Assignment 3B-Field Experience

• Teach one of your One Day Teaching/Learning Plan (any of the five) from your unit plan. The lesson plan that I chose to teach was the Tuesday lesson plan from Assignment 2A, Los Verbos Reflexivos.  This lesson consists of three parts: pre-assessment, direct instruction, and practice.  The pre-assessment will be administered in form of an “inicio” or warm-up.  I will write a total of 6 verbs on the board.  There will be 2 of each –ar, -er, and –ir verbs.  Students will need to conjugate these regular verbs with each pronoun (yo, tu, usted/el/ella, nosotros, and ustedes).  After completion I will have students come up to the board and write their answers.  The direct instruction will directly follow the warm-up.  The DI will consist of a PowerPoint presentation going over the various parts and usages of reflexive verbs and pronouns.  Imbedded in the instruction are various sentences using conjugated reflexive verbs.  Students will be called on to read the sentence in voz alta (out loud).  Following the students completion of the sentence, the class will repeat the sentence as a whole.  The final part will require students to complete an activity in the book.  The activity provides students with a variety of sentences with context clues as to which reflexive verb should fill in the blank and how they should conjugate it.
• Report findings from your Pre- Ongoing and Post- assessment tasks.  The pre-assessment went as planned.  It helped the students use the prior knowledge of verb conjugations in the present tense for each type of verb ending (-ar, -er, -ir).  The students did a good job demonstrating their knowledge of verb conjugations by coming up to the board, when called up, to write out their answer for on the verbs from the inicio.  The pre-assessment help set the stage for the PowerPoint presentation that took place.  During the PPT I was able to maintain the attention of the students by calling on them to read a sentence containing a conjugated reflexive verb out loud. These sentences appeared on every third slide.  I used popsicle sticks to make sure that I was not calling on the same student twice.  This kept things random and ensured that each student was paying attention. At the end of the presentation I had students conjugate 4 reflexive verbs: afeitarse, acostarse, ponerse, and irse.  This ongoing assessment throughout the presentation with out loud reading followed by verb conjugations allowed me to accurately assess the students verbal pronunciation skills as well as their ability to correctly conjugate reflexive verbs in the present tense and using the proper reflexive pronoun.  I believe the assessments were accurate measuring sticks with regards to their progression with the unit of study.  The post assessment required the students demonstrate their reading comprehension as well as their knowledge of conjugations.  They completed an activity in the textbook which provided 8 sentences with blanks.  The sentences provided enough context clues to help the students determine which verb they should use and how they should conjugate it.  Most of the students had a good grasp on the activity, but some seem to struggle with comprehending what the sentence was saying in the target language.  I maintained proximity and was there to assist them when needed.  I also had students that were successful work as tutors for those that were struggling. 
• Reflect upon your teaching experience. Ask yourself: A. What did you learn? B. What would you change? C. What did you enjoy?  I learned that I need to do a better job and managing my time.  I tend to over plan for the allotted period time, which isn’t always a bad thing.  I suppose it is better than the alternative, which is under planning.  I also learned that, while the majority of students were engaged, I still had a handful that were just out in dream land thinking of who knows what.  It is always a goal of mine to maintain the attention of all of my students.  I think that I could change the way in which I present things.  I could bring a little bit more energy with my voice and mannerisms to help keep things a little more lively.  I did really enjoy the instruction portion of the lesson though.  It’s always fun to talk and teach about something of which you are passionate and knowledgeable.  I just need to be careful to not get a on a soapbox and forget that there are actually human beings listening to me that might not find Spanish as interesting as I do!