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.