#7th Week (19.12.14)

Hello :)

Here is my 7th week observations..

 Today, 3E class studied adjectives. In the course book, 6 adjectives are taught (tired, happy,surprised, angry, sad and energetic) but Mrs Ergür wrote 15 adjectives on the board and tried to teach. I was shocked really. They are only 8 years old. We can teach them only 5-7 at most 10 words in a lesson. I don't understand how she escaped it. Mrs. Ergür gave a writing homework for 5 times and said "we never write during this unit anymore, don't worry!" It was wrong, in my opinion, a teacher needs to be patient to teach in time. We should identify our students' language and cognitive level when making lesson plans.

There was a coloring activity that practice the related adjectives in student book. Teacher read the sentences like " there is a tall boy in the park. Color him green. Small ball is orange. Color the big ball purple." It was a good exercise to practice. Young learners like coloring and cutting as we know. The students who don't have books were realized ten minutes later. The class size was 32 and it is not too hard to distinguish in the begining of lesson that.

That's all to share!

Thanks

<3

#6th Week ( 12.12.14)

Hello :)

I am going to share with you my opinions teaching English to young learners through my observations in practicum.

Classroom management is very difficult when you study with young learners as i observed. They have very short attention span and they cannot concentrate for a long time and they get bored easily in traditional teaching methods. A teacher who works with YLs should be innovator and use student-centered method. 

Teacher should keep exercises fun and short because these students have short attention spans and are easily distracted. We should teach students how to behave in a classroom by asking them to be quiet while you are talking and raise their hands if they have questions or want to answer a question. This may not be directly related to ESL but it is important that students learn good behavior. It would help to managing the classroom.

We need to teach them to respond to basic classroom English phrases such as “Please sit down.” because these are expressions that they will hear repeatedly throughout their learning. In this stage, we can use Total Physical Response for teaching expressions. 

 For students at this age, we are responsible not only for starting to teach them English, but also for preparing them for their next level of education. Students will perform better in their classes if they behave well and have a good understanding of basic principles.

That's all.!

Thank you

<3

#5th Week - 05.12.14

Hello :) 

Here is my 5th week experiences..

As I learnt in the school and observed during practicum, being active and mobile during lessons is really important for young learners. They are very energetic and need to move. Almost every student cannot sit their desks for 40 minutes ever. Everyone stand up, go to the near garbage can or just stand on their feet next to the desk during lesson at least twice. My mentor doesn't care this situation and doesn't use any activity that provide mobility. 

It is important to make our lessons relaxed and fun. YL Students will be learning very basic material but we can design creative lessons that get students moving around and speaking with one another. Young learners are generally very enthusiastic about songs, especially if they can sing along, and active games.

That's all to say.

Thanks

<3

#4th Week - 28.11.14

Hello :)

It's my 4th week in practicum. I get used to my classes and students. Now, I will share with you my experiences at 4A class. 

When the lesson began, teacher asked to students what they learnt last class and then she controlled the project about "like\dislike". Students prepared a cardboard by pasting some pictures and writing what they like or do not like. Students presented their project papers in front of the class. Teacher checked mistakes and misspelling and corrected them. 

Today, students learnt a new conjuction "but". Teacher gave some sentences like " I like playing football, but I don't like reading comics." and wanted students to guess the meaning of it. It was a good way to teach conjuction to young learners, in my opinion.

Mrs. Ergür warned verbally the students who were talking with their friends during the lesson.

That is all to share with you.

Thanks

See you

<3

#3rd Week (21.11.14)

Hello :)

I'm going to share my third week experiences. As time goes, I become aware of what i should pay attention during the intern and post on my blog. I hope i could reflect all my opinion and experiences. 

At 3rd grade, "People I love" unit is learnt in this week. Students learn adjectives like big,fast,heavy,thin,small,old,young and how to make sentences by using "am,is,are".

They learn through repeating the adjectives how to pronounce and translate into Turkish. Pronouncing is very important for Mrs. Ergur. When a student pronounce improperly, she corrects them right away. 

There is an Ask and Answer activity in the student book. Mrs. Ergur asked students to cut the related pictures. Students like the cutting activities as i observed. I helped some students who couldn't cut appropriately. After cutting was completed, teacher asked some questions about pictures like "Is the green ball big?" "Is the lion weak?". Then she wanted some students to ask their friends that they chose. 

In my opinion, this activity can be active more. Students could cut pictures in 6 instead of using a whole paper and they would have 6 pieces of pictures. Teacher would ask them to choose 3 of the pictures and prepare 3 questions about the related pictures. Every students stand up, walk around and ask 3 friends and wait for answers. It's not too much time consuming but good for mobility in class for young learners, because they cannot sit for a long time at their desks, we cannot hope it. My suggested activity has a disadvantage also, i know, teacher cannot control all students and correct their falses but advantages is more, i think :)

Anyway! Mrs. Ergur controls the class everytime by asking "Do you hear your friend?" "Do you understand the question?". It's a good way to manage class and check what they know or not.

