Lorenzo's Experiences in Arkansas

I had the opportunity to visit a special school in the United States. It was the Cherokee Immersion Charter School. This school is located in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. This school is so special because one of its objectives is to preserve Cherokee language and culture. It is a school where parents decide to send their children although they are not Cherokee blood. Also called me the attention because at the children home their parents don't speak the Cherokee language, they are going to learn the language at school. The contrary happens in the indigenous schools of my country. They receive bilingual education at schools but at home, their parents continue talking them in the indigenous dialects. They are immersed in their culture. Another thing that called me the attention is that the school has their own curriculum department that creates and prints all the necessary documents and books in Cherokee language. It is very nice to see how they preserve a culture ...

This week we had the opportunity to attend to the formal presentations given by our Brazilian colleagues. All of their presentations were interesting and helpful. It also seemed to me that they had prepared themselves in a professional manner and reached the exact points. All the presentations were interesting but I was struck by 2 topics, the one about the Plickers application to make evaluation fun and effective and the other about the use of Instagram in English classes. These topics made me reflect on the correct use of online applications for the benefit of education.

Last week, I had my second micro teaching presentation, this opportunity about grammar. I used as a topic the present progressive. First I presented a short song about the topic, to elicit my students to have an idea about the topic they were going to receive. After that, I used flashcards to show them the action words using the "ing" with the verb. I asked them "what are you doing?", they answered, " I am .......". Finally, we played a bingo game using the flash cards and bingo cards. This game was so challenging to me because I had to restructure this game in order to fit with the topic. But the biggest challenge for me was the time to develop these activities, it was seven minutes. I received my evaluation with pleasure because my evaluator did not focus first on the negative points of the presentation. First, she made a positive feedback on all the positive parts and then, she told me what I can change or made in a different way for better developmen...

Last week we had the topic of assessment and evaluation. Now I am more clear about their meanings. I understood assessment as the observation of students in the process of learning, the collection of frequent feedback on students learning that can help to provide information about students' learning. Evaluation uses methods and measures with grades to judge students' learning and understanding. Now that I am more clear about assessment and evaluation,  it can help me to increase my students' motivation and show them how well they have learned the language.

This week my partners and me had the opportunity to share information about our country to a group of university students from the University of Arkansas. They were very excited when they  realized that they were going to know information of a new place to them. I felt very proud of myself when I answered all the questions that they had about my country, questions about culture, way of living, education, government and other. But my favorite moment was when I stood in front of them and explained all about the Congo dance, the dance that I had performed last Sunday at the international dance night. They were very interested in the way of dancing and the clothing I wore that night. I was an exciting experience because I realized that I could express my ideas in a clear form that they can understand. 

Hi friends, during this week we had 2 sessions with Dr. Lanier and one of her questions was What characteristics I want that my students remember about me? She left us with that reflection question but before I answer this question I want to mention what positive and negative characteristics I remembered from my teachers and professors.  Let's begin with the negative characteristics; I had a teacher that wasn't ordered in her activities. One day she started an activity and at the next day she started another without finishing the first one. I also had a teacher that wasn't punctual with the delivery of evaluations. Those characteristics were very negative. The positive characteristic of the other teachers were active, punctual, and the best was Ms. Carmen, my best English teacher, she helped me and my classmates in the improvement of the target language helping us after classes without any extra payment, she did it because she loved to teach. How I want that my stu...

Hello, last Wednesday we had our first evaluation, the Pre-reading activities presentation. I felt so interested and encouraged in the creation of these activities because I never have practiced them in class. These pre-reading activities help our students to have a previous idea of what is going to be presented. My colleagues  and me had good pre-reading activities that  we can put in work when we arrive to our classrooms. I personally going to practice these activities to make my reading classes more enjoyable.

Hi friends, this week I want to write about games in class. I think that games can be helpful in class because students are not going to be boring in classes and also they can develop or put in practice some skills. Games in class can be applied in all levels from small kids to adults. Doing games in class also I can learn from my students abilities and also I can observe if they need some reinforcement in any topic. Also I can mention that we can change or vary from the original game to one that fit with our students depending of the age, level, and environment.