WEEK 7 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

Monday 20th, March

On Monday I was busy upstairs preparing my lesson plan and so on.

Tuesday 21st, March

Group 09B (B2.2):
Room 15. This is the only group that Ramón Antón, EOI headmaster, teaches during this academic year. I was observing this class for my very first time and here is what it happened. My master's colleague Begoña Lavale is mentored by Ramón and so, part of today's teaching was carried out by her.

Group 11B: 

My lesson plan (16/24 SS.) / DAY 1 (2h) / Pages 98-

First of all, I had planned several warming-up questions to ask to my ss. about their sports habits. For instance: 

• Do you do any sport?
• How do you feel afterwards?
• How many times a week?
• Do you prefer to do it indoors or outdoors?

As they had already met me, we connected pretty much and a nice speaking time was shared about their experiencies beyond the classroom. Also, to contrast their personal opinions to someone else's, I asked for a volunteer to read the quotation by Stuart Heritage, a British journalist (p. 98):

"Runners run because they like running, joggers jog because they like cake." 

I wanted to lead them to a brief debate on motivation and activate their previous knowledge.

Then, I guided them to focus on the lesson's title: "A good sport" and we discussed together about its meaning (a person who is cheerful and pleasant, especially in a difficult situation). 

Taking into account only the headlines of the text "Battle of Workouts", we could practise pronunciation of the most fashionable sports nowadays: circuits, pilates, spinning, squash, step, tennis, weights, and yoga.

Without reading, just looking at the pictures and ss. tried to guess whether the statements from activity b) on page 99 were true or false. The results were highly positive in general terms.

The second part of my session was dedicated to grammar. As I decided to approach to it deductively, I told my ss. to explain what they alredy knew about relative clauses in English and complete the exercise a) on page 100. After 5 minutes of individual thinking and a couple of them more of pair "cheating" (comparison in couples), we checked it aloud and I taught them further. The following aspects had never been introduce at B2.2 level, so they were complete new for them:

• WHICH to refer to a whole preceding clause, adding more information.
• Quantifiers, numbers, superlatives + OF + Which / whom / whose [NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES]4
• WHAT used as a relative pronoun to mean 'the thing' or 'things which'.

We read together the examples on page 159 and activities a) and b) were mandatory homework for next day with me. 

The closing activity was aimed at improving their writing, patience, and promote their creativity. In order to have everything prepared in advance, I went to the classroom much earlier than ss. and moved the tables in groups of four. Furthermore, I had printed six famous paintings the day before and I left them in the middle of each team with a post-it on them with two relative pronouns. 

Ss. had to make up a story about the painting and introduce it to the audience as if they were guides in a museum. I took us between 15 and 20 minutes and they created really good stories.  

These were the pictures I gave them, all of them taken from Creative Commons:

  

 

To conclude, I let 5 minutes left for doubts.

Thursday 23rd, March

After greeting my ss., we started the session correcting the exercises they had as homework about relative clauses and completing the article (a) on the worksheet I photocopied and handed in as an extra practice paper (p. 181 from the Teacher's book). 

On the one hand, we worked on word building: adjectives - nouns - verbs related to sports and health on page 99, activities a, b, and c.

On the second hand, ss. were requiered to read the information box about homographs on page 100 and match the suitable pronunciation to their corresponding definition at the exercise below (a).

When we were about to finish, Roge suggested that they watch or read the news during the weekend and then, next Tuesday retell the others an interesting or shocking piece of news.

Miss Bacaicoa

WEEK 5 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

Monday, 6th March

I was studying at the PC ROOM because they continued with EOI EXAMS.

Tuesday, 7th March

Today, I was attending and grading oral exams from Group 11B (B2.2). I asked Roge for his personal template to attach it to this post and show you how we were grading our ss. 

Thursday, 9th March

Group 9B:

Brief activity on the modal verb CAN/CAN'T.

#EMPATHYISTHEKEY ✌

"Are you happy with your exam?"

The teacher handed in their corrected exams, and also answered and commented aloud some repeated mistakes he had observed when marking. (15')

Those people not able to come to class today and want to see their exams must go to Tutoría any Friday (9.10AM to 10AM), it is not necessary to make an appointment. Otherwise, in case they ask for it during the following class, the teacher only will tell them their grades on each skill. 

