Journal
entry 4
Today’s
lesson was very difficult and I couldn’t achieve the objectives desired for
this class which was really important to me. First of all, when I arrived to
the school I was told that the students were only having 3 hours of lessons because
they had a special event of love and friendship celebration. So, students had
the opportunity to go to the school without the regular school uniform.
Besides, they were in charge of everything related to the meeting. As a result,
most of the students were very excited about the party and the central topic
for them was obviously the party. However, I decided to stick to my plan
because I thought it was good enough for catching students’ attention. I relied
on the fact that this lesson was based on video games with the objective of
improving students’ reading comprehension.
When
I started the lesson, I showed to the students a video and some pictures
related to the video game in order to help them with some vocabulary and
motivated them with the lesson. However, most of the students were still focus
on the party but I didn’t give up because I thought the main activity with the
video game was good enough to make the lesson by its own. Then, I kept giving
them instructions in English and showed some commands of the gameplay. To some
point I could focus their attention on the lesson while the students were
playing the video and reading until music, laugh and noise started to come in
from different places.
After
that point there was no return. It was very difficult to make the students
finished the activity. Most of them were really engaged with the school
activity and they were eager to start decorating and preparing themselves for
the party. My last resort was to leave the post reading activity as homework.
Nevertheless, I really feel the main goals of the lessons were not achieved.
After reflecting on this event, I think I should have made changes to the
lesson plan or re-schedule the activity because I have had some previous
experiences with the same results. However, my big mistake was to take for
granted that an activity considered important by me, was good enough by its own
for working without help. Finally, this experience helped to always bear in
mind that different options must be always set beforehand.
Hello Mauro, as I see it you have made a good reflection about your class. In fact you have highlighted the importance of teacher's awareness on students motivation. Although you faced that situation you never stopped trying to do best. Finally, althogh videogaming is very interesting to students some times teachers should plan with the help of students, They can offer you ideas for next classes and they will feel part of its learning, as a result they are going to be motivated to develop activites that they help to build with you.
ReplyDeleteHi Mauro,
ReplyDeleteSchool activities are one on the most common problems that we as teachers have. I think that you feel really upset when you realized that your students were engaged in the activity, but you have to stop for the celebration. That is usual and you can provide more oportunities for you students to complete the activity. the learning that you obtained from this lesson was enriching for your teaching practice, sometimes we tend to take for granted many things with our students, teaching is a surprising job, sometimes what you think is the best activity is not for your students, or even the oposite.
thanks for sharing your information....