AT THE FRONT OF THE CLASS

What struck you about the movie?

Brad´s attitude struck me. I am surprised the way he fight against his difficulties while speaking. A real desire to succeed was showed when he didn’t renounce to his dreams even when nobody trusts him. He had a positive attitude even though his father tried to disappoint him. Brad never cease to dream with the desire of his heart: “to become a teacher” and after having difficult, frustrating and hurtful interviews he continued pressing forward believing that someday he should reach his goals.

As he had suffered since his childhood, he never gave up besides his classmates and teacher´s laugh. The problem of being criticized and humiliated everywhere can frustrate a life but in Brad´s was no in that way. He was so brave that he decided to take the bull by the horns and do his best to show those who laugh at him that everything is possible if a person woks hard.

Something really important is his mother´s role. She always tried to encourage Brad even when some persons used to tell her that his son was not normal. She never focused on critics and negative comments about her son. Even when Brad was an adult his mother was there to help him and to show him that he was not alone in life.

What did you learn about teaching?

Teaching is something that everybody can do. We only need to love teaching and to be passionate about it. The feelings a teacher have about giving a class will determine his or her success in teaching. Teaching is a process that is related to creativity and love.

What makes a good teacher?

The desire of helping students to learn in the easiest way and show a positive attitude makes a good teacher, but the teacher must have knowledge about how to teach.

How would you describe Brad?

Brad is an optimistic person who likes to take the bull by the horns. He enjoys working hard and fights to reach his dreams. As he faced many difficult problems since he was a kid, he had the right to give up but he didn’t and that shows that he is a person who believes that everything is possible. I can say that he is responsible, honest, brave and kind. Brad is a strong person who keep working and working, besides the disappointments, discriminations and humiliations he still wants to continue walking the difficult way of the victory.

What makes him a good teacher?

His desire to help students to learn makes him a unique teacher. He considers his students weaknesses and help them to improve. He uses creative ways to teach which are fulfilled of love and passion. The affective filter is something important that we have to take it in to account. He gave love to his students who need it, tried to make every class special and to attend the diversity of his students.

What was the most interesting scene in the movie?

When Brad helped one mischievous student to learn how to overcome his fears about reading, impressed me a lot. Brad decided to show his difficulties for reading to the kid in order to encourage him to face his difficulties. Brad transmitted love to the kid. Hugging the kid and placing the crow on his head, built confidence and helped the kid to feel that he was able to read. Brad was smiling while correcting the kid´s problem. He showed a positive attitude that made the difference in the teaching process.

How made the movie empower future teachers?

In my opinion, the movie teaches that everybody whose dream is to be a teacher can reach it. Even though everybody has different difficulties, we can overcome those problems which cannot be as visible as the Brad´s.

The Chinese proverb “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” can be applied to this motivational movie. We have to keep working to reach our goals. Maybe we aren’t facing problems like those Brad had, but we as a second language learners sometimes we feel disappointed about the way we speak a Brad but we can continue working hard, never give up because even though now things look like as if we don’t have any opportunity to be language teachers, if we work hard we should become great teachers.

Maybe teacher had made us feel disappointed with a comment or an action but we have a big power inside our heart and we can succeed in this dream of been a teacher.

My kindergarten experience

Been teaching kindergarteners is one of the experiences Iwon´t forget in my life. I have learned a lot and reflected on the conception of teaching I have. Since kids are so sweet but so hard deal with I want to share part of my experience in my teaching practice there.

PREPARING CLASSES

Preparing classes involves a lot of time, money and creativity. It was difficult to

make a lesson plan because young learners don´

t know how to read they just learn by identifying pictures and associating words to those pictures. Many days Iwanted to cry because my ideas to prepare a class were off.

Some days, I prepared classes which I considered wonderful. I invested a lot of time preparing them but at the time of performing them children didn’t enjoyed them at all, so I have learned that what I like is not necessary what

kids like. Thinking on that I can say that a lesson plan must be based on the student’s needs and interests.

PERFORMING CLASSES

At the time of being in front of my students, I tried to do my best but I have noticed

that they learned easier with those

materials that I made with my creativity using paper, glue, colors and pictures than with those which were printed and downloaded from the net.

Singing was an important part of our classes. They enjoyed the classes when we used to sing. Every lesson we started with the hello song which was easier to learn and students enjoyed a lot to sing. I used to ask one student to pass to the front to direct the activity and students enjoyed that. It was nice watching all those hands rose to participate.

Unconsciously I used the total physical response in my classes. As I had a lot of pictures around my classroom I ask students to stand, walk and touch the picture named by me. When I was teaching the colors I used to say a color and kids had to point out something in the classroom with the color named. They were happy performing activities like those.

