Emily's Teaching Portfolio

The Final Project

Topic: Weather and Clothing

Subject Area: Social Science

Student’s Grade: Second Grade

The reason for choosing this project is because the children have recently been learning about the weather, therefore I thought it would be useful to create a link between the weather and clothin. By introducing clothing vocabulary and what people wear during different types of weather I think it will be useful to introduce a new topic, while revising a former topic at the same time.

The teaching materials I will be using will be a weather map, the whiteboard, the smartboard, a clothing worksheet and some flashcards. The weather map will be effective as the activity will involve volunteers wearing the weather map and the other being the ‘weather person’ whose job is to describe the weather in various parts of Spain. The whiteboard will be used to write the date and describe the weather outside for that day and the smartboard will be used for a quiz I made that combines the weather and clothing. The flashcards will be used to introduce the vocabulary for clothing, the vocabulary will be the same as the vocabulary in the quiz. The worksheet will be a simple gap fill consisting of words such as ‘t-shirt’, ‘hat’ and ‘raincoat’.

The set of activities involved in this class will be adaptable to other age groups, as the first grade will be able to use the clothing flashcards, the map and potentially the quiz depending on the class. The clothing flashcards could be used for any grade as clothing is always a popular topic when learning English. The weather map game can be used for the younger grades with the fun game of one wearing the map and the other being the ‘weather boy/girl’, however it can also be used for older children who need to revise describing the weather as the map can be used on its own. The worksheet could also be used for the first grade, as clothing is also another topic that both grades share.

 

Lesson Plan:

This lesson will revise the topic of weather, as well as introduce the new topic of clothing. My objectives for this lesson will to be to reinforce the topic of describing the weather, as well as creating a foundation for the topic of clothing.

The materials I will used will be, as previously mentioned, a weather map, the whiteboard, the smartboard, a worksheet and some flashcards. These materials can all be easily used at the same time, therefore saving time during the lesson as I won’t have to worry about the internet working quickly or any problems with the smartboard. The timing of my lesson will be 45 minutes.

Activity	Timing
Whole class participate in saying the date and describing the weather. Material used- whiteboard.	5 minutes
Weather map activity. Materials used: weather map, smartboard (for theme music).	10-15 minutes
Clothing vocabulary and clothing worksheet. Materials used: flashcards.	5-10 minutes
Weather and clothing quiz on smartboard. Materials used: smartboard.	10-15 minutes

 

https://create.kahoot.it/details/weather-and-clothing/106acdbc-de02-425e-8c99-9c90a2bbeab1

(This is the link to the quiz I made.)

The teacher’s role, and mine as the LA, will be to work together throughout the class to keep the children engaged and listening. We will share activities, by having both of us lead the class it will keep the children interested and make it seem more exciting for them. The teacher’s role will be to mark the student’s worksheets, to ensure they have understood the content of the class. We will complement each other by working well together and being able to keep the class fun and exciting, as well as teaching important English vocabulary. The teacher will obviously have more authority than me, for example when it comes to disciplining children who are misbehaving or talking.

The lesson will consist of 4 activities. The first activity will involve the whole class, volunteers will tell me the day of the week, the date, the month and the year. After the date is complete, other volunteers will offer their descriptions of the weather, and the one with the most votes will be selected and written on the board. This a quick activity which is normally done every lesson. Next, using a weather map, volunteers will come up in pairs. One volunteer will be the weather map by holding it, the other volunteer will be the ‘weather boy/girl’ and pretend to be on TV and describe the weather in different parts of Spain. The weather symbols on the map can be changed as they are stuck on with blu-tack. Various pairs will come to the front of the class to do the activity and the rest of the class will have to say if they are correct or not. To make this activity even more fun, the teacher and I will play a news theme tune before the activity begins to make it seem like a real news programme. Afterwards, the class will be introduced to clothing vocabulary by being shown flashcards and repeating the words until a good foundation has been understood by the whole class. This good grasp of the subject will be reinforced by the clothing work sheet, in which you must fill in the gaps of different items of clothing. The worksheet is very simple and consists of six words, this will strengthen the student’s knowledge of clothing before the final quiz. The rest of the class will be spent doing a quiz I made specifically for the class. The class will be divided into 4 teams and they must decide on the correct answer (there are four options for each question).

In terms of evaluation, the children’s worksheets will be marked by the teacher. Furthermore, during the class it will be obvious whether the whole class has understood the activities or not; this will be especially shown in the final quiz. Depending on how well student’s have understood the content of the lesson, I can then incorporate more activities involving clothing and weather if they haven’t fully understood the lesson. Student’s will know that they have achieved the objectives set for the lesson in the final quiz and whether they can answer all questions correctly. The student’s won’t be expected to answer the clothing questions perfectly as it will be a new topic, but the teacher and I can evaluate how familiar the student’s are with the topic when they answer the questions from the quiz.

This lesson will show me that different students learn in different ways. For example, some students might respond more to the visual aspect of flashcards, whereas others may respond better to writing on the worksheet to reinforce their knowledge. After this class, I will be able to see how most of the class prefer to learn, audibly, visually or being more active. By implicating a variety of different styles of teaching, I will be able to at least implement one style that each student prefers.

 

Before starting my placement at Fuente Santa, I had limited experience working with children. In the past I had only been to Primary schools and taught some French and Spanish lessons, so I was excited to begin the year here in Colmenar Viejo.

Firstly, I love the location. Even thought I live in the centre of Madrid and have to take an hour commute to get here, it is worth it to watch the sunrise every morning and see the mountains!

However, the scenery of this small town is not my favourite part. My favourite part about my experience thus far is that the school community is welcoming, friendly and fun! This includes the children, the staff, dinner ladies and parents. What I love about Spanish culture is that everyone will speak to each other, which differs greatly from the awkward manner of the Brits. I say hello to every single member of staff everyday even if we have never met before; this especially makes me feel a part of the school community.

Of course, my favourite part about being a LA is being able to speak with the kids everyday and help them improve their English and learn crucial life lessons. It makes me happy to think I will have been a part of their schooling experience and perhaps their love for learning new languages. As even I still remember my Spanish and French language assistants from when I was child.

On my first day, in every class I would tell the children that I don’t speak Spanish and that they would have to help me by only speaking in English. Although most of the time the children speak to me in Spanish, it is nice to see when they make a real effort to speak in English to make sure I understand the context of what is happening. Or if they are for example showing me their new favourite toy they make an effort to speak in English. This was especially fun after Christmas when they were eager to tell me all about the presents that they received for Christmas and El Día de los Reyes Magos.

I feel like from working with groups of children everyday independently, I have been able to learn how to think on my feet and think of new activities, or new ways to make what they are learning fun. I have also gained experience in how to control the children, on some days they can have copious amounts of energy, or they will misbehave out of boredom, I have learnt how to calm them  down by distracting them with a new game or ignoring the fact that they are playing up and continuing with the activity that I had planned so that they can get the most out of the time spent with a native English speaker.

I have enjoyed teaching and being a part of this school community that I am applying to come back next year, as I would love to see how the children progress and improve their English skills as the years go on. Being a part of the Fuente Santa community has made me very happy and I wake up each day excited to go to work!

Hey, I’m Emily! This year I am going to be an English teaching assistant in the Madrid region. This blog is going to follow my journey as a language assistant.