Diagnostic Class

Gathered information:

10 Students

Ages from 14 to 16

I am going to describe my diagnostic class  with teens. I will share with you through this  post bellow, what I had expect from students before to start this class, and whether they performed or  not in the development of this class.

While even missing a couple of minutes to start the class I asked some question to them, such as: Why have you decided to join to this course? And some answers were because I like English, because I want to learn more about English, another question was:  Are you taking English as a subject in your school? And all of them say '' yes'', great I said.

In El Salvador in public schools, students take English as a subject, until they are in third level of primary and all of them are in that level so in this diagnostic class, I was to discover what their English knowledge is. Therefore, to discover their input, I developed activities they could perform if they have basic knowledge, if not, I had already planned to make more emphasis on activities they seemed more tough to them.

The purpose of this diagnostic class is to know how much students are familiar with the language trough making activities in which they can recognize the alphabet letters, name numbers from 0 to 20, identify the colors, the days of the week and months of the year, and classroom objects by making listening, label, match, and interview activities

During students were developing all the activities I could realize that they were able to do it because all of them answered correctly, so it let me know they have background knowledge in English. However, in pronunciation activities some of them pronounced in a wrong way even when I insist in the right pronunciation. It might happen for many factors, one of them is that students never speak the language that are acquiring because nobody in their environment they live speak English so they do not feel the necessity to use it in order to communicate; another is that even when they are in English class they do not speak in English, it might happen because teachers do not use activities that helps them to do it and encourage them to practice speaking the language. Therefore, we as teachers have to make them to practice the language by their own. It does not matter if they make mistakes because they are learning, and in that way they are going to be aware about their own mistake and then they are going to correct it with the teacher helps.  

Moreover, the most important in teaching teens is to think what best serve students learning, so by the next time I will look for activities that helps students to practice, interact and make their learning meaningful for their life because as 21^st century teachers, we as a teachers have to be focus on students learning rather than be focus in which could be best methods for teaching.

Bibliography

L. Dee Fink, PhD

Creating Significant Learning Experiences:

An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003)