Microteaching – Strenghts

My group and myself have organized the “must” list on a Microteaching session the following way:

• Material
• Class management
• Non-verbal language
• Teacher's oral skills
• Strategies to ensure students’ knowledge
• Methodologies
• Resources to motivate students

On the other hand, we can talk about teacher's oral skills. It is something to always take into account but I believe it can become more important when it comes to teach in a foreign language. We are in front of children that don't understand everything we are telling them, so it is so important to carry a good tone of voice as well as sweet. The intonation is important, as it is the pronunciation and the speed, when teaching English or another language, we are trying children to understand us and they are like sponges so it's basic to remember that basis so it will be easier for them to follow and understand us.

This is something that we clear have seen during the microteaching sessions. Everybody was slow speaking and tried to be so clear, as so and said before helping the speaking with gesturing, which is basic.

To begin with, we classify the "must" according to the material we have seen during the sessions and can use in a Microteaching session. We have seen the Magic Box to start the sequence of activities as the most used way. It is a useful resource as it keeps children’s attention on during all the time and they can participate.

The chants or songs are another well used resource, it is so easy and motivating for the children and it keeps them active. Even though, you have to be conscious and maintain the control on the class.

Now focusing on teachers, it is so important to have a good visual support, using images, etc. When doing a presentation, you always have to find the way to use as less text as possible and loads of images to make it more attractive to the eye of the audience.

Our second point was class management. That’s, for us, believed to be the most important aspect to have into account. Let’s start from various ways to form groups, one possible way we discovered was giving each person of the class a flag from a different country and then we had to join up with the rest of the classmates who had the same flag as us to form a group. Another way was giving us numbers to remember and join the rest of the people who had the same number as us. I truly believe that’s something really important to have into account, because otherwise children will always join up with same people if you give them the freedom to create them the groups. As well you make sure that nobody is left alone.

Following that matter, we get to the point that talks about encouraging students to participate. We have seen several activities that consist on going in front of the class to say a little sentence, dance, put some images on the board, etc. If they feel secure and confident they won’t have problems to participate and talk in class. That’s important, to give them the opportunity to do that and make them feel they are all right, it doesn’t matter if they make a mistake.

This brings us to talk about the many spontaneity situations that appear and how can we face them. We are adults, but to make fun we made mistakes while doing some activities and it was really good to see how the teachers on the time solved it. I remember someone put an image in the board while we were ordering them in groups in a wrong place, and then they decided to explain why that wasn’t its place with the help of the students. It’s a good way to make students participate as well as you are solving a spontaneous situation that you didn’t plan to happen, but with children you never know what can happen!

Over all, it is so important to have many strategies to control de class, otherwise whatever you try to do can become a disaster. As so it is to give clear instructions, clear examples, to model and give many and really clear examples on whatever you are explaining. We have seen that when teachers were explaining something they were using loads of mimic and gesticulating a lot, even doing them what the students had to do during the activity to make it more clear. I truly believe that is a really important point, because if children don’t know what they have to do, they won’t be able to do it and will even feel frustrated at some point. As well teachers were asking loads of questions to us, the students, to make clear we understood everything. That also helps to keep everybody connected.

After that, we talked about non-verbal language, which is, on that matter, maybe one of the most important parts as a teacher when teaching a class in a foreign language, especially if it’s addressed to children that don’t know and/or understand much about that language. We really need, as I said before, to use loads of mimic, gesture and be so expressive with the body as well as maintain eye contact with them all the time. In some groups, we missed that, but in general everybody respected it and did it. I believe our group, as we were addressing our microteaching session to Early Childhood Education, we did it maybe more than the others, but because of the age we were supposed to work with.

All of this brings us to another point which is strategies to ensure student's knowledge, where we can point to matters like the importance of giving clear instructions. Especially when teaching someone in a foreign language, it is basic to be clear and give examples of what they have to do so they can understand it better. It can help the drilling, the repetition of words, sometimes even changing how we said it the first time to make it clearer. The key is go step by step.

Something we need to have also into account is that we don't have to translate what we are saying or asking children to do, we have to try to make them understand it while talking in English. I have seen everything of that during the sessions, I think everybody have accomplished that matter and been really clear all the time, and if we didn't understand they explain it over and over again and so they gave loads of examples.

Also, when teaching we have to contextualize whatever we are saying, we have to start from the very beginning and go on so everybody can follow what we are doing. If children don't understand and/or follow the class, they will get distracted and also won't be motivated, just the opposite, they can even become frustrated. So it's important to conteztualize and also find motivating ang engaging activities to help following the project we are working on. I truly believe everybody on our class tried to find and did find indeed amazing activities, motivating and brought with them a good climate and environment in the classroom.

A good way to keep the attention of the children is to ask for volunteers when presenting an activity and also make the rest of the class participate on this example. Ask them if the volunteer did it right, if not ask them what they would do, why he or she was wrong, etc. It also will be a good moment for them to reinforce their speaking skills. That is also something we have seen during the sessions, when someone made a mistake it was a good moment to explain why it was a mistake, how it happened, etc.

