Grammar micro teaching - Joao

On August 30th we had the opportunity to present our microteaching in grammar. As usual, it was full of ideas and a good deal of sharing. I could learn some very good ways of presenting a grammar lesson, which not necessarily needs to be boring and teacher centered.
I decided to teach adjectives ending in -ed and -ing. I wanted to teach it, because I believe it will help my students in class. They are not so difficult to understand, but a bit tricky to explain.
Something I try to incorporate in class is visual aid. I believe, nowadays, people are more stimulated through this sense. Therefore it draws people attention better. I started showing pictures in which they were telling me feelings that they had in order to have an adjective related to it and what action. I tried to engage them in a small conversation, but I am aware I did not give them enough time to produce their understanding. Nevertheless, I will develop it for next class with my students and allow them have their own discussions as well model it in a better way.
As our last presentation I felt we had a pretty good week with lots of learning and sharing throughout. Indeed, it made me reflect a lot about my classes in Brazil and how I can improve them in order to engage better the students and have them mastering the language in a meningful way.
Personally, I strongly believe, I am going to reflect about my goals as teacher in my country, find ways of helping students reach those goals and keep in touch with most teachers I can in order to share our knowledge and practices.
This is exactly what took place on that day and defintely will keep me thinking about the classes I had to opportunity to watch that day as I saw many good ideas being presented.
My final reflection about this day is that keeping simple is the best way to achieve the necessary goals and for having a meaningful class for students and for myself.

joao - presentation 30th July

I could not write my first blog from the week without mentioning our presentation. It was indeed a very good one. I could watch many good ones and learn many ways of how to deliver a lesson. Learning from other teachers and different nationalities is also something that I felt it was really amazing. There were a genuine feeling of learning and sharing.
Although we are teachers for long time, something I felt very intriguing is that whenever we need to present to our peers we do feel nervous. it does not matter how much you know, we still feel anxious.
Personally I was confident about my presentation. But , I was also nervous. I believe I was able to present it and get the teachers interest as many of them came after asking about sharing it more and intending to use with their own students. I strongly believe that a connection with people is what we human beings need. Therefore, a diary written by the students and reflected with the teacher would help create this. As educators, we have contact and know about the students needs. In order to build up  rapport this is something that would develop their confidence and connection not only with school but also society. I feel somehow scared of what I have seen. Students as early as 9 neglected and unaware of any love or respect let alone connection.
In Summary, I felt very happy to be part of that presentation and lucky for  I had opportunity to learn as well as share. My proposal for a diary in english was well received by my peers and I expect to receive from some of them feedbacks about it. I truly believe in connection and sharing. This is what I believe and probably what drove me to be here at UARK

Kelly Knights Middle School - Joao

On July 25th we went to Kelly Knights Middle School in order to see how summer classes takes place. First, I had the opportunity to watch a class of Maths. As it is untill today ,the discipline I always had more difficulty, I was curious to know how it is taught nowadays. I loved it. There were two teachers working together and there were a genuine bond among them and students. They were studying average and mean, and it was just great. I am sure those students had a high level of understanding right after. The reason: student centered classes. They were also very meaningful using examples taking in their context in class. Then, they went for the second part of the class, which was using role modelling real life situation such as using a menu restaurant. As they modelled, one was the costumer and the other taking the order, charging and giving change back. The teacher provided them with money like bills and they were able to understand the situation and find the rest should they really bought something in a restaurant.
After Maths class, we went to an english one. There were three teachers because not many students showed up that day. The students were the same from previous class. They were also great there. Previously, the teacher Dr Shepper - if I'm not mistaken - told me they were students who had some kind of difficulty and were there in order to have more specific class. I could not noticed much difficult with those kinds. Instead, I was able to see kids really enjoying the class. They started discussing about a book previously read, then had a gallery walking as they produced posters based on what they learned, summarized and found the main idea.
After that, they listened to a teacher reading for them a new story called ' Walking on fire '. They were stimulated to jot down and after the teacher helped them find what the main idea was.
In the final 20 minutes they were given books about misteries and the same procedure was applied. However, they were given freedom to stay wherever they wanted as long as they continued reading. The teachers emphasized them to jot down the ideas and extract the main idea.
Professionally speaking, they were superb. I guess I would like to have had - as a child - similar classes in which freedom and responsability are part of the same learning system .
I do understand that in classes with more students , probably there would be some difficulties. Nonetheless, whenever classes are student centered those difficulties are mitigated and learning effectively takes place.