TEAM WORK: 4 people worksheet in Spanish. 

• "Dile a tu compañero que..."
• "Pregúntale a tu compañero si..."
• "Pregúntale a tu compañero..." + WH- words (when, who, why, where, how, what)

Roge was walking around and checking grammar mistakes. Next day, ss. will have to translate into the target language all their proposals.

Group 11B:

Today's session was divided into two sections mainly aimed at working on their enhancing their knowledge on common money issues orally. On the one hand, throughout the classbook, but also activating their previous contact with slang and English-speaking cultures.

As you already know, a huge number of PROVERBS are shared with this group and collected in a document in personal Drive. 

TEXTBOOK - Vocabulary about money (page 106): budget, fare, fee, grant, savings, loan, instalment, deposit, will, lumpsum, etc.

SPEAKING. There is a section about money in today's society, where some expressions are marked in bold and the teacher motivated them to define on their own words: consumer society, standard of living, inflation, cost of living, in debt, mortgage, shares, stock market.

They read aloud the following opposite terms from a Thesaurus, including samples in  context.

1. Rich > affluent, wealthy, loaded, well-off
2. Poor > broke, penniless (literary), hard up

And also, they discussed about slang used in the USA and the UK in order to refer to banknotes.

• Bucks: dollars.
• Quid: pound/s.
• Five grand: 5,000 pounds.

Miss Bacaicoa

WEEK 4 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

😐Confidentiality notice! I am not allowed to write about the exam contents. Therefore, my work this week will be limited to the tests' description and timing.

Monday, 27th February

The first thing I did in the morning was reading the PEC (Proyecto Educativo de Centro), at the computers room, in order to analyse it and to reach a closer knowledge of the school organisation. It is considered to be a part of the PRACTICUM II. But, until the time to go downstairs for the Group 11A (A2.1) arrived, I also surfed on Conselleria’s website.

EOI EXAMS TODAY: Reading, and listening comprehension. Writing expression.

At 11:10h, the everyday starting time, our students started to arrive. However, the back door was not locked until 11:30h, then they had to begin with the reading exercise (T/F statements), and listening (consisting of 2 parts that they could listen 3 times each, all of them with a 30 seconds break in between). 

Exactly at 11:50h, the teacher announced they had to hand in their exams so to continue with their compositions on the second half of the session. The finish time establish was 12:55h. During this period of exams all the A2 levels at the school are given extra time to do the exams, if it is compared to official certifications in May/June. 

Also, was correcting 6 compositions from another group (9A), afterwards, Roge revised my checking and gave me some piece of advice and guides.

#WOW 👀

The evaluation criteria concerning the minimum grade considered so to pass is set as follows: 6/10, that is to say, ss. need at least a 6 over 10. It might seem restrictive or unfair, but Cambridge or Trinity official exams are graded from 70% (7) upwards.  

Tuesday, 28th February

Group 11B:

EOI EXAM TODAY: Reading comprehension (evaluated over 28 points, min. 17 to pass). 

11:15h We waited for 30’ until the listening was played twice). There were two texts with their corresponding tasks (on the one hand, to match headings to paragraphs, and on the other hand, to complete the missing phrases into gaps).

12:15h Listening comprehension (correction over 12/20).
Instructions were heared from the class' laptop, not from the teacher. Ss. had 1 minute and 30 seconds to read the statements, then the listening was repeated twice. They had 2 more minutes to review. As well as the previous skill, there were also 2 short tasks in order to check their level of understanding (statements T/F, 5 multiple-choice questions).

Wednesday, 1st March

For the first hour, as well as the last, I was at the PC room upstairs working on my blog. 

Group 11A:

11:15h EOI EXAM TODAY: Oral expression (monologues). Monologues based on a description. Mainly, ss. were requiered to make basic short sentences, and to use connectors studied such as "and", "but" or "because". Roge and I gave them a card prepared and laminated in advance in which there was a photo and listed information about a person. For 10 minutes they were isolated and able to prepare a brief mind index, it was not permited at all to take notes or write anything. When we called them in pairs, they could have their cards in front of them just in case but under no circumstance go and read it literally.

