12/12/2014

Hello all again (: 

 I want to talk about my observation on 6/B class today. The topic was ‘’Weather and Emotions’’ in English class. In the previous lesson teacher taught some emotions like’’ happy, sad, hungry’’ to the students. Teacher first asked to students ‘’ How do you feel today? ’’ A few students wanted to answer to question. They said ‘I am happy’  ‘Im hungry’  ‘Im sad’’. They remembered the words of previous lesson. Teacher wrote new words like ’’ upset, scared’’ on the board then wanted students to  write the words  on their notebooks. After that she wanted students to do exercises on the coursebook  called’’ Marathon’’ which is an extra coursebook for  the students. I helped to student sitting near me while he was trying to do the exercises.

Teacher does not use any creative activity which could be useful for students’ language skills. She just asks questions to students and very few student of this class wants to participate in. Teacher must use alternative teaching techniques  in the class to attract students attention  to the lesson more.For instance she can use use role play method to improve students’ both speaking and vocabulary skills.  She can not make students be active by just writing the words on the board and wants students to write them down.

05/12/2014

I will talk about the observations on  6/A  today. I first entered 6/A class. It was clear from students bright eyes that they are interested in the lesson. I sat near one of the students after greeting all of them. They had enough intrinsic motivation to learn.

 The unit  was ‘’Family and Family trees’’ Teacher made students listen to a tape which includes a dialogue about family members. After students listened to the tape once, teacher wanted them to answer the questions related the dialogue on the coursebook.I think teacher must have made the students listen to tape one more time so that each students understood the dialogue completely. Most students raised their finger to answer the questions but not many of them knows the correct answer. Teacher corrected the answers immediately which is not a good way to make students improve listening skills.

After the listening part,teacher drew a family tree on the board and wants students to draw their family members and write their name under of it. She chose a few volunteer students. Students tried to draw their fathers,mothers,grandfathers and grandmothers on the family tree. This was a funny and student-centered activity which I found very  useful for teaching English.

Hello all (:

I want to share a video about teaching irregular verbs for pre-service teachers. I think it is a funny way to teach vocabulary and can attract the students attention more. Singing may be useful for students to stick the vocabulary in their mind.

28/11/2014

Hello again (: 

I will talk about my observations on  8/A classes today. First I entered 8/A class with the tutor.The topic was ‘’ Dreams’’ which is the 4th unit in the coursebook. As I said before ,the students in this class are not very motivated for English class and thee teacher attitudes towards the students  is wrong. She always shut the students up by threating them and students does not listen to teacher, as a consequence.She said to me ‘’The students of this class are always like this,they will never succeed’’. She thinks she  does not  have any fault.

When she star t to teach lesson ,she wrote some unknown words about the unit on the board and wanted students to write them on their notebooks.She  did not anything else to teach these words to students completely. The vocabulary knowledge of the students can not be improved in that way. In my opinion, teachers must do extra activities and give to students more assignments for vocabulary teaching.

After she wrote the unknows on the board  and waited  for students write them down, she wanted students to read the short paragraphs about Dreams. After students read, she asked the  questions about the paragraphs to the students.Students were unwilling to answer the questions. A few of them raised their fingers and wanted to answer.The rest did not participate in the lesson. Afterwards, she let the students study for their  Teog exam during the rest of the lesson.

21/11/2014

Hello all (: I will tell you what I experienced in 8/C class and 6/ A class today. First I entered 8/C class whose students were going to take Teog Exam next week. Because they were preaparing for this exam, teacher gave worksheets including exercises which could be useful for students in English part of Teog. Students studied on these worksheets during the lesson. I helped to some of students when they had diffuculty to do exercises. I explained the unknown vocabularies to them they said they did not know in the exercises.

As  I observed, some students were really studying hard but some students were not really interested in the class and they seemed not to study for the exam at all and teacher encouraged just the students seemed to be interested in the class.She did not do anything for the other students. Other students success is also important so parents and teachers should try to increase their motivation.

Another class I entered today is 6/A. The topic was ‘’Comparatives and Superlatives’’. Teacher had asked students to buy an extra coursebook and workbook which was sufficient in her opininon . She said ‘’Another courseboouk,given to the students by MoNE, was not sufficient for English Class’’ 

Studens did the exercises on workbook about Comparatives and Superlatives in the lesson. I helped to the  student sitting near me. He is really interested and talented at English. Generally most of the students of 6/A class are motivated and willing to participate in English lesson.

Energetic Little English Learners

                                                                                        
Hello (: I will talk about my second day of internship at Osmaniye Primary School. I entered 2 different class with English teacher.This time I did not choose to enter secondary school classes. I will talk about my experinces in  3/E class.

I introduced myself to the students.I could not decide what I must say to them at that moment because long sentences came to my mind at first but I stopped myself to say these sentences and said to myself’’ You entered a class which has very very young learners.What are you doing? Just be clearer to them’’ Then I just said my name and how I am pleased to be with them.After introducing myself, I sat a desk near to a little cute student. I started to observe the lesson from there.

The topic was  ‘’Family members’’.The teacher made students do a listening activity first. Students listened to a song and then anwsered the questions on the coursebook according to the song.The activity was good in terms of listening skills but the song was fast and the lyrics were a bit unclear for young learners .Students had diffuculty to understand the song. Then the teacher started to sing the song slowly and students understood the song.They answered the questions in the activity. 

The thing which was the most important to see for me was students’ eagerness to participate to the lesson contrary to secondary school students. These little cute students were very motivated in the class. They were competing each other to answer the questions but they exaggareted it by complaning about each other to the teacher. Teacher said to them’’ You  should not complaing about your friends’’ but they did not listen to the teacher in that way.

Another thing I liked most is that  the teacher assigned the responsibility of controlling the homeworks to the students.Every day she assigns three students to control their classmates whether they did their homeworks. It’s important to give responsbilities to students at that age because if they learn take responsibilities at early ages this will be useful for them in their future life.

When the class was over,teacher chose the best students of day.She gave stickers as a present to them because they participated to lesson,they listened to teacher very  well and did their homeworks.In my opinion,reward system is  one of the motivating things for students to be active in the class. It triggers students to be more succesful. 

14/11/2014

The First Day Of Internship

Hello,I will talk about observations I had made in the  first day of my internship at the Bakırköy Osmaniye School. I could enter just one class in my first day because there was an important meeting for teachers after the lesson. I entered 8/D class with the English teacher after I met her.  

After we came to the class, the teacher saluted the  students and said to them she was going to keep the lesson short because of the meeting. She said to them the topics included in the examination which will be held next week. She was not talking in English. I  would talk in English instead of native language because the students in the 8/D class are old  enough to practice English at their level. Actually the teacher couldn’t communicate well with students even in Turkish because the students are talking all at once. They were  talking to each other independently from the lesson and didn‘t listen to teacher. There was a big noise and lack of motivation in the class which was a big hamper for teaching. Teacher couldn’t maintain the classroom management. She was always shouting to the students to shut them up which did  not work. She said to me’’ the students of this class are always like this’’. I decided the problem is  about both students  and the teacher. The solution is not shouting all the time. I would, instead of shouting to students, try to learn the expectations of the students from me about the lesson and want help from the school counselor to solve the problem. I learnt from this class shouting and insulting students are not solution for student’s lack of interest. Meeting with the parents of the students and school counselor’s help may be useful for solution.

 I, as a preservice teacher, hope I can overcome these kind of problems in the class successfully when i become a teacher. 

31/10/2014