Self-reflection

 

For my class I taught about Colombia and the use of the verb “gustar” to describe things that are pleasing and the conjugation of the verb for first, second and third person, by the end of class students should be able to recognize when to use the verb “gustar” and how to conjugate the verb, additionally they learned a little bit about Colombia and its people, it’s main cities, places they can visit and some activities they can do while they are there.

I started my class with a little warm up asking the students about their knowledge about Colombia, I was prepared to hear some stereotypes, but some learners surprised me with things about sports and music, I was really pleased. Then, I introduce the country and how is divided in 32 "departamentos” or states, also I introduced some national symbols such as the flag (this slide was great to practice the colors), coat of arms, national bird, flower, etc. After that I ask my students about some holidays and celebrations that they celebrate in the US and we discussed what those holidays are about, next I introduced some vocabulary that I was going to use to describe holidays and celebrations in Colombia I did that by making them guess the meaning from context and recognize cognates, then I explained those holidays and celebrations, then I talked about some influential people from Colombia like actress, singers, Nobel prizes, etc. I also described some typical food and showed them photos of these foods.

Afterwards I talked about the main cities in Colombia and played a video about Colombia in English, I realized that I missed a big opportunity so the students can learn more vocabulary, later I introduce the verb “gustar” by explaining the grammar of it and the conjugation, then I put some pictures of activities you do in your free time and the students had to say if they like it or not by saying “me gusta… or no me gusta”, later I put pictures of places in Colombia with sentences like “me gusta el parque” so they can grasp the concept of using the verb gustar, to finish I had an activity on canvas in which they had to fill the blank the right conjugation of the verb “gustar”

I realized that I could have done things differently, for example I could have played a video in Spanish about Colombia with the subtitles in Spanish, by doing so , students would’ve had the opportunity to listen to authentic Spanish speaking people and the different accents that exist in Colombia, also the students needed more practice with the use of verb “gustar” and the indirect object pronouns and I missed the chance of them using “gustar” more, I think that it was complicated to only speak Spanish to the class without making students confused, so I switched a few times to English, specially at the food part because they didn’t know vocabulary related to food.

 

I’m proud of incorporating the culture and grammatical components of the class together, I think that students were participating actively, and they were genuinely interested in what I was saying because they were asking me questions about Colombia and what I liked to do or eat, I was trying to be very dynamic, energetic and move around the classroom.

I planned my lesson to last 40 minutes but for some sections it took more and with others took less time, I think this is because some sections were more curious than others, for instance they were asking more questions, or the pace of their participation was slower that other sections, overall, I’m pleased with how I taught my classes.