February 23rd - numbers part 2

My decision to speak English full time while in classroom has to do with making them see and notice that I am using the language to communicate with them. But what kind of thoughts would they have when notice that is not every time that communication is being effective? If communication is important in real life, why not using English when I want to communicate with them, so all the time?

This week my class with the 5th grade group was frustrating. It happens right after the recreation and everybody gets in class with a lot of energy and still willing to play. When I got there, they were playing with some cards (Free Fire cards). I asked everybody to put them into bag and immediately I felt like I had to change what I had planned. The song I had prepared was too childish.



So I decided to continue the numbers topic and gave to them a paper to fill and did not explain anything. I noticed that everybody assumed what they had to do, with no reading of the explanation, because some of them told me “There is not number 21 on this table. How can I write it?”. Then I asked them to read. I walked around the class during the whole activity. Some students still do not have a notebook specifically to the English classes and were not so concentrated while doing, sometimes walking around the class to do something that had nothing to do with the class. Kids had a very different timing – some of them did in a few minutes and even colored the flower and buttlerfly; one did not finish. I signed everybody paper and asked to stick that on their notebooks.

After this I asked everybody to stay in circle so we could play with the ball like this: we had to throw the ball to any friend at the same time we were counting. The friend who received the ball had to say the next number and so on. But every time the ball fell we had to start from number one again. The game was really bad. Kids were saying the numbers in a very low voice. They did not have patience to wait for the ball and were not focused. Before the counting get to number eight the ball used to fell. So I stopped the game and finish the class 5 minutes before the time. I told them that their concentration was really bad that day and I did not like that. But they did not seem to care a lot.

My original plan. It is not wrong. Sometimes I use the same plan for 4th and 5th grades. 


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