Mrs. Ergur chose the best students at the end of every lessons according to their interactions with their friends and teacher, their responses and attendance the lessons. She gives plus and minus to every student and 3-5 students who she chose best, are given some stickers as reward. Students consider important to take some stickers, they compete with their classmates.

My mentor gives some homeworks and projects for students. For this week, the homework is writing adjectives 4 times and memory them.

That's all to share with you, my dear friends.

Thank you.

<3

Get Your Tips :)

Hello :)

All we know these things written below, but it's good to remember ;)

Having your lesson plans and teaching materials ready before your student arrives makes you look prepared and eager.

Ease into the lesson with some small talk to get your students to relax. Speak slowly and clearly.

Choose user friendly topics. Basically if it is not something you would talk about with your granny then it may not be appropriate to teach in a lesson.

Grade your speech to your students level and try to be sensitive to signs that may indicate that they don't understand, e.g: avoiding eye contact, going quiet, pained quizzical expressions.

Doing a brief review of the last lesson can help identify problems that your students may have and it also shows that you're keen and have an ongoing interest. Teachers may want to keep lesson records.

Throw in a few comprehension checks along the way as students often say they understand when they actually don't.

Allow a bit of time at the end of the lesson for a warm down and ask students if there are any questions about the lesson.

Homework can be fun (?), even in the form of quizzes and word games. Make sure you know the answers though.

Final points. Schedule the next lesson... get paid... don't forget your student's name!

I hope it works when i enter the class next time :)

Thanks

<3

Gizem is here!

Hi :)

I just want to say "hi!" to my dear friends. I hope you're doing well.
 I'm working on my school experiences now and i listen that song, maybe you want to join me.

Enjoy..

I'll share my experiences with you soon..

If you wonder, stay here :)

Best wishes

<3

#2nd Week (14.11.14)

Hello :)

Here is my second week experiences. 

I attended 3 different classes again, 3E,3B,4A. I will comment all classes together, not seperately. I sit next to students and i observed the teacher. 

After greeting students, my mentor chose a student from every desk line to check their friends' homeworks. It's a good way to control homework, peer control and peer correction is important for children, and they like taking some responsibilities in the class.

Mrs. Ergur use the native and target language at the same level. She gives the instructions first in English by demonstrating, and then uses the mother tongue, Turkish. First of all, I didn't understand why she uses Turkish in class and i was surprised because we don't use the mother tongue during our presentations, as you know, and i thought i would speak only English in my classes. Maybe it's possible yet, i can but i couldn't decide whichone is effective and instructive, using only English or both? 

What do you think about it?

I don't like children when they complain about their friends. They always said " she took my pencil." " he pulled my hair." " he said" "she doesn't listen." "she didn't do her homework." I got rid of them in second week, it's too hard, really. Mrs. Ergur is also troubled about it, as i observed. She always warned them to not complain about their friends, but it's not enough to stop them.

When the end of lesson was coming, teacher login a website, http://www.morpakampus.com/

It is an useful website that appropriate for primary school's curriculum. The class solved a test, 20 questions about family member and at the end of the test they saw how many true and false answers. I like this website and i appreciate Mrs. Ergur's using online and interactive web2.0 tools.

Thank you for your reading..

I'm waiting for your kind comments.

#1th Week (7.11.14)

Hello :)

I will share my experiences during the first day of internship. 

First of all, I want to mention why i started late being intern. My schedule and the tutor's program didn't match and i needed to find another school. I tried that for 2 weeks, but as you guess, i couldn't and i convinced the tutor to start my intern.

I attended 3 different classes, 3E, 3B and 4A. I think it will the same program anymore. 

Actually, i had been intern to teach at a primary school when i was at highschool, but it was 4 years ago and i totally forgot how to act and talk with the students. Okay, we have a lot of presentations and works during our lessons, but all of them was gone when i entered the class, it's a real world :) My mentor asked me to introduce myself. I could say just "Hello! My name is Gizem. Mmmm.. Hmm.. How are you?" :D

My mentor said "whereever you want, you can sit, even teacher desk". I prefered sitting next to a student to check what they did. 

The unit was "My Family" at 3rd grade classes and the aim is to teach family members' names. Mrs. Ergur apllied a teacher-centered method. Listening music, writing, matching, ask and answer were the activities used during the lesson. 

I got a chance to examine the student's book. The book is fair enough enjoyable. There are listening activities, some crossmatches, a lot of pictures. The explanations are very basic. There are some pictures to cut and use during the activities like puppets talking or glue somewhere. I like the students book.

Teacher arranged always individual works for students. She could use some pair or group works. 

Students were really energetic and very motivated that made me surprised. They were really interested in learning English. Some of them are good at English, they learn easily while the others' learning takes a little time. 

There was no game or activity that allows the student to stand up and spend their energy. Teachers need to add some tiring, funny but instructive activities to lesson plan when they teach to young learners, because they cannot sit for a long time at their desk, their concentration level is very low as we know and they are energetic like little Tasmanian Devil :)