Until this moment, I never understood how hard it was to lose something you never had...

Last day, I asked my students to complete an assessment sheet about my job and to ask some questions. I wrote the questions in three languages: English, Catalan and Spanish, because I was aware that they had problems to understand it. Moreover, the size of the letter was bigger in English, because I want the students to read first in English. In addition, I complete the sheet with some funny pictures and with a nice quote. The favourite activity for the majority of the students was the first one in which they had to guess the name of the countries from their flags and put them in the map. I was very happy, because I worked very hard to prepare the materials for this activity and I can say that it was worthy! The game that the students liked most was the one that we played with the ball, it was a very good decision! Moreover, all of them told me that they learnt a lot and they asked me for coming back to see them and they thanked me for helping them to do so nice activities. So cute!

I asked them to write a mark for me as well and I couldn’t believe it when the majority of them write a 9 or a 10 for me!

I prepared a surprise for them as well… I had a power point with some text and photos about them to thank them for their good behaviour, interest and motivation and, specially, for making me happy. They all really love it!

ICT activity

I used the ICT activity that we created in the classroom during this lesson. The activity consisted of a treasure hunt about the different countries from where my students are. They had to find the answer for the questions that I wrote and they had some problems to understand the texts and to find the answers due to their low level of English. On the other hand, they were very motivated and liked this activity.

My third lesson or how to write a letter

I was very happy and proud of my job, because another objective of my unit was how to write a letter and put into practice what they learnt about hobby, free time, etc. Núria told me that they already knew how to write a letter, because they wrote letters with foreign students last year, but they had already forgotten… I thought that if I put the letters into an envelope it could be more interesting for them and it was what I did. I gave them a envelope with a piece of paper inside it where I have written some questions to give them ideas about what they must write. Moreover, I design a model of a letter in order that they know the structure of it. It worked well, because they were very motivated and made an effort to complete the task, but I realized that they had a lo of problems to understand the instructions, although I explained the task with a power point presentation, in a oral way and with the model of the letter as well. In my opinion, I think that these kind problems are due to the low level of general knowledge that they have, because anybody taught them of basics things that they should already know and now it would waste a lot of time.

I was very worried about these problems and this is the reason why I decided to help them learning how to use a dictionary and they were very happy with my project and I think that the sticks really were helpful for them.

Thank you very much guys for the nice things that you wrote in your letters!! :)

1st ESO

I can’t believe the difference between the children of 1^st ESO and the ones of 2^nd ESO! The first ones are very childish and it is more difficult to cope with them, while the students of 2^nd of ESO are more motivated and more adults, I could say. Núria tried to play a memory game to study the parts of the body, but it was quite impossible, because the children spoke very loud and the classroom was a completely mess!

It is a pity, because they are very lucky of having a teacher like Núria, but they don’t let her to do her job.

Tutoría

I looked forward to take part in a “Tutoría”, because when I heard this word, I thought about what we did during this hour when I was in the school and I realized that the teacher used it to correct exams and they didn’t do anything with the students, although it was supposed to help the students, listen to their problems and so forth and so on.

In this case, the “Tutoría” was with the students of 2^nd of ESO and Núria used this hour to change the places were they seated and to talk about the “Crèdit Cooperatiu”.

I was surprised, because anybody wanted to be seated with a boy, because he doesn’t let them work. Núria explained them that he had serious problems at home and they had to help him, because he needed them and friends are for good and bad times. This was one of the times that the teacher should do more than her job; we have to realize that we must educate our children as well. You are a good model, Núria.

On the other hand, Núria explained them everything about the “Crèdit Cooperatiu”. Never heard about this?

This is one project of my high school that they do during the last week of the first term and each year is dedicated to one topic, this time is “The languages in the world”. During these days, they don’t have normal lessons and they work in this project, each group prepare different activities about languages and the Tower of Babel’s myth like taking photographs of different alphabets around the district, building a tower of Babel, drawing the tower, a concert, etc.

Cristina's lesson

This was the first time that I was in the classroom of one my mates: Cristina. She taught in 1^st ESO and the core of her unit was similar to mine. I realized that the activities that she did were very similar to the ones that I did as well.

Firstly, she did a warm-up activity: the Chinese whistle. She stood in the middle of the classroom that was organized in an U-shape and she told the first child one part of the city like bakery or town hall and he or she had to whisper to the classmate who was seated next to them until the first one who was the responsible for choosing the photo that went with the word and that were on the teacher’s table. It was very funny, the children were very motivated and they loved the game.

The main activity of Cristina’s lesson was developed in groups that Cristina organized by giving them different pieces of papers in different colours and the children had to find the students who had the same colour. In each group there were a time keeper, a presenter, a recorder and a material manager and Cristina gave a map of a town and several cards with the name of parts of the city and they had to put them in the map to tell other students how to go from the city centre to another point. It was very interesting, but maybe the activity was a little difficult for them.

I liked this experience and I think that she did a good job! Congratulations to Cristina!

Evaluation

I took part in the evaluation of 4^th ESO and I was very surprised and disappointed, because there were really few students who passed all the subjects, but the rest of them failed more than three!

All the teachers of 4^th ESO were in this meeting and the tutor spoke one by one about each student and about the whole group and the other teachers were allowed to make comments. Moreover, one of the teachers was the responsible for writing a report about that all of them had to sign at the end of the meeting.

On the other hand, they talked about the different posibilities that the students have to finish the ESO or to start working.

I felt that things are really complicated and we have to do some thing to change this situation!