Demos

 Hello everyone! Welcome once again and to the very last entry of my blog! It’s been a long and amazing trip through different topics. To wrap it up, we’re going to describe Demos!

We had presentations these  past two weeks and I have to admit that I had a blast! I enjoyed watching my classmates and friends doing their best and I certainly learned from them. Everyone was so creative and dedicated when it came to preparing their activities. I loved all of them and I’m pretty sure there are quite good future teachers in our classroom! 

1. This was the first group. They presented activities to rehearse  listening. To begin with, they passed a listening test. We had to pay  close attention to answer correctly, but to be honest, it was quite easy, because it was meant for basic or intermediate students. That is the cool thing about activities to train the four macro skills, you can adjust them according to your class needs, interests and of course, levels. Then, the second activity was even cooler, we went back in time to 2017 when we used not to be “stressed out” just kidding (like if you got the reference😅😂) and played a song from Twenty One Pilots, we had to write down as many words as we listened. While some volunteers were setting the lyrics in the right order. A competitive and effective way to learn and to terrain your ear.

2. The second group was confirmed by them. Their given macro skill was speaking. Their activities were amazing! I loved them very much! They had us participating in a Spelling bee contest. This is a well known activity and I think kids can start with this to challenge themselves little by little.  It  is also  a great way to learn vocabulary. Unfortunately my team lost,  there were difficult words but After that, one never forgets the spelling of that defining word, so it was pretty cool. Then, they had us into two lines and each team would take turns to look  at a crazy picture and then create a story like in chains. It was pretty fun and we came up with the craziest endings. 😂😂

3. Their group had a presentation on Reading.  They had us read  a quite dense article about cybersecurity and then we had to answer some “true” “false” questions. I think one of the challenges in these kinds of activities is to have  students' concentration, especially when they’re  young, but visuals and dynamics like word searches can be helpful. 

Teacher Orlando also suggested that we could present readings along with the questions like in tests like TOEFL or TOEIC, so students can focus and be prepared for what actually matters within the reading. 

4. This group was very cool because they based their ppt on a product, they talked about writing. And I have to admit that I had already  forgotten the formal letter structure and I think it’s very important we all should be familiarized with at least some basic writing structures because we are not always going to be able to Whatsapp people. Maybe yes, but there are some other formal escenarios you’ll have to work at.  I think showing a finished product is a great way for students to have a clear idea on what to do, it is a guide and of course they should also be able to get creative as they’re writing as well. 

5. Then, we had our group, we developed activities targeted to listening. First of all we handed in some copies with a chart and some words m, then we played a rap on YouTube. 🤩 I was making sure I could observe everyone in a non-threatening way haha, so I was walking around and checking everyone had gotten the point of our activity, they crossed out as many words as they listened to and then we shared the right words, cause we had added a couple of tricky words just to make it a little more challenging, but they did pretty well, since many were close to the right number of words and Fer  said almost the exact right one. 

Then…  🥁 🥁  We arranged  the class into two big teams then, we said and showed a phrase to  the first person in the row, they had to pass it whispering  all the way to the last person, who would say it out loud. It was pretty funny to hear all of their twists and it was also very  nice to see everyone participating, having fun and being very invested in the game, just like kids. 🥹🥹

6. Their team presented activities for speaking purposes. I liked their ideas on controversial topics very much. I think we all have opinions so this is a nice trigger for a class. I also love the fact that teachers can become participants on this topic too and that creates rapport. They had us talking first with our peers, so we could share some ideas and take courage before talking before the whole class. That makes it even more collaborative and I liked that. 

7. The seventh group was made up of them, and presented activities for reading. First, they gave us all some pieces of paper with a short reading in it. It was about a group of friends and their summer vacations in Paris. They asked us some questions like in trivia,  and we would raise our hands to answer. Then, we played hot potato! We also  read a longer  and more complex article on the  Spanish Flu,  for five minutes and then they played some music as we passed the hot potato. Whenever  the music stopped, we would unwrap the ball and answer the question. 

8. The last group presented on writing activities. Number one activity was to write down some sentences taking our names as a base. In my case: NATHY I came up with this one:

Never give up!

All your dreams will come true 

Times get though 

However, you’re totally capable 

You rock! 😎

Then, we did an activity like the ones Jim Falcon does, when he is given some random words based on categories, and then he writes down whatever he thinks of. This was a very interesting thing to do. I am pretty sure that kids would feel super excited to let their imagination fly. 

So this was my summary for our very last class of this semester. I feel incredibly proud of ourselves and of you teacher Orlando. I admire you so much and I just know that I have learned so many things. These have been vivid and memorable classes. I loved blogging and getting to see “through my classmates’ eyes” by reading their insights too. It is very rewarding and emotional to know that we are at this point of the major and that you always taught us with great dedication. 

Thank you dear readers as well, you were my inspiration to sit down every week, and write down  ✍🏼 a bunch  of paragraphs. 😂🫶🏼