Second Day of Practice

The class started at 1:20 at the laboratory because teacher had planed present a video to students. We were asked to be there too. A video was presented and students had to take notes about it, because teacher was going to ask them for specific details of the video. The video was played two times, one to answer the names of who were speaking in the video, and the second one for specific details. Because of the time the activity could not be completed at the laboratory but it continued in the classroom.

Being in the classroom, it was my turn to participate and develop an activity with the students. As I said before in the previous entry, I was supossed to prepare a warm up activity. I had to take in account the previous vocabulary to make a short review. The warm up activity was a game called "Sharks are coming" and it was developed in the following way: Students were asked to stand up, and I provided them the instructions, I was saying the phrase "sharks are coming" and they had to ask me "how many?" then, I said a number and they had to form groups of that number, the one that had not a group had to take one piece of paper with a word or phrase of the previous vocabulary and with his/her own words explain the meaning. And the groups had to guess the word or phrase. Studets enjoyed the activity, but the only problem was the space, because the classroom is small, but the activity could be developed. I enjoyed that time because was a nice oportunity to interact with the class.

The topic for that day was "Gerunds after prepositions", and for the encounter stage teacher asked to students some verbs, then he explain the grammar part, in which he provide diferent verbs that could be followed by a preposition for instance: Plan on, and he provided diferent examples.

For the remember stage teacher asked to students which preposition belongs to each verb, students participated in this activity, they did not have problems with the topic, it was kind of easy for them. Then, teacher check the pronunctiation. Then, students had to work in the book, in exercice 7, they had to connect the pictures of the exercice with some pictures presented.

For internalize stage students were sked to work in pairs to discuss which prepositions belongs in some sentences presented in exercice number 8. They had to complete each sentence with the correct preposition and form of the verb that was presented in parentheses. Then they checked the answers together.

For the fluent stage students were asked to have a conversation with a partner on what they are onterrested in, terrible at... Etc. Students were doing the activity, then some of them shared what they are good and terrible at. Was a good activity to make them talk, and share their experiences, and also have fun with the sentences of their classmates.

After the break, we were in the classroom and now was the turn of my colleague Carlos to develop the warm up activity. "Usted to" was reviewed, Carlos started saying a sentence "When I was a child I used to..." and then students had to clap, then he selected one student to continue saying another sentence using "used to", when the student finished the sentence the other ones had to clap, then Carlos gave them a disc, which they had to pass to the person that they wanted to say a sentence. Then, teacher asked to combine both topics, the one that they were studying and the previos one, they have to say sentences using gerunds after prepositions, and "used to" in the same sentence. That activity was challenging for them at the begining was not completed clear, but with the practice they understood and they could developed properly.

Then, there were not activities, because they were supossed to do an oral evaluation. So we decided that while teacher was doing the evaluation we can monitor the students, and help them if they had any question. 

The second day was great, I had the oportunity to work with the students, and also developed an activity with adolescents. I have to thanks to teacher Chistian for the advices that he has gave us, and for make us part of the group.

First Week of Practice

In the teaching practicum course we have to put into practice the knowledge, and the theory that we have acquired, we are practicing on saturday's afternoon, from 1:20 P.M to 5:40 P.M. We were assigned to different teachers, who we have to work with, I was assigned to work with teacher Christian Torres, and to be honest I did not know who he was before the practice started, but the first day of the practice I met him, and he was very nice since the first moment. I am also working with my colleague Carlos Alvarado, that is a good future teacher, and I hope to learn a lot from both of them.

The class started by introducing us to the students, I felt confortable with them, the enviroment of the classroom is really nice. Then for warm up activity, teacher Christian played a game in order to review vocabulary from the previous class. The warm up consisted in: teacher select a student to pass to the front of the class to take a piece of paper which has written a phrase that they had to mimic to their classmates without saying any word. The rest of the class had to guess the word, or phrase. Then, teacher asked for volunteers to continue with the activity, and what is surprising was that students wanted to participate, teacher did not need to force anyone to participate, or make another activity to select participants. 

The class was from unit number 9 that is called "Fame" lesson from vocabulary "award shows". For encounter stage teacher show pictures to students, and he was asking them what they know about it. Students were describing pictures, and providing ideas about what they might mean. The purpose of this activity was to active the previous knowledge, making asociation of words. Students were excited about the activity because they were sharing what they know, students were participating a lot in this activity. Also, CCQ's were present at this stage. That activity was really good, because students were really excited about sharing their opinions, they were talking a lot, but was about the activity. For communicative purposes that was really usefull. I would like to do this activity with my future students, and something that I would change is just the size of the pictures, because teacher Christian had to be really near to studets in order to they can see the image. But in general the stage was developed in a good way, the activity was nice for teens, and he introduced the target vocabulary for the lesson, he also encouraged the students.

In the clarify stage teacher explained the definition of the vocabulary. Then, he pasted on the board the images of the encounter activity and he asked students to match the consept with the picture that correspond. As in the encounter stage, students were participating a lot, CCQ's were present in the stage, and they were really interested in the topic. Students were talking a lot, but that did not interfere with the class. Teacher could take advantage about this topic in this stage because students could talk about what they like. Students were talking about their favorite solo female/male artist, their favorite group, album, actor, actriz, etc. Students were excited about the topic. 

Then, for remember stage, students were asked to talk to 4 different people in the classroom using the new vocabulary in a sentence. The activity was a good idea to make them talk, and how it was about a topic that they really like. Teacher take us in consideration, and he asked us to help him monitoring the students.Then, students were asked to share their sentences with the complete class. they were participating in every single activity. The activities that were developed in every single stage was working for comunicative purposes. 

