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Considering the importance of assessing needs in a course, I experienced as a Teacher many aspects in Cimmarroncitos kid’s course that helps me to think about how relevant is to meet student’s needs in a course. The course, the content of the units, the topics that the book presented were appropriate according with student’s language proficiency in each of the four skills, but the way that the book presents some of the activities was bored for them.
So, this experienced I lived with these kids help me to think that is essential to assess students in order to get information that will help to develop and make better decisions about the course in order to accomplish course purposes. As a consequence I create my own package of support materials that help me to create new enjoyable activities for young learners.
Know days getting students to read their textbooks is hard. Getting them to read books just for the sheer pleasure of reading is especially harder since kids just don’t seem to be interested in reading these days. Gone are the days when kids curled up with a nice little book when it was too hot to play outside. Today, students spend any free time they have watching TV, tinkering with their mobile phones or playing video games. For this reason I adapt the two books in a blog-page as a interactive material.
Know days getting students to read their textbooks is hard. Getting them to read books just for the sheer pleasure of reading is especially harder since kids just don’t seem to be interested in reading these days. Gone are the days when kids curled up with a nice little book when it was too hot to play outside. Today, students spend any free time they have watching TV, tinkering with their mobile phones or playing video games. For this reason I adapt the two books in a blog-page as a interactive material

Reflection
Elaborating teaching materials sometimes is not too cheap but we have to consider that if we are going to elaborate our material is worth to spend a little money because this must resist our and our student’s hands. This time I did not spend too much I used: hard paper (papel cascarón), contact paper, markers, scissors, a cutter and a plastic box. This material can be used at any level because all the numbers can be formed.

Reflection
Elaborating teaching materials sometimes is not too cheap but we have to consider that if we are going to elaborate our material is worth to spend a little money because this must resist our and our student’s hands. This time I did not spend too much I used: hard paper (papel cascarón), contact paper, markers, scissors, a cutter and a plastic box. This material can be used at any level because all the numbers can be formed.

hey hye como batallan con esoo o que ????

reflection

hey .. ya tengo mi trabajo , solo quiero que me corrijan mi gramatica, para despues madandarlo va !!!! au revoir

I enjoyed creating the materials for the students in French I. It is very gratifying to know students have learned through my ideas and materials created. I have discovered that there has to be a specific plan for designing the materials and how they will be used, and to always keep in mind all the “what if’s”. What if the students do not like group work or are shy while standing in front of the class, etc. To avoid this from happening, knowing the class, the students and the course book helps tremendously. One should not be discouraged if the idea or purpose is not met. Instead, one should always remember materials created can sometimes be unsuccessful and learn from that experience. These circumstances just makes it more of a challange.

la la la la la la la!~!

Designing and elaborating material can be a toughie. Through the process of designing, I found out that, we as teachers, do not have to just make up something to fill in class time. It needs to be well-thought and, most of all, have a clear picture in our head of what the purpose for designing such material. Pedagogic material can be seemed as easy, but it does require a great amount of thinking what you want to do, when do you need it for, how will you elaborate it, and what resources are available to you. Once you know what is it that you want to do, then you begin on the hands-on part of the project. In my case, I had to go purchase the materials once I knew what I wanted to do, then I had organize the materials I needed once I got them; there was a lot of cutting and pasting, wrapping, folding, drawing, writing, marking, and storing of the material once finished. Like I said before, designing and elaborating material may seem like a burden, nevertheless, it will enrich your class as you become a better teacher and help your students become better learners.

RESULTS EVALUATION
I presented this activity in the four second grade groups I give classes to. The students made a real effort to work in teams, they were very much involved in the activity, they participated actively and produced overall good sentences. Some small mistakes were made, mostly by missing the article “the” and in isolated cases misplacing a word. The corrections were made by other students who came to the board and rearranged the word order, but they were minimal. Overall the activity was very successful, the students worked in a cooperative atmosphere, the environment in class was relaxed and fun, but at the same time they worked together in a very positive way.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
As I was developing this activity, I first started by selecting the words, I changed the list several times, living what I considered to be most useful ones. After that, I printed them in white paper sheets, but then decided that it would be best to separate the words by color, so I printed them again but now using color sheets: blue for the furniture, yellow for the parts of the house, grey for the prepositions, and beige for the verb to be and the article “the”. In total I printed 44 words for each of the three teams, a total of 132 cards.. After that I stared to cover each card with “contact paper”, but then decided to do it differently because it was taking a lot of time. Then I would put groups of 20 cards down in the contact paper, first by one side, and then the other and finally separating them by carefully cutting each card, this process alone took more 4 hours. I had a lot of help from my children; my husband and my grandma who helped me make special boxes with six divisions in each, to put the cards in to form the sentences.

This activity was meaningful and successful because it meet its purpose: to review and consolidate the acquired knowledge in a fun and interactive activity in which the students can work together and help each other in a relaxed atmosphere where they are willing to demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge and at the same time acquire social competences by working in teams in an organized and tolerant way.

This subject made me conscientious of the advantages teaching materials can have while teaching a second language. For me, it was difficult learning second level Italian and lacking in supporting materials to be used in class. I was convinced on how critical the use of teaching support materials can be, for example printed material like: flashcards, wall charts, audio visual materials and audios to listen in class. These kinds of materials make it easier for the teacher to work in the classroom; creating the ideal environment to teach in the context of the target language. The materials also allow students to understand the meaning of the new vocabulary immediately, in addition to giving students the opportunity to practice the new language. We are a lucky generation, because of all the excellent materials that famous researchers like Penny Ur, Cunningsworth, Ellington and many others who have contributed to education and teachers; they constructed the way and we should take advantage of their hard work.

Noé Régules Flores.

I can say that the most diffcult part of designing the material was knowing what kind of material would help me with my student’s needs. It was like ‘ok I have this problem, but hmm… what kind of material would be best for them?’ so I thought a game is always fun and they might learn without knowing. The good thing about this idea is that I found this excelent book about Language Teaching games. So I read this book and I took one of their ideas and designed my own. I mean, I learned that theory helps a lot when designing a material, because I could have just make the board game, but what would I have done with it? I mean I’m sure I could have figure something out, instead I applied what I learned, to have clear rules and instructions, the type of competitions I was generating, etc.

What I liked about my group is that we did not have a coursebook, therefore I had the freedom of selecting everything from everywhere, a little bit of this a little bit of that, and ofcourse mantaining the communicative approach.

I enjoyed making this board game on Corel Draw which is a designing software, I think that this software made my material a lot cheaper, since I only designed it and I went to a printer shop to print it out. Although it was time consuming making all the design. But I know it’s worth the money and the time.

With my visual materials I had so much fun, because I was coloring, cutting and creating, and I want to share something here that all my family memebers and friends helped out. I was so frustated at the beggining not knowing what to do, and a friend had the idea of a board game, and I said ‘hey, I was actually thinking that’ so he helped me to develop my idea, and the coloring drawings, cutting, and driving to the store, I was very happy to have their help and companionship. I think that this project helped me to find ways to do something useful out of something simple and to know that no matter how time consuming you might think it is you can always ask for some help and you will always get it.

I hope that everyone had a chance to be helped and to learn something good from this experience.

Well reflection, but I needed to see the material. it was a shame that you couldn´t share it with the group.