Thu 6th Nov: In Action!

Today was the first day I did an activity on my own and which took the whole hour!! (I was a bit slower than the usual teacher).

They read the story two weeks ago, and, as they've been doing loads of different activies since then, which had nothing to do with this one, I decided to make a review of the story. First of all I asked for volunteers, and... there were! I asked them if they remembered the story and if they could summarise it. They did! A word in English, a word in Catalan they summed it up. Once they had explained that to class aloud, I asked them if they had had any problems with the vocabulary. They had some and the same other students answered them what they imagined that could mean. If not, they asked "Maria!" very well-behaved, "Què vol dir això?" And I tried, by using comparisons, to make them understand in English what that meant. Sometimes, the less, I just translated the word. However I think they've got a good level of understanding if you speak at normal speed, but it's only that they are shy or afraid of making mistakes when they speak the foreign language. I have to say that in this high-school, there is a very complete English Department because, apart from the usual English teachers, they provide two language consultants who mark their level of Speaking each week.

So, there we were. I did the same in both classes -the half of the class before having lunch, at 12.40 and, at 15.10 in the other half -. I have to say I love having classes with them at 15 p.m., you know, it's nap's time, after having eaten, and it's true that they are quieter than in the morning, which doesn't mean either that they are paying attention... So, as my tutor and I had already spoken at the end of class of the things that I could improve, I started it all up in the same next session. As we had done a true or false activity, my mistake there had been that I hadn't repeated the solutions aloud one more time after the exercise, so that children could ultimately check if they had had all their answers right. What I did next was speaking aloud so that they could hear me and say in a clear voice "Number one, true!" and so on.

I loved it there. I loved how they were learning, I wasn't concious of it, but... they were paying attention and they were learning at the same time! We used a CD to listen the story. Then they read the story... I was amazed to see everyone wanted to take part in it and read a short paragraph. After all that, we checked again the most difficult words that had appeared in the story and we decided to write them on the blackboard. For the following day (and for them personally, of course) they had to look up the meaning of these words, so that they could finally retain them.

At the end of the class we talked about the different types of readers. Marta and I wanted to do a lot more than that but... I asked for examples of each genre and we stayed there more time than predicted! They loved talking about books (and films!) they knew and that they could classify as a kind of romantic book, for instance.

That was it. Lovely to be one of the first names. I loved saying Antonio, be quiet please or asking someone to do something by name... I had been studying them the night before. I remember they asked: Com és que et saps el meu nom? I replied Aaaaah, surprise surprise... I've studied my part, now it's your turn. They're charming. I loved them (by now :)