1. ESTANDARES MDD 2 & 3
Metas de Aprendizaje y Planes de clases
The following essay will explain the reasons that I took before planning my unit
plan and the lesson for the students of Almondale School. This decision were
taken in terms of the school polices, reality and students context. Also in this
essay I will include a reflection regarding the process of planning, including
strength, weaknesses and challenges.
When I start planning my classes I took in consideration plenty of things. First of
all I tried to learn all the students name, likes and dislikes and I try to follow the
same routine that the teacher had with them. I think that was the hardest part
because every teacher has a different way of teaching the language.
Regarding my Unit plan, I saw the “redes de contenidos” so I can plan what the
school wanted me to plan. In this case I plan unit 4 of the “Solutions pre-intermediate
book”. This unit divided the lessons into 7 parts (4A, 4B, 4C, 4D,
4E,4F,4G) and in all of them different skills are developed including grammar. I
did not consider the 7 lessons for the unit, because I wanted the students to
practice every skill, so I picked 1 of each skill (reading, speaking, writing and
listening).
Even though sometimes it was hard to follow all the activities in the book, I
manage to fulfill all the recruitments that the school and my teacher ask me. In
some occasions I had to adjust the lessons, changing some activities in order to
keep the students motivated and focused on the class. Some of the activities
did not call the attention of the students, making difficult to move forward with
the next activity.
I have realized that all of the students are visual learners, so I will tried to
include videos, ppt and interactive activities during the classes to keep all of
them focus and also to make them participate. In this class there are 9 students
with ADHD. These students have more time to finish their work, and they are
sited at the front of the class to keep them focus. The school has no integration
2. programme and they do not have special tests for students with this kind of
problems.
Finally it can be said that for planning my unit I considered all the aspects that I
found relevant and following the methodology of the teacher and the way he
worked, and always trying to include new materials, new exercises to have a
good class.
I could say that creating material, especially if videos where included was the
easiest part of the unit. This is because most of the students from 7th grade are
visual learners so they learn better with prezi, ppt or videos and I try to use all
the technological devices and resources available at school. also I try to work
with other things like realia, make them move etc, because I think that the most
important thing here is to make authentic material and to keep students engage
so they can enjoy the class and learn with topics that they like so they can have
fun during the learning process
On the other hand, one of the hardest part of planning a unit or a lesson were
grammar classes. This is probably because I do not like grammar and for me
teaching grammar is very, very hard. Also kids are not very keen on grammar,
mainly because for them is boring and most of the time they do not understand
anything. I tried to face this problem in a lot of ways. First I study what I need to
teach, especially everything related with grammar and tences, then I try to
explain the students in a very easy way, so they do not get confused using
flashcards, mimes, videos, ppt etc, all the resources I can use to make this
classes engaging for students.
I think one of the positive thinks of this is that every time I study more and
practice more grammar before teaching, it will be easier for me to teach this and
also this has help me to overcame similar situations. On the other hand one of
the negative things about this is that I can get nervous when teaching grammar,
also if I do not study what I have to teach, students can feel the lack of
confidence at the moment of teaching.
3. Regarding students with special needs, as mention in MDD 1 , the school does
not have a policy about this. They do not have “proyecto de integracion” and
most of the students with special needs are students with ADHD. In this case,
we are just allowed to give this students a couple of more minutes to finish their
tasks. At the moment of planning, I try to take in consideration this problem, and
I try to make activities that are attractive for students, try to explain everything in
the best way as possible and if one of this kids have troubles, I explain them
again what to do.
At a conclusion it can be said that the unit was run in a very successful way.
Students enjoy playing, learning, working with different materials and they
wanted to learn more. Also an important thing to consider is that teachers
should know their students, their likes and dislikes, how they are, if they are
visual learners, kinesthetic learner, names, because this will help in a better
development of the class, specially when you have more than 30 students. Also
you should have a good relationship with your guide teacher because he or she
is the one that will give you feedback about your lessons, about what you are
doing right or wrong, and he will try to help you so you can do a better work.
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