Practice vocabulary and concepts was part of the remember stage. Students had to work in pairs in exercices number 1,2 and 3, they had to match the vocabulary with some pictures. In excercise number 3 they had to read the question that was presented in the book, and they were written incorrectly and they have to say it in the correct form. 

There was no fluent use. It was the first part of the lesson, students had a break of 20 minutes. 

After the break, we started the second part of the lesson that was focussed on listenning and conversation, combining both skills. First, teacher provided instructions, students need to listen and read the audio number 1 from unit 9. Pre-listening stage, the audio was played two times, and it was about answer general information (Gist) checking listening comprehension, and teacher was asking questions like: What did you understand from the audio? then, students clarify the information about what the audio was saying.

For during-listening stage students were asked to work in exercise number 2: "circle the correct word", they had to listen for details, and identify which word was the correct in each sentence, it was an activity that took in consideration the skeletal outline listening for details. But, there were two activities in during stage, also, teacher asked to studets to work in exercise number 3 "Talking about past and present favorites" in which they hhave to put the dialogues in the correct order. That exercise also worked to introduce the grammar part from "used to".

For the grammar part of the class, teacher presented a video about a ranking of popular songs of the year from Vevo, obviously, students were excited because the video was about the music that they liked, teacher take in consideration their likes, and that is the reason why the activity was working properly. Then, teacher started asking them if they were agree with the ranking, or what they would change from the ranking, changing possitions. Students were participating a lot, asking and answering questions about the video, and giving their opinion about it. Then, teacher Christian started to introduce the grammar part of the lesson trying to active the previous knowledge of students by asking them questions about the use of "usted to", and students were familiar with the topic, they asnwered the questions and they were participating to answer what the function of "used to" is. Then teacher gave a short explanation of the use, and the grammar from general to specific in the clarify stage. 

Then, students had to take a test, and they went to the laboratory to take it. We were helping teacher Christian to monitory the students while taking the quizz. When we came back to the classroom it was almost time to finish the day of class, and teacher just gave them the grades of a previous evaluation.

My first day in the practice was great! I really enjoyed be there, and I was anxious to continue working with teens, and also I had something to plan for next saturdar. I had to plan a warm up activity for the class, and that would be a good idea to interact more with the students. I have learned important things about teaching to adolescents, I realized about their behavior in classes, and how important it is to take in consideration their likes to plan a class. 

Error Analysis 

What error analysis is?
There are different ways to correct errors and mistakes that students might commit, and that is called Error Correction. Error correction is seen as a form of feedback giving to learners on their language use. Before answer the question "what error analysis is?" we need to know what an error is, and how different is from a mistake. 

Error: An error is what learners commit and incorrect utterance when they do not have the knowledge to utter it correctly.

Mistake: A mistake is when learners know the correct utterance of something in a second language, but they make the mistake anyway when speaking or writting. Learners understand the rule, but they have not commited the form to internalize the rules.

Now that we have clarified the concepts of error and mistake, and how they are different, we can answer the question of what error analysis is. According to Abisamra (2003) "error analysis can be viewd as a type of lingüistic analysis that focuses on errors commited by learners", as the article An Analysis of Errors in Arabic Speakers English Written explains, errors are seen as a deviation made by learners who have not yet mastered the rules of the second language. We have to keep in mind that lerners cannot self correct his or her, because they are reflective of his or her current stage of second language development. 

Know that we have an idea of what error analysis is, I am goint to explain an activity that we developed in our Teaching Practicum course called "error analysis chart", that consist in the following steps: First, our teacher checked out our previous entry in our blogs, she provided us feedback if we have any spelling mistake, or other types of mistakes. Second, we have to check our mistakes and correct them, explaining which the mistake was. Then, we had to correct the mistakes in our blogs, it was not just something for us to keep it in mind, we had to correct every single mistake that we presented in our entry, if there were mistakes. Finally, we had to share the chart with the corrections in this entry. I had 13 mistakes, and most of them were mispelling mistakes, but I have corrected them in order to present it in this entry. I am sharing my error analysis chart in the next images: 

This exercise helped me a lot, because sometimes I do not realize about my mistakes, sometimes I am just writting without checking the information, and by doing this activity I have learned that I have to verify the information that I am sharing, the spelling, apply some rules, ect. And after developed this activity I feel intrigued, I have different questions about the error correction, the different ways in which I might correct my future students. I have different questions, for instance: Should errors be corrected? When should errors be corrected? and I have investigated about error correction to help me out with those questions. 

Should errors be corrected? 

I have read different articles to answer this question, and according to the second language acquisition theory, when error correction works, it does by helping the learner change change his or her consious mental representation of a rule. It affects learner competence by informing the learner that his or her current version of rule is wrong. Second laguage acquisition theory implies that when the goal is learning, error should be corrected.

When should errors be corrected?

While reading information about this question, I realized that this topic is controversial. Concerning to this problem I have to make emphasis in weather treat them inmediately or to delay. But we are confronted with a dilema, fluency vs accuracy. Since my point of view, for communicative purposes, make delayed corrections is prefered. When to correct mistakes is determined by the type of error commited, for instance: pronunctiaion and grammar errors, inmediate correction is preferable. For post correction cannot maje learners remember anything. Overall situation in the classroom is also important. 

Keeping in mind what I have learned with this activity, I would like to do it with my students too, because it is a different way to correct mistakes, a way in which they can check their incorrect utterances and look for the correct form to utter it. It seems to be a self correction activity, and it is a really good way to help students to internalize some rules of the second language. 

References:

Nada AbiSamra. (2003). An Analysis of Errors in Arabic Speakers’ English Writings. 2016, de TRIPOD Sitio web: http://abisamra03.tripod.com/nada/languageacq-erroranalysis.html