BRYANNA
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
BRYANNA
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
This week I had the opportunity to teach in a fourth grade classroom at Coral school with two of my colleagues. We were told to teach English lessons because many of the kids in the class don’t take English class. With limited amount of resources here with us, I thought in the beginning trying to make activities would be difficult. I later discovered difficult does not mean impossible. Our first activity was a twist on a game that we played at the Maripsoa Foundation called Chase the Bacon. We divided our class into two teams and each person on each team had a number. Once we called out a number that person from each team came to the front of the classroom and was shown a piece of construction paper that asked them how to say an article of clothing in either English or Spanish. Although many of them did not know the words in English, the game ended up being a lot of fun. The teacher even told us we did a good job and had the students write our vocabulary words down in their notebooks. The next day we did an activity using the same vocabulary words. This activity involved the students dressing up a body that we drew on construction paper with articles of clothing that we drew and cut out with construction paper. We said out loud 2-4 articles of clothing in Spanish and the groups had to figure out together what it was and where it went on the body. This game also worked out really well because the students enjoyed it and were even remembering what the words meant. Our last day with the children we played BINGO with the same words. This ended up being extremely fun because the students were competitive. They were excited to say they only had one or two more spaces left and they really understood what the words were. What was really special was one of the girls asked if she could take the BINGO boards home so she could play with her brothers and sisters. Instead of giving it to the little girl we left it for the class to use in the future to play games, but it was still great to see how much of an influence our activities had on the kids.
Through this experience I created a new definition of what effective instruction consists of. In the United States teachers, parents, and students can get caught up in the idea of what this is. Many think you need the smart boards, IPads, and a computer for each student. My colleagues and I did activities with construction paper and they were extremely effective. We also watched our teacher teach her class with few materials as well and she was able to get her point across. To me, effective instruction means you have students engaged. They could be playing a game, doing group work, or taking a trip outside of the classroom and observing what’s there. As long as they’re doing something to keep them wanting to learn they’re receiving effective instruction. Many schools in the United States do not have a lot of resources and after this experience I have realized this is no excuse for bad teaching. Teachers have to work with what they have, and although sometimes it may seem like you can’t do anything with minimal resources, that little bit can turn out to be a lot.
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AuthorI am an Elementary Education major with a concentration in Spanish here at Buffalo State College. I love working with kids and hope to one day be an ESL teacher. I love to laugh, dance, and spend time with family. I'm excited to embark on this journey to the Dominican Republic and can't wait to see what's there for me to explore! Archives
February 2017
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