In today’s grammar lab class, Kaitlin and I had a few technical issues beginning with our warm-up activity. We had a great activity planned out where the students would listen to a song, in this case, it was 7 Years by Lukas Graham. As students were listening to the song, they were required to fill in the missing lyrics. The activity should take about ten minutes, however, in our case, it was more like twenty minutes. We had technical difficulties playing the music in a clear tone while displaying the worksheet activity. Having the ability to think fast on our feet, we were quickly able to troubleshoot this issue by placing the worksheet activity in the shared notes and playing the music video on the screen. Students were able to work together in shared notes to fill in the missing lyrics. The students found this activity quite easy, which is good because this was our warm-up activity to get the student’s brains rolling.
After the warm-up activity, we spent about thirty minutes playing jeopardy. We estimated the jeopardy game to be about twenty-five minutes. Most students have never played jeopardy before, it was important for Kaitlin and I to go over the instructions to make sure there was no confusion. I separated the students into three groups of four. Students worked together to answer categories from conjugating regular verbs and irregular verbs to answering questions in the past time and unscrambling sentences. At the end of the game, students found the jeopardy game to be easy. This was acceptable though because it was a great way to introduce the students to the game of jeopardy. Now that the students understand the game, we will make the future categories more challenging for the students.
Overall, there was great participation with all students. Students were engaged in group discussions as well as conversations with the teachers. Unfortunately, the class did go over by fifteen minutes, however, students were very polite and respectful regarding this issue. Students stayed and participated until they were dismissed from class by their teachers. Going forward, I would like to be more concise with timing. It is important to plan each activity accordingly to allow students to be dismissed at the end of the scheduled class time without having to go over. Thus far, all of our classes have gone over time by about five to fifteen minutes. This is something that needs to be improved in the future, but it will come with time as we work on getting the structure down pat.