Being a good teacher is something that takes time. Teaching is not theory, but practice. This was my second class in the group of Intermediate English I and I think that many things went well during the second class and these things helped me to feel good and at the same time those things made my students to practice grammar structures too.
During my second class I taught grammar again. I know that to teach grammar is something not so easy, but I have nothing to complain about because even when teaching grammar is difficult, a teacher has to do his/her best by trying different strategies when teaching this part of the lesson. I have been using different ways to teach grammar and I considered that they have worked until this day. The topic was about prepositions of place and I had to explain the uses of three basic prepositions of place and a huge list of other prepositions. In order to make this part interesting, I prepared the prepositions of place, the explanation, and the example in slips of paper. I asked the students to help me to read the uses and to stick the examples, but I did something else. I selected a part of the board for the students to write their original examples. This helped them to understand better. After this activity, the following part was to read or to explain the other list of about 30 or 40 prepositions of place. What I did was that I told the students that they were going to develop the other part of grammar. I divided the students in four groups and I gave them a piece of paper, a list of 10 prepositions, and an envelope containing the meanings of the prepositions of place. With this material they had to create their own chart with prepositions of place, meaning and original example. This was an interesting activity because all of the students were very concentrated in what they were doing and all of them were very involved in the class. After 10 or 15 minutes I gave them the opportunity to use their handout. They didn’t notice that what they were doing was in their handout. This was a nice experience. The students worked together. They worked by themselves. They read what they did, and I was there to help them to construct their own knowledge. We applied constructivism and I consider it really worked. This was a very nice class. The tutor teacher was happy to see how the students worked and she was glad to see that even the shy students were very involved in the class.
Sometimes we don’t want to teach grammar, but I guess it’s time to look for new strategies and challenge our students to learn by themselves. We are in the classroom just as a guide for our students. This is our job, to make our students learn by themselves.
I know that it is hard to work with a large group and also with a small one, but what I know is that you can manage any of them. You had an excellent class this week because I could hear a little bit of it. And what I could notice is that they were working a lot with this prepositions of place...because of the list..right..?? Well don`t be worried you`re doing a great job there because of your teacher`s comments.
ReplyDeleteWell Elly, I guess that your class was really interesting. I know that the grammar part is always kind of difficult to explain, but as you say a teacher has to do what a teacher has to do because it is part of this job.
ReplyDeleteI consider that the experience that you have been gaining in each class has polished what you do now.
The activity you mentioned with the prepositions sounds very nice. Thanks for sharing it with us. I think it is kind of interesting.
It was a very nice class Elly. Good for you!!