Thursday, 2nd March

Today, I also decided to be on the computers room making a summary of the activities observed so far. 

Group 11B:

11:10h EOI EXAM TODAY: Written expression.
Prompt: “Choose one of the following options (A or B). Write 180-210 words. Write only the specified number of words (+/- 10%). Otherwise, you will be penalised.” 

I met my tutor individually for the last half an hour to share my impressions on the exams week.

Miss Bacaicoa

WEEK 3 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

Tuesday, 21st February

Group 9B:

THEORY. MODAL VB can/can’t expressing permission and possibility (the teacher focused on the importance of rhythm, stress, and their pronunciation). So far, they know CAN as an auxiliary verb, and they learnt that it is always stressed in negative: can (/kən/), can’t (/kɑːnt/), “Yes you can!” (/kæn/).

Worksheet: this is for homework but they can help each other; ss. will have to correct the mistakes in real sentences that have been taken from their own errors by the teacher.

Teamwork: in groups of 4 (one exception, a couple), the teacher handed in a big photocopy (A3) with a photo of a man and several columns to write about his personal details, hobbies, week habits, etc. discussing them with the group. Rather than to elaborate a composition, ss. were asked to write down unconnected sentences and make agreements with their colleagues. Afterwards in part 2, a composition will be required and checked by the teacher.

Group 11B:

Warming up. First of all, ss. checked aloud some listening tasks about compound adjectives, hey had done last Thursday 16^th in class, with the teacher’s help. The new items introduced that I found the most interesting were: hands-free, dead-end, feel-good, ground-breaking, high-pitch.

SPEAKING. In the 21st Century, it is more and more demanded, it not compulsed, to be able to perform a speech in front of an audience. The chosen topic this week was a thirty-days challenge I would like to do (First, volunteers performed, ACTUALLY ONLY 2 PEOPLE DID IT; after each exposition, Roge gave them some feedback). Individually and choosing if they wanted to speak standing up or not.

#PIECEOFADVICE 💭

Students were encouraged to google it and find about EOI Pinto (in Madrid) to extra practice. This website offers online exercises from the English Department. It was intended to listen together an audio about "setting up a company" and then a comprehension activity (attached below this paragraph), but the listening was not working due to a fail on the access to Internet.

We did not work on the following PHOTOCOPY but it was handed in to ss. in order to keep a summary of modal verbs used to make recommendations.

TEAM WORK: “How to survive…” 
They had to write 3 FOR & 3 AGAINST reasons for the following situation (page 55): there is a couple whose parents-in-law are going to stay with them for two weeks, decide whether it would be better to accommodate them at home or at a hotel. 

Afterwards, they were sharing aloud their opinions and a debate was created. Then, moving from big groups into pairs, they spoke again about the same issue, this time just giving one advantage and one disadvantage for each option.

Wednesday, 22nd February

Group 9A: 
First of all, they checked together “My favourite mistakes” worksheet. 

INDIVIDUAL WRITING. Character poster PART 2, Roge had already corrected their errors at home so, they received their unconnected info (sentences) corrected and also, the teacher had chosen the best (with less grammar mistakes) and photocopy sample for everyone to distribute. 

All of them have the same story now, in order to write a composition and practice for the exam next week. Three paragraphs were required. 

To make it easier, Roge prepared a lined sheet in which they were obliged to write in the pair lines as the even numbers were reserved for corrections. Linkers to use at least once: and but, or, before, after, when, because.

Group 9B: 

They did exactly the same as 9A. I realised that the total of students is 24, and only 3 out of them are men.

Thursday, 23rd February

Group 11B:
TEXTBOOK - Vocabulary (page 150). 
They started the lesson checking an exercise (fill in the gaps with the correct preposition) on collocations (adj + prep). E.g. addicted to, fed up with, dependent on, open to, sick of, hooked on, proud of, keen on, obsessed with, helpful to.

#WOW :)

As they are so talkative, different conversations were coming up out of the blue and thus, new chances to interact and speak.