Something really important in here is also the positive feedback on everything children do, they will feel more confident on doing everything. If they commit a mistake, it's ok, don't make them feel bad, just explain it in a good way and make them try again, next time will be better for sure!

Another group of musts we have organized is about methodologies. First of all, when doing a project is so important to link the activities inside of it, if they don't have a context they will be useless after all, because the learning won't be as much successful as it would be if they were linked. As so it is so important to have clear aims and a progress: begin with an introduction, warming ups in every session is a good way to begin, middle activities and a final task to conclude and especially see if they have learned what you were expecting as a teacher and reached the aims.

Something we have seen and it is so useful is learning by doing. I believe this is one of the keys of learning. If children don’t experiment and do something by themselves, they won’t learn it autonomously and that should be one of our biggest aims as teachers. This is so linked to foster children’s creativity, letting them be free and create with their own ideas, we shouldn’t private them to do that because it won’t let them be themselves after all.

As a future teacher, I believe in all of this, what we should have more into account are multiple intelligences, with so many times we don’t mention or don’t directly work with. It’s everything, it’s what we are, what we can do and what children should use and work with in a major way. The microteaching directly linked to them for me was a masterpiece, as it was something we don’t usually see every day in schools.

And last but not least, we organized some musts inside another group we called resources to motivate students, which I believe it would go linked with everything said before. There are many ways to motivate children, some we have mentioned before, asking for volunteers when introducing and/or explaining an activity, encourage them to participate during the explanations and group activities, give them challenging and dynamic activities such as the gymkhana a group organized for us… there are infinity of possibilities. The important thing is to find engaging activities that catch the attention and motivation of everybody in the classroom.

Other more specific activities could be doing a role playing, so they can practice their oral skills, and also the use of chants or songs to move from one place to another. They are more specific and not always used, but I truly believe they can be a great help to claim children’s attention as well as for them to practice their oral skills and learn to pay attention, listen and be concentrated to understand and follow what is being said and has to be done.

A way to end up with an activity or a sequence of activities could be by asking students what activity they liked the most. We always have to try to encourage them to participate and talk, taking their fear of talking in public or making a mistake in front of the rest of the class away. They are here to learn, not to be criticized.

There are also resources that we can use to motivate and also claim the attention, one example would be the

“1, 2, 3 look at me

4 and 5 do the jive

6, 7, 8 concentrate”

That is a nice way to call their attention and also when they have heard it several times they learn it and love to repeat it with the teacher and it is really motivating for them somehow.

In conclusion, I truly believe it has been a great experience to see and participate in all the microteaching sessions. It has given me many ideas that I can maybe use in a future when I become a real teacher. I have learned loads of resources, games and seen many ways of teaching, it has been really a pleasure and I feel lucky to have been a part of it.

Maths in English (CLIL)

How can we teach a subject without using children's L1? The answer is: CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning.

According to Marsh,

"CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focussed aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language." (Marsh, 1994) 

"This approach involves learning subjects such as history, geography or others, through an additional language. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in the youngsters a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards themselves as language learners." (Marsh, 2000)

In conclusion, it means teaching a subject or a part of it in a foreign language and in doing so enhancing children's confidence and learning of a language.

Today I am going to talk about how can we teach maths through CLIL and I am going to give examples of several activities.

First of all, how can we start a math class? Easy, with a song! Here's an example:

Playing the same song during some days at the beginning of the class will help them to learn it and be able to sing it by themselves. This one is a good song to learn the numbers and how to count in English.

We can start by having in account that number 10 is the basic number and we can work many numbers from there. There are infinite ways to work over this number, but one way could be create a 10 squares grid like that:

This kind of tool can give us many opportunities to work with numbers from 1 to 10. Let's say we want children to count to number 5. We can have images of balloons, ones that we can hook and unhook, using for instance blu-tack. We can hook one by while they count, just using the top line of squares of the grid. When we have the 5 images hooked you can ask them questions, playing with additions and subtractions:

• How many balloons are left if we take two out?
• 3 ballons
• And now, how many balloons  will be if we hook one more again?
• 4 ballons

Start with numbers from 1 to 5 and then add 5 more. You can even use the grade as if it was a dice, as in the example:

Another possibility could be given little grids to children and some stickers. Then you do a dictation, for instance "3 + 1" and they have to stick 4 stickers on their grids. Depending on their level the dictation can be using subtraction or additions, or both.

Another activity we could do for them to learn how to count in English could be asking them to make a cyrcle and then start counting "1, 2, 3, 4" and every time a "5" appears, they have to say another word, for instance "fish". So, it would be something like: 1, 2, 3, 4, fish, 6, 7, 8, 9, fish, 11, 12... If someone makes a mistake it gets eliminated. You can even try to count backwards. Try to always keep their attention on while doing this kind of activities, ask them questions like "Who's turn is it?".

