Bringing fun to the classroom

Again, things are going well in the classroom. I am struggling with one of my 2ESO classes though because the students do not listen to the other teacher or me when we ask them to be quiet or when we are talking, but it's something I am working on.

This past week I had a lot of fun with my lessons and tried to add activities to make them more fun. My favorite lesson by far was with my older students, 4ESO. The head teacher told me that every other week I must do a specific unit activity from a workbook that will prepare the students for their final exam (usually writing,reading, speaking and listening), but that the other weeks I can do anything I want as long as it focuses on the students' speaking and listening skills.

So, as I was thinking of things we could do I remembered that the teachers said sometimes they watch episodes of FRIENDS in their classes. I decided that the students should act out scenes from friends. I found two scenes from two different episodes (for the FRIENDS fans: The one where Mr. Heckles dies and The one where Chandler doesn't like dogs). I was expecting to have the 13 students that I normally get, but so many were absent this week that I only had 9 and only one was a guy, but as you know there are 3 guys in the show. No problem though, the girls were excited to play one of the guys.

We first talked about the script and what was happening in the scene then they acted it out twice and then I filmed them doing it. It was so much fun and they did a great job. I'm going to try to upload the video here (but I haven't had luck so far). It was great though.

Also this past Wed-Fri I was in Madrid for a conference for my job. All the Culture/Language assistants (from US, UK, France, Italy, Germany and China) were there from only certain regions of Spain. We were separated into groups and had a total of five different meetings pertaining to what we are doing in Spain, what the school systems are like in Spain and ideas for activities in the classroom. The last one was the only useful one, because I have already started teaching I knew all the other information. Apparently not all the schools in Spain start at the same time, some start in Oct and end in the last week of June. It was nice though because I met some other people in the region of Castilla-Leon, where I am.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend! I'm going to see a play tonight called "La vida es sueno" by Calderon de la Barca which was written during the Renaissance period and one of the more famous plays in Spain. It should be good.

Wish you all well!
Celeste