Listening (about addictions): First, some new vocabulary, their accurate pronunciation, as well as their Spanish equivalents were introduce to ss. E.g. dopamine, to quit a substance or a behaviour, withdrawal symptoms, to wear sb. Of sth., to go cold turkey, a life-threatening condition, nicotine patches, to have councelling, to have a relapse. Second, listen to the recording twice.

Speaking closing activity. 

This activity was really helpful for ss. to use and distinguish between QUESTION TAGS (which can be affirmative or negative, and ECHO or confirmation QUESTIONS (affirmative/affirm. with auxiliary verb). They walked around the classroom to ask their classmates and then, they shared the funniest answers with the whole group and Roge. I think it would be an easy and enjoyable activity to implement in high levels at the same time that ss. get to know each other and create a pleasant learning atmosphere.

Miss Bacaicoa

WEEK 2 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

On Monday 6th I had an important company meeting and that was reason why I began my second week at EOI on Tuesday, 7th February.

As you can imagine, the first group in the morning was 9B (level A2.1). They are going to develop a LIBRARY PROJECT in which volunteers will buy a buy a book adapted to this level (it costs around 6 or 6.5 euros) and then on summer holidays, they will be able to swap them are keep reading new books.

Because of the importance of wh- questions and establishing word order in the English language, the teacher started the session with some activities included in the GRAMMAR BANK (at the end of the textbook) to reinforced what they had already studied. They also practised common verb phrases on page 41.

Today's plan for the SPEAKING section was to reorganise tables from their original classroom (17), but as we had to move to a different room (1) due to technological problems, it was impossible to do so.

In order to conclude the session, ss. were encouraged to participate first, using some questions about free time on page 83 as samples for breaking the ice, and then answering them down so to ask their partners afterwards.

#FOODFORTHOUGHT 💭

Today, I have reflected by observing on the use of L1 in the SL teaching. For example, my tutor always gives instructions to beginners in their L1 (normally Spanish or Valencian), and then he repeats the same prompts in the SL/FL several. 

This fact, made me think of a dear UA professor who taught me Linguistics some years ago, Dr. Mar Galindo, and who was such an expert researcher on this topic. If you do not know her studies, you can find some of them online, but also in her doctoral thesis, named La Lengua Materna en el Aula de ELE applied to teaching Spanish as a FL.

Group 11B:

On the one hand, about 15 or 20 minutes were dedicated to discuss about the series The Five, recommended to ss. last week by Roge. On the other hand, the most relevant textbook issues they were dealing with today were: 

- GRAMMAR: unreal uses of past tenses (on page 49), making hypotheses by using expressions such as “You’d better…” “I’d rather…” “It’s (about/high) time to…” “I wish..." "If only..."

- VOCABULARY: idioms about money (on page 50).

What do they love and give them cultural backgrounds? PROVERBS! Roge knows this group eagerness for achieving more fluency and therefore, from time to time he is adding sayings to their repertoires. And I am learning a lot of them as well!

Wednesday, 8th February 

1ST YEAR A2 LEVEL (Group 9A) - From 9 am to 10:53 am

1ST YEAR A2 LEVEL (Group 11A) - From 11:10 am to 1 pm

Group 9A & Group 11A: 

We were back to Room 17 and today's both sessions were started by Roge who was in charge of explaining object pronouns. He drew a table on the whiteboard in order to review subject pronouns firstly. Then, ss. listened to him and repeated all together as a choir. Ss. did not have to copy anything because the contents were included in their books. As homework, they had a photocopy about object pronouns. 

For the next hour and half, my fellow Alba Díaz was teaching several topics: months, ordinal numbers, and dates (on pages 44 and 45). 

I was the responsible of giving the same lesson plan in the second group (11A), however our teaching lines were different because we were free to decide our methods, procedures, and materials to do so. I had experienced teaching a large beginner group of adults before so, it was a gratifying and relax time for me.

Thursday, 9th February 

Group 9B:
Today, the classroom changed again because, my colleague Rocío Soriano was teaching (the same points as Alba and I did on Wednesday) and she had decided to follow the textbook listening exercises and videos.

Group 11B:

Roge started by checking grammar homework (unreal uses of past tenses), and ss. learnt the differences between “I’ve gone” and “I’ve been”.