Let's move on to another activity. Use the blackboard to write sets of numbers, for example 325 and 305. Then you can ask them "Which is the highest number?". Then erase that number and ask it again. Try with the smallest as well. Don't use a big gap between the numbers you choose, so it will be a bit more tricky. 

Another possibility with this kind of activity could be write just one number and ask which number comes before or after.

More, write some numbers on the blackboard:

• 409
• 309
• 399
• 499
• 369

then you can ask to children what they have alike, coming to conclusions like if you add 1 they change (499 -> 500) and they all have a "9".

What else can we do? Ask them to tell you a number between 23 and 50. It is up to you if you decide to give a bigger or smaller gap between the numbers.

Why you don't ask them to round numbers. "Round number 42 to the nearest tenth". So they have to say "number 40". If it is a middle number like 35, we always go up, so it would be to 40. If we get a number from 1 to 9, the nearest tenth will be number 10.

Now, let's move to Mental Arithmetic. There are four kinds of mathematical operations: additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions. Give a 10 gaps grid to each student, explain they will have to write ONLY the resoult of the mathematical operation you ask them on each gap, not the operation itself, just the resoult. For them to be easier, you can start by saying "the first five operations are going to be subtractions". Make sure everybody understood you and if they don't, make them speak English by saying "can you repeat it, please?" or "I don't understand you". It is so important to have in account that not everybody have the same level, that's why we can allow some of the students to write down the operations before the result.

When correcting, ask them "Who wants to say the first answer? Rise your hand.". Then tell them to write a tick if they got it right or a cross if they got it wrong, and then write the right answer beside or below it. Repeat those instructions as many times as necessary. When they finish correcting, make them count how many ticks they got and write the resoult. To finish with, ask them why they got it wrong. To make sure they answer in English, you can write these kind of sentences in labels so they can read them if they don't know how to say it.

The last activity I am going to talk about are the mathematical problems. Using the same dynamic as we do on "Mental Arithmetic", we ask them questions through an oral dictation, but this time they don't have to just answer a number, but a number and a word. Depending on the level, you can give them already that word writed down on the paper, or make them write everything by themselves. When doing that kind of activity, you have to repeat the questions as many times as necessary, making sure they understood what you said. Encourage them to ask you questions like "How do you write "books"?".

When correcting, ask who wants to say the resoult of the problem, but first read the question to remind them what was it about. Then you can ask to whoever answers "how did you get to that result?". Always try to encourage them to talk in English, help them with the vocabulary if necessary. Use the same "ticks and cross" method and at the end make them count how many ticks they got, ask which ones they got wrong and why. Answers can be something like that:

• "Because I didn't hear you well"
• "Because I didn't count well"
• "Because I didn't have time to answer"

English lessons are good for children, they learn vocabulary, grammar, etc. But I truly believe that with CLIL they go further than with just the simple English lessons. You give the oportunity to children to learn another language while learning a common subject, used to teach in their own L1. In this post we have seen some activities we can use when teaching Maths through that method. Maths can be a good subject to start with, as the numbers are something that they learn fast and from there you can build sentences and introduce more vocabulary.

CLIL is a great possibility for children to extend their language skills. They learn new vocabulary and they practice every day. The best way to learn a new language is practicing it, so CLIL gives the oportunity to every student to do it.

Describing and comparing

When doing an activity you always have to find something relevant and meaningful for children. Today I will talk about how children describe draws or pictures.

First of all, when starting a new topic, you will need loads of drilling and also patience! You can introduce a topic from a poem, repeating and repeating. You can start by reading and showing them the poem itself and then from the words do little draws to give more meaning and make them understand it better. Another resource could be do mimic and/or start with a brainstorming.

When we already have chosen a topic and work a bit over it, you can ask them to describe you a picture, for instance, of a landscape with animals like that:

Let's say they are studying jungle animals, that picture can be kind of meaningful for them. While describing they can say "one giraffe", "there is one elephant"or just say "one elephant", using more or less grammar depending on their knowledge and the vocabulary they have learned before doing the activity. But what can be even more meaningful for them? Letting them to draw an animal, their own animal. You don't need to give them rules, just let them draw the animal they decide and however they want to do it. After that, you can ask them to compare their own draw with their classmates ones. While they compare the draws they will already be doing a description and empowering their language skills.

For example, if they have a cocrodile and an elephant, they can differenciate the colour, the size, what they eat, where they live, etc. Here's an example:

Lion
Paula, 5 years old

Giraffe
Ethan, 5 years old

We have here a Lion and a Giraffe, they can start by saying who is taller than the other, the color, the what they eat, where they live... there are many possibilities.

As I said before, it is so important giving them meaningful things to work on and they will always get much more motivated describing and comparing their own draw than a simple picture.