It has been an effective lesson as I could notice
students’ active involvement and desire to speak. Most of them raised their
hands and asked their own questions as the video we watched offered ideas and
inquiries as well as fun. During the lesson there was a slight change in the
sequence of plan. The language focus was carried out before expected as a
couple of students noticed that the sentences they were given to read had “two
verbs, one in the present and the other like in the past” (student’ sic). The
previous day we worked on the changes a fictional city suffered and students
described the way it looked in the past and the way it is nowadays. So, when
the lesson began I reminded students of the two cities and asked them the
following question: “In your opinion, what has happened? (making reference to a
space left between the two pictures). Later, every time a student shared a
“human action” I asked him/her if it was performed in the past and if we
stopped doing it or if we continued doing it. Finally, I elicited from students
the fact that there are actions that we did in the past but still have an
effect in the present. Students participated actively because they felt they
discovered how to use and frame this new item of language.
As far as formative assessment to monitor learners’
progress is concerned, several aspects were considered so as to engage students
in an active participation and productive language skills. Each student was
given the time to read the slips of paper, match them and think of the
consequences individually. I have two students who feel threatened when they
have to speak in front of the class, so they generally write what they are
planning to say before exposing themselves and their ideas. Besides, different
interaction patterns were used so that students could think on their own but
also enrich their beliefs with their partners’ ideas in order to build up the information
together. For example, after watching the video, students were given some
minutes to think of some questions individually. After that, they discussed
their thoughts in small groups and finally they shared their ideas as a whole
class. They thought individually, they discussed in small groups and finally
they shared to the classroom. In the end, traffic lights were used so that
students evaluated their own understanding of the topic. Through this
self-evaluation technique I could gather information regarding the student’s
feelings in relation to the language item. Most of them agreed that the content
was not difficult but that they needed more time and activities to process it
since they felt like “yellow”. Only two students demanded a new explanation
because they couldn’t grasp the idea of the lesson and other seven students
gave “green light” to the lesson because they felt confident enough to use
present perfect to talk about human impact on the environment.