Educational System in USA and Brazil - Joao

On July 22nd we had a class with Dr Lanier about the Educational System in the USA. I was reaaly looking forward to it, as I wanted to understand the major differences here and in Brazil.
What really stands apart first is that each city and state has the right to define how their system can be. This discussion is taken in Brazil. However, all of them depend on  federal funding.The result of this policy in my opinion is that the  school system can not apply local solutions. Instead, they relly on a massively slow bureaucracy in which thousands of papers and documents need to filled up losing focus on the main point which should be quality education for those legally expected to attend school.
As for the types of schools they are fairly similar in Brazil. As we follow the models of public and private. I understood the charter one, however, in Brazil, studying in one city and living in another would not be an issue. Specially for those parents who need to work and take to a school near their job places.
Dr Lanier mentioned in the final part that the educational goal is " create critical thinkers to maintain democracy". That is the core of my belief, not only for school, but also for life.Nonetheless, critcal thinking is an asset not regularly observed. Actully, we have always lived in Brazil a kind of education despising throughout years.
There were a metaphor for teacher as garderners which I really appreciated as well. I hope to be one of those.
In Summary, in the end of Dr Lanier lecture, I learned a lot abouth the educational system in the USA and what is different in Brazil as far as it is concerned. I was also able to understand the different types of school. As for the main goal i agree that the school needs to be the place where students learn to think critically in order to maintain democracy as an asset.

joao - Micro teaching speaking lessons -

On July 17th, we started our micro teaching lesson on speaking in Joe's class. I have to say that they were great. Reflecting on them, I am pretty sure, I learned a lot in every class. Most of us put a lot of effort on building a meaningful lesson in wich we could gain more experiences and difficulties. I was surprised on some teaching classes about the quality and drive. I am not satisfied with my lesson as I did not give student's talking time. I have many ideas why it happened this way, but they could sound likeexcuse which does not lead me to any learning or reflexion.
However, the outcome makes me obviously think how i could do it better and i am positive I apply the same class to my students and give them the appropriate talking time. Nevertheless, i am happy with the overal state of my learning time here and this definitely will help me in my classes in Brazil.
i can not forget to mention that Christina's classes are giving me back the theoretical back ground in which we tend to forget while so long immersed in classes, usually on a hands on approach. In Joe's class I am also reflecting and they are helping me understand better the little details and steps in which classes can be more communicative, meaningful and joyful for my fellow students and also for myself.

Joao - Race in USA and Brazil

On july 15th we had a class with Dr Robinson in which the theme of race relations were discussed and analysed through the perspective from the USA beginning as a nation and how it is in the present time.
 First, what have drawn my attention was the fact that thisrace issue was deliberstely planned in order to keep people of color or other non european white people out of the core of the nation. This can be noticed with the natives, latin and asian in general. Reflecting upon that I could notice that in Brazil, we had in similar approach in which we kept those non european ones out of the decisions of the country. There was even a name given for those actions were lighting the people of country when they stimulate white europeans settlers to come to Brazil to work as farmers. However, as soon as they got there, they realized that they would not be farmers, they would be peasants working to pay their duties back as they did not have money to set their own farms or crops. This made integration harder, what helped keep those 'different' ones out of the society, creating an outcast group within the country.
A striking sentence mentioned by Dr Robinson citing katznelson was " affirmative action was white" just the same as what was placed in my own country. The question I posed for reflection and it was the one I asked him is how we translate to those guys who nurture this division that the strengths to country comes from being together and not the opposite. For him and for my understanding this is an unanswered question. Yet, I will reflect about it with my students in my english classes as a way of helping ourselves understand it better.

Homelessness class - Joao

Reflecting throughout this period here at University of Arkansas, it has made me think about my teaching process in Brazil comparing to what I have been exposed here through classes. I have been thinking about methods and procedures and how I can apply them in class. On, July 10^th we had a class with Joe in which the topic of discussion was homelessness. It is a topic in which I am very much interested, so it stroke me from beginning. My first reflection about the class was to think how I can draw student’s attention through topics which I think necessary to talk about, even if it is a hard one.

So, the class started with Joe eliciting from us words and vocabulary related to the topic of homelessness. In groups of four we started discussing and suggesting words related to the subject. Many words came up, so a vocabulary was built and set for the whole class. We discussed about causes and consequences and how it is here and in Brazil. After that, the audio session took place and we could learn about a boy who decided to help those who are in this situation. So, a new discussion took place and a true and false exercise was proposed in order to check on our comprehension of the audio. Another exercise was a filling the blanks exercises with key words. After that, it was presented an exercise which I liked very much which was inferring the meaning of the audio through different ways of writing questions related to its comprehension. An exercise related to direct questions related to audio also was applied and the total comprehension of the audio and text was completed.

Finally, the Professor set a discussion for closing the comprehension of class content and we could be able to say and feel we understood the topic and the way we could perform a class like that. Definitely, I will apply that class model. Even though, I teach some classes similarly, I do believe I can give more depth to those in order to make my classes more meaningful to my students.