Tuesday, September 22, 2015

TEACHER'S JOURNAL #1


SEPTEMBER 9TH 

This lesson was an interesting one. I have been trying to implement the differentiated instruction with my students in order to let them develop their learning according to their level of readiness, learning styles, multiple intelligences, interests, etc.
The topic of the lesson was urban tribes. First I made them write a mini map of concepts in order to know how much they knew about urban tribes. I could notice some of them had specific ideas but some others didn’t have enough background information. After that I made some groups according to their proficiency level, but with a particularity: they were classified by colors. Yellow, the advanced ones; orange, the intermediate ones and green, the basic students.  They received a worksheet with some exercises to do with their group. All the activities created in that worksheet were related to their opinions regarding music. In this part I could notice most of them were using their English to talk to their partners expressing their preferences.

After that we went to the computer laboratory. A virtual learning environment (VLE) was set for them using the Moodle platform. The computers were classified by the 3 colors previously assigned, so students had the chance to sit in the computer they wanted according to their color and also to work in pairs or individually.
They were asked to develop three activities in the VLE in which they could practice the present simple tense by asking and answering questions to and from their mates, reading and writing.  In this exercise, there were some students very commited to the activity, trying to speak all the time in English while others prefered to ask and answer in their native language (Spanish).The last activity was a project. Students had to choose one of the urban tribes and make a virtual poster writing some information in present simple.
As they were doing the activities I realized some important strategies my students use for the class. First, one of the most used tools for their assignments is the translator. Also, some of them use online dictionaries. Moreover, there were a big number of them who listened to music while doing the exercises.
There were also some constraints in the class. First, the computers didn’t have installed the Microssoft Office program, so I guided them to use another program available in the computer.  I realized some others decided to work on web pages. Additionally, at the moment of uploading the virtual poster some students couldn’t do it because the file was heavier than 1mb allowed by the VLE, so I decided to ask them to send it to my e-mail.  On top of that, the advanced and intermediate students finished the task and started making noise and walking around the classrrom disturbing their classmates.
Fortunately, the class was finishing and I could close the lesson properly. I am sure that this lesson would be different if I had assigned extra activities for the ones who finish the tasks early.

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