6. The tools of the trade

 

6. The tools of the trade

a) From the chapter, choose the tools that you would use in your class, and describe the activities that you would use them for. 

There are many tools to use in this chapter, but i would totally use puppets because we have a couple of ways to make one for example, we can make a bag puppet, glove puppet, hand puppet, or finger puppet. The chapter says that we can use them for dialogues, and I agree with this because we can perform fairytales with the children using the puppets. We can even use the puppets to give the class. I mean, we can make a paperboard stage, and the puppet would be the teacher in this way the children would be really excited about the class. Card games is one of the tools that i would really like to use in a class because it is easier to do than other activities. I would use this activity to improve reading skill because we can give the cards to the children with the image of an animal and the name written below so that they read them. Besides, we can use them to enhance their ability of memorization. Board games are really useful for improving writing skills. Using this tool I could make the game board race; we just split the class into teams and i woould give them a colored marker, then i would draw a line in the middle of the board with the topic that we are studying. Then, the students would have to write as many words related with the topic, and each team wins for each correct word, but let´s not forget that words that are unreadable or misspelled are not counted. Through this activity the students will surely improve their writing skill. Finally, i would use toys to not only for connecting the child´s worlds outside the classroom to what is happening inside the classroom but to improve speaking skill because if we ask the children to tell a short story about that toy, the speaking skill would quickly increase and at the same time the fear of talking would disappear.

b) Classify all the tools in this chapter into useful and useless in our environment. Write the reason why you made such destinction.

Tools	Useful	Useless	Reason
Puppet	X		We can improve speaking skill and perform dialogues. Children will enjoy the class.
Class mascot	X		It brings confidence to the children.
Paper dolls		X	Children can get bored of replacing the clothes.
English corner	X		It is useful because the students are encouraged to have a special time for English.
Cardboard boxes	X		It improves the creativity of the children, and they socialize with their classmates.
Picture cards	X		They help children to identify shapes and sizes.
Card games	X		They help to improve the reading skill since children have to read the card.
Board games	X		Board games are a good way to enhance writing skills and identified misspelled words.
Word/Sentence cards		X	It is useless because it only can be used for the begginers and only with sentences which are used a lot.
Word card display	X		It helps children to follow an order.
Word displays	X		It helps children to look for solutions for messy sentences.
Book/Reading cards	X		It is useful since the reading skill is improved. Besides, children get a lot of new vocabulary.
Transparencies		X	It is useless because to use it is necessary to have an overhead projector which nota ll the schools can afford it.
Calendar	X		Children learn how important is to share dates, birthdays with their classmates.
Clock		X	It is invaluable in the language classroom.
Readers	X		Readers are a good investment for the language learner since children learn new vocabulary while they are improving reading skills.
Maps	X		It is useful because it shows children the world in which we live in.
Wallcharts	X		It is useful because the teacher must make an investment in the market to buy them.
Toys	X		Children feel more confident when they have something that reminds them their home.
Building blocks		X	As I said before, most of the building blocks are really expensive and the schoold could not afford it, and if school could afford one, children would fight because all of them would want to play at the same time.
Cassete recorders		X	It is necessary one cassete with enough space to record. Besides, there are other ways to teach easily.
Overhead projector	X		An overhead projector is expensive, and the children can break it and get themselves in troubles.

 

c) Reflect upon the top three chapter you would incorporate in your own practicum.

I would surely use the majority of these chapters because all of them have an important purpose in the language teaching, but i have to say that there are some that are more important than others. For example, class management and atmosphere, it is really important because we, as a teacher, can create and maintain appropriate behavior of students in a classroom setting. The purpose of implementing class management strategies is to enhance prosocial behavior and increase student academic engagement. Through class management we can avoid fights among the students because know that they tend to get angry easily whereas for a little argument or for someone wants something like a toy or a pencil. So, we can say that it will decrease negative behaviors, and it will increase time spent academic engaged. With class management we can also have better outcomes from the students because of the lack of chaotic classroom environments. On the other hand, we have the chapter planning your work which is extremely useful because we can plan our class before we give it. So, we can prevent some issues like running out of time or materials because we already had our scheduled set. Besides, if we have our work planned we will have clear what we will teach and do in the class. When i become a teacher, I will really plan my work because i am not going to avoid only classroom mistakes, but mind issues because if we success the class, we won´t suffer stress and frustration. Finally, i would really use the tools of the trade because all of these materials are really useful for teaching without letting aside that these kind of material make the kids feel more confident about themselves. Besides, they can relate the tools with the topic we are teaching getting a great learning from the students. Children will find lessons more interesting and exciting if we make use of the tools and objects, but this also brings to us advantages because giving the class will be much easier for us.