MY LAST DAY IN THE KINDERGARTEN

My last day in the kindergarten was really special, so I will never forget it. I think children have a lot of fun, and they were very happy.  As they love games, we played” The Hot Potato. Moreover, I used this game to have a review because if I child lost, he or she would have to tell me a color, vowel or an animal name in English. As I had told them that there were surprises for each of them, they were very interesting in participating. The surprises consisted of small figures of animals and some candy. Even though there was a lot of happiness, I felt a little sad because I am not going to see the children anymore.  Well, I am not going to forget any of them, but especially I’m not going to forget one of the girls who used to call me seño-teacher.

1. What struck you about the movie “FRONT OF THE CLASS”?

The first thing which struck me about the movie was that Brad never gave up even though almost all the people, including his father, didn´t believe that Brad could become a good teacher.

2. What did you learn about teaching?

I learned that teaching is a big process which requires patient, polite and sympathetic teachers. Because Brad´s teachers didn´t have these requirements, he began to hate school. Brad was ashamed by their teachers many times because of his weird problem, so I learned that this is bad; therefore, I will not shame my students because of their problems. If teachers want to motivate their students, they have to promote a good environment in which all the students can be comfortable and safe and can develop all the skills that they need to succeed in their lives.

 3. What makes a god teacher?

I think that a good teacher is a person who is patient, polite, sympathetic, responsible etc. Moreover, a good teacher is someone who really loves to teach.

How would you describe brad?

He is a person who never gives up. He is a good mode to follow because he overcame many troubles to become a good teacher. Well, Brad is a humble, confident and polite man.

 4. What makes him a good teacher?

His kindness, patience and perseverance make him a good teacher. Brad is a sympathetic teacher, who tries to understand each of his students.

5. What was the most interesting seen in the movie?

 For me, the most interesting was Brad´s perseverance. Even though he was rejected by many school, he worked hard to get the job as a teacher. Then not only did he become a good teacher, but also he won a prize as the best teacher of the year in Georgia.

6. How did the movie empower future teachers?

If we want to succeed and be effective teachers, we must work hard. Besides, if we have patience, politeness and sympathy, we can become good teachers as Brad.

My experience teaching English to kids

Even though I have to work hard, I like to teach English to kids. It is an amazing experience working with them. Every time, when I go to the kindergarten, I feel happy because I know children appreciate everything that I do for teaching them. The hard part of this process is preparing the resources for kids since it is necessary to use resources trough which we can catch their attention. Something that they really love is gluing small colorful papers on the drawings. I really enjoy when I enter to the classroom and children hug me. I like children hug me because I know that the affectation they show me is something sincere. One day, some of them gave me small flowers which they had found in the yard. This made me happy. The difficult part for me is that when I am giving classes I have to raise my voice, so I usually get sore throat. Well, I like to work with children!!

What I learned from my poster presentation

Well, I learned many things from my poster presentation, and some of them are:


First: I learned that working with kids requires a lot of colorful resources such as drawings, real objects, charts, and so on.

Second: Preparing resources for kids means too much hard work, but it’s a good experience at the same time because we can catch the attention of kids if we prepare good resources for them.

Third: We must know what kind of support we need to provide to our student because the kind of support we give our student depends on what they can do or what they cannot do.

Fourth: I learned one way of supporting our student is repeating pupils’ answer through this technique we confirm the answer and provide reinforcement.

Fifth: If we want children understand the topic, it’s necessary to relate the topic to their experience.

This is what I learned from my poster presentation.

Classroom observation

The classroom to which I could observe belongs to a public kindergarten. The kindergarten name is Maria Sifontes and children´s ages are between four and five years old. After the teacher introduced me to the children, she began with her class. First she asked the children to stand up because of they had to do the daily greeting, as you can image, the children did what their teacher had asked them. Then the teacher, whose name is Mercedes, talked to the children about vegetables. As she realized that some of them weren’t paying attention to her, she asked them to mention some vegetables. Most of the children knew the names of vegetables, but one of them said the watermelon was a vegetable. The teacher said the watermelon wasn’t a vegetable, she said the watermelon was a fruit. Asking the children who weren’t paying attention was good because then they paid attention to the class. As soon as the teacher finished teaching the vegetables to the student, she asked them to repeat the name of the vegetables. For completing the activity with vegetables, the teacher gave the students their draw notebooks in which they painted some vegetables; thus the activity of vegetables was almost over. To being in the classroom observation gave me an opportunity of knowing more about children; for example, I heard two little girls who were arguing because one of them had called “girl” to the other. The girl who had been called “girl “told the other one that her name was Pamela no “girl”, so I learned that if you know the names of children don’t make the mistake of calling girls or boys because they don’t like to be called in that way; for the contrary, they love being called by their names because this make them feel more special. Well, all of the above is referred to my first classroom observation. My second classroom observation was a little similar as the previous one. The difference was the children did the greeting outside of the classroom. The first day they did the greeting inside of the classroom because it was raining. For the greeting children sing a song that mentions Jesus. It`s a good song because they are learning how to greet, and they are learning about God. Then of the greeting children got into the classroom and began with their class which still referred to vegetables. Well, the objective of the lesson seemed to be learning the vegetables’ names. We can see children learn by seeing, singing, repeating, painting; besides, every topic is developed during the whole week. The arrangement of the desks allows children to be sitting down as a big group. This arrangement helps that children can share many things without the necessity of standing up when they want something. This was my classroom observation, and I think I´m going to face a big challenge because children whom I´m going to teach don´t study English yet.

Homework

Do you consider language a miracle?

No, because a miracle is something that happens suddenly, and the language is something that is developed step by step, but it`s necessary to say that the language is developed if there is a suitable environment, and if children have the physical and mental abilities to learn it.


How did you define it?

As I said a miracle is something sudden, and the language isn`t it. Language is a large process which involves many factors for being developed.


How did you learn to speak?

Well, I imagine that I had to have a listening stage in which I listened very careful what my family and other people spoke then I had to have a speaking stage in which I repeated what people spoke and when I had enough vocabulary I spoke what I wanted.


How are you learning to speak English?

I listen to my English teachers who usually suggest me repeat what they say. I practice English with my classmates, as I receive different subjects in English such us English grammar, English composition and English I have to read a lot; therefore I get too much vocabulary which I can practice when I speak. For increasing my speaking I listen to English music, and I watch English movies.


Is your learning proper?

Yes, because I`m learning the necessary subjects for speaking English; besides there are some teachers that encourage me to keep on learning English. I consider my learning proper because the topics are related to the real world.

Gerardina

I am a beautiful girl who likes to have fun with my friends