VII. THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

                                 

                                 VII. THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

1.     The first tool that WE/I used was, drawing because in order to improve the students’ listening skill, we brought some pictures for them to play with that. The activity was that a student was going to have the picture, and there were going to be three more students who were going to draw in the board by listening to all the details that the first students gave. By this activity the students could practice and guess the words or adjectives that the first student was saying.

2.     Telling stories was another activity that we applied in the classroom, not exactly with a really long story, but sometimes narrating events or details of a story. Doing this, we could get the students´ attention, and at the same time we could know how well they understood the instructions.

3.     Puppets:  we use puppets to help the students to feel confident to talk, and also to tell them some important aspects about the class or the topic. We already had some designed puppets because of the presentation that we performed in which we used puppets, so we didn´t spend money on that.

4.     Songs: that was a really important tool that we applied, because nowadays it´s something that children love to do, and they learn and get the information in a better way through a song. In many opportunities, we used songs to complement the information about the topics like: body parts, family members, colors, numbers, days of the week, etc.

5.     Visual aids: some of the most useful and common visual aids are: pictures, images, flashcards, charts, drawings, etc. we tried to apply almost all of those in our classes because we know that children learn mostly by seeing.

Useful tool	Useless tool	Reason
Mime stories		This is a good tool, you don’t spend a lot of money and at the same time you let your students develop their imagination.
Paper dolls		It´s simple, sometimes a little bit difficult if you don´t have the ability to design them, but it works a lot.
Listen for the mistakes		Students develop the ability to hear carefully to the words and sounds.
English corner	Sometimes it could be hard or complex because maybe you are not allowed to change or decorate the classroom
Pictures cards		Students learn English by seeing  and it´s a very good idea to teach to children.
songs		Children love to sing especially when it´s about things that they like, they learn faster with these activities in our context.
Board games	We should look for some other ways to teach not just using the board because it´s kind of traditional
Reading stories	This could a little bit difficult for students who can´t read very well or the ones who get lost while they read.
Silhouettes		These ones are really useful, the students love guessing the right option in our context, so they will love it.
Creating a mascot	Sometimes there are some students who get scared when they see an animal or a clown
puppets		These will help you a lot in your context, you can design your own puppets and children will pay attention to them
Word/sentence Card		This can be applied in a very good way in the classroom, in this way Ss  get familiar with vocabulary and new words.

Make three collages of the nine TVYL presentations (pics). Reflect upon the top three chapters you would incorporate in your own practicum and you would leave the others aside. 

Reflection upon the top three chapters

·        I will incorporate the chapter 1 “the young language learner” because it gives a general view about the process of learning English in which the students are.  It is really helpful since I didn’t know why students make some things and that chapter clarified my doubts. So, I as a future teacher, I am going to be aware of many attitudes that students can show according to their age. 

·      I am really interested in chapter number 2 “class management and atmosphere” because it was very useful for me since I learnt several things about the correct attitude that I had to have. Also, it gave some tips and advices about how to create a good environment in my classroom for example using some arrangements of desks, attitudes, and other.

·        And chapter 8 called “planning your work” was very interesting since I learnt to plan all the activities to manage very well my class. It was about planning in three stages for example long term planning, short term planning, and lesson planning.