Diary of a Trainee Teacher: Week 8 (21st to 23rd Mar)

I feel overcome by a bunch of feelings. I am filled with melancholy and sadness because my training period at IES La Nucia came to its end; another period of my life that I am leaving behind… But at the same time I am filled with spirit, courage, personal satisfaction and excitement. It has been a wonderful opportunity worth experiencing it and I am confident I have taken the most of it.

Here I leave you a few stories that happened during these last three days before Easter holidays.

Top 1 Story:

Kahoot in 1st BACH. This activity was aimed at reviewing the topics students had learnt so far, from unit 1 to unit 6. We used a game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn, Kahoot.

I created a Kahoot called “Pre-Easter Review 1st BACH” (see image below). And I added 30 multiple choice questions (some of them supported by images or video clips). Type of questions combined grammar skills, vocabulary skills, reading skills, general culture, and miscellaneous. 

How was the activity organized?

1. Teacher accesses his/her Kahoot account and projects the screen using the projector. 
2. Teacher gives instructions and rules.
3. Students take out their smartphones and enable Internet connection.
4. A link is written on the board and students enter it. (https://kahoot.it)
5. A game PIN is written on the board and students enter this code into the first screen.
6. Students add their nicknames.

At this point we are ready to kick off the activity. 5 minutes were required to go through the steps above.

In conclusion, the activity developed extremely well and had an incredible response from students. They were so excited that they finished the 30 questions and asked to start all over again. As we reached the end of the class, they did not want to stop, begging to go faster in order to finish another 30 questions. It was amazing!!! The bell rang and they remained on their sits, then the teacher said a few gratitude words to me and I received a warm applause from the group. I was on cloud nine! :-)

It was incredibly pleasing and satisfying to see how students were learning the contents without them being aware of it, and also they were having a lot of fun!

On top of that, did you know that Kahoot can provide performance reports and statistics that help the teacher monitor the results? It's great! Here is a copy…

Kahoot Results (click to view the Excel file)

Despite all, I believe this tool may be limited to certain levels and groups. For example, it would probably not work in younger ages because the majority lack of Internet connection on their smartphones. When this is the case (like in our INTEGRA class), you can substitute the projector by reading questions aloud, the phone by a piece of paper and a pen, and scoreboard is drawn on the board (see image).

Top 2 Story:
Dancing Zumba in INTEGRA. It was the last day of the term, 8 o'clock, only 3 girls showed up in class. And they proposed to do some exercise dancing Zumba. So they set up the pc, played some youtube tutorials, and the four of us started moving our hips while the teacher was working on his papers (and having some laughs, of course!) :D

Later that day, families were received by tutors who handed out the report cards (boletín de notas). At 1 o'clock some teachers met down the street to have a few drinks and lunch.

And that was all... I can't believe two months have just flown by.

On the one hand, students beg me not to go. And on the other hand, I don't want to go.  So... I WILL COME BACK!! I am willing to continue going to certain sessions and prepare different activities and tasks, time permitting. So far, my tutor and I have planned that I will lead the 1 BACH sessions on Reporting Speech on April 18th and 19th. Sounds cool!

Bye for now and HAPPY EASTER!!