DISCIPLINE IN THE CLASSROOM

It was one of the most difficult parts of my teaching practice. When kids were misbehaving during the class causing a mess it was difficult to correct them without

hurting their feelings. The most common troubles I had in the classroom were that a student took a color without permission, that some students were fighting and that some didn’t want to work.

AFFECTIVE FILTER

Kids are very affective by nature. They use to run and hug me when I was entering to school. Some of them used to make pictures like hearts,

flower and happy faces and then they use to give them to me. I remember one day when a girl was crying in the classroom because she had forgotten a flower for her English teacher. I told her that there were no problem and at the next class she gave me another flower. Others use to buy candies and cookies for me. That was something special for me that showed me that kids were happy with my classes.

PROBLEMS WITH NAMES

Another problem was remembering names. The first names I learned were those from the kids who used to misbehave and the most i

ntelligent ones. But I had a big problem with a girl whose name is Julissa and I used to call her Marisol because she looks like a girl who was my classmate in kindergarten so every time I saw her I remember Marisol´s face and I used to call her with that name.

TIME TO SAY GOOD BYE

The last day of classes with my kindergarteners is unforgettable. I made a review of everything I had taught in the classroom and at the moment of telling them that it was the last class they started to say why? I gave each of them a cookie and when I too

k my folder and said good bye a kid whose name is Moises run to hug me and suddenly all the kids were next to me trying to hug me and some of them were crying.

So to finish I can say that those special students touch my heart and I

learn a lot from them.

HOW TO MAKE A LESSON PLAN

As we are in training to become teachers, designing a lesson plan is a difficult task. Her I have the lesson plan I use.

LESSON PLAN
School: Complejo Educativo Colonia Rio Zarco			Date: Monday, September 3rd 2010.
Teacher: William Amilcar Cornejo		Class level: Kindergarten (beginners)			Time: 40 minutes
Topic: The colors- red, orange, yellow, green, pink, purple.
Objective: Students will name and recognize the colors.
STAGE	ACTIVITIES			MATERIALS		TIME
Warm up:	Singing the Hello song and the weather song.					5 minutes
Development:	· The teacher posts a circle on the wall and says the color then the teacher asks one student to paste eyes and mouth to the circle in order to form a happy face after that the teacher repeats the color with the rhythm of a bee.			Circles of each color, glue, paper eyes and mouth, tape.		10 minutes
	· The teacher takes a colorful box with three squares of paper for each color. Forming a circle the teacher plays a song and the students pass the box each other. When the music stops, the kid who has the box takes one paper and names the color then his classmates repeat.			Tape recorder, CD, colorful box, pieces of paper,		10 minutes
Feedback:	· The teacher points out the color faces and the students name the color. After they have named all the colors the teacher chooses one student who passes to the front and names the colors. After the kid has named each color the other students repeat the colored that has been named.			Color paper faces.		5 minutes
Wrap up:	· The kids paint a flower with six petals. Each petal has to be painted with one of the colors kids had studied, then the teacher names out a color and the kids draw three little circles of that color around the flower.			Paper and colors.		10 minutes

Working with kindergarteners has been a great experience of my life. Very young learners are extremely affective. Receiving a hug when I am entering to the classroom is one of the things I enjoy the most. I have received many pictures from them and that make me feel special. One of the most difficult aspects of teaching very young learners is preparing material to work. As I am working with 36 students I not only have to spend a lot of money in paper but also a lot of time. But I have realized that when I prepare materials that involve coloring and pasting, students learn better and enjoy the class. I remember that when I was teaching the weather I made a work for them where they had to paint a circle and pastae pieces of paper around it to form a sun. It was to represent the weather "sunny".

When the kids saw the material they had to do, they became happier and said that the son was prety beatutiful. They started to work but the yellow paper was not enough and I had to ask my tutor for more paper. I remember that some kids were happy of working and when they finished they were showing it to me asking if thier work was good. They were showing the sun to each other. Every work was different but every work involved a big effort.

When we talk about disiplin the story is different one day when my tutor was in the principal´s office the kids started to miss behaive. They were fighting for a car. I separated them and it was pretty difficult. There are some students whose learning is faster that the others. In my class I have to intelligents students. One of them is Roberto. He is a six year old student and he learns the vocabulary only listening it one time. He works fast but the problem is that when he fihishes his tasks he starts to annoy other students, so I have to give him extra work. I have used origami as a technique to teach English. Last week I was teaching the colors and I had made one bird of each color and I placed them in the classroom. Kids were suprised when they saw the birds and they easily learned the colors. I have realized that the visual factor is the most important when we are teaching kindergarteners. My students love coloring pictures, so I made some pictures for them to paint. Usually I prepare a pattern for student and ther trace the pictures on their notebooks. After that they paint it and whe make a feedback. When I have to leave the classroom, they run to hug me and ask me not to go.

"IF WE DONT HAVE A KID´S HEART, TEACHING KINDERGARTEN IS ALMOST IMPOSIBLE."