SPEAKING time: the topic was relaxation (on page 53). Firstly, ss. looked at the pictures and tried to guess by inventing (there were five photos of different people from which the only available information was name, age, and nationality: Who is the most stress? Why?) Then, they watched a video (the five candidates were interview in the street about their chilling habits) once, and then looked at the scripts on page 133. As a consequent step connected to the video, we practised some colloquial English phrases such as: drown out, kind of, stressing me out a bit, or so. 

Mrs Bacaicoa

WEEK 1 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

This post will be a summary of my very first day at EOI as a language assistant. I decided to start the day after the Welcome session, February 2nd, and get to know my Rogelio's groups. His schedule planned for Thursdays is going to be the following:

Room 17

1ST YEAR A2 LEVEL (Group 9B) - From 9 am to 10:53 am

1ST YEAR B2 LEVEL (Group 11B) - From 11:10 am to 1 pm

Materials:
All the English students use the textbook by Oxford University Press (OUP) NEW ENGLISH FILE, graded according to their level (beginner, elementary, etc.). Apart from the book, students (ss. from now on) also bought a workbook for extra practice and a small booklet containing the answer key. 

A big poster with a highly visual phonemic chart (International Phonemic Alphabet) mixed with pictures was attached next to the whiteboard because from the very starting day at EOI, ss. are introduced to and aimed at using and recognising how sounds are pronounced.

Classroom management:

Ss. seat freely in tables of 6 people. 

Group 9B:

The teacher introduced me an some of my fellows who were also in the classroom to the ss. Then, the first 10' were dedicated to review some doubts from the previous units (1-6) they had studied (e.g. how to tell the time, auxiliary verbs such as do and to be, or phonics). 

Afterwards, they started Lesson 7 whose topic is "Free Time". I have to say, that even though my tutor is a very enthusiastic professional, I was surprised by and do not totalle agree with the traditional types of activities contained in the textbook, such as matching, fill in the gaps, etc.

Group 11B:

I liked the way ss. in this group introduced themselves to me, they love talking and practising, not worried at all about making mistakes or passing official exams for getting certifications and so, made them feel more free and relax during the lessons.

To start with, all the class checked together some errors on mini-writings they had uploaded to an online platform called "Today's meet", which was totally new for me. The theme was sharing how each of them gets relaxed. In order to fulfill this assignment, they had a few examples you can read on the right.

Also, they had a dialogue as homework but as they had not done it, the teacher decided to ask hem for something new on spot. The task was planned for small teams in which ss. discussed about "Do's and Don'ts of being an English teacher"  for 5 minutes, and then me their pieces of advice. 

The teacher ended the session with 3 different listening activities to reinforce their aural comprehension abilities focused on the linking consonants in short phrases. The first and the second exercises were from the text book (for instance, recognising pick it up, not at all, first of all, in an hour, on our own). The last one was a real First Certificate in English (FCE) sample that I will show you in the photo below:

Roge read carefully the instructions and tips before playing the recording. There were 7 multiple-choice questions (choose A, B, or C). And for next Thursday, they will have to hand in a book review.

Have a nice weekend :)

Miss Bacaicoa

I'M BACK

Hello, my readers!

Last Wednesday I began with my internship at Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (EOI, from now on) in Elche (Alicante, Spain). 

I dare to confess that I was really nervous and overexcited about this new adventure, though I had already taught adults I could have never imagined how this worked as far as the state service. Thus, it was my first time at the EOI and it really exceeded my expectations.

At the hall, my tutor (Rogelio Tarí) received me with a warm welcome and guided me to his classroom (number 17), where some other fellows were seating. 

Firstly, he introduced himself, and summarised how the school works. Then, the centre manager (Ramón Antón) came as well and both together informed us about the possibilities to establish our own schedules for the training period. 

We should finish by April, 7th, having completed a minimum of 100 hours (on-site) and attending meetings (teaching staff and English department). Secondly, Rogelio gave us a guided tour along the centre and introduced us to the concierge.

Finally, we culminated the reception day again with Ramón showing us the EOI website and kindly answering us some doubts.

Miss Bacaicoa