities
Step 3 Playing and learning day	Montserrat Pérez Arias	One day a week	Students and different didactic games	That students feel less reluctant to the English class	With the students participation in the activities
Step 4 Capacitation of the Montessori system to English teachers	By school ¨Guides¨	Once a month	School teachers	That all school teachers have the same information about how the school  works	Everyday teaching practice

Adapted from the World View Action Plan (University of North Carolina)