The Lesson Plan for the second French Lesson

According to my reflection, we created the plan for the second lesson by us.

First of all, we are going to test them on the vocabulary of the previous lesson as we set that for homework last time.

Then I will introduce them to the vocabulary of this lesson and also do the repetition vocabulary game, which also helps them with their pronounciation.

After that we had a huge presentation which Mark will make an idiomatic presentation and I will conduct the game in which they had to guess how they end, and as they are all to do with fruits and vegetables, they are connected to our previous lesson.

This presentation will approximately take the whole of the lesson so we did not plan more.

Reflection on the first French lesson

I will honestly say that the lesson went much better than I expected and the year sevens enjoyed it without a doubt.  We managed to run the lesson as we planned, but I think that we should have planned somethings in between the main activities. Furthermore, I think that we managed to teach them many words, but we will definitely see in the next lesson. I also think that we should have given out some kind of rewards for completing exercises successfully to students.

The above is my reflection on the lesson, but in the end we have collected the views and ideas of the students as well with small cards given to them in the beginning of the lesson.

Here are some quotes from the students:

"I liked the lesson because you taught us many fruits and many adjectives. I have learned many things today."

'I liked the lesson because it was fun and I learned many new things."

"I really enjoyed this lesson. Next time you might explain more carefully."

According to the students' opinions, I can deduce that they enjoyed the lesson but as I mentioned it above they agree with me that we should plan more for next time.

Lesson Plan for the first French lesson

We spent some time last week to plan the lesson we are going to give to the year sevens this Tuesday.

First up we are going to have an introductory section, where they can introduce themselves and we can too. We are going to tell them to create name cards from the cards we give them.

Secondly I will introduce the vocabulary of fruits. Eg: cherry, apple, pear, orange, grapefruit etc.

Then I will play a vocabulary game with them where they have to pronounce the words and they say the words on the board to which I point and then I erase one at a time and they have to remember the word that was there.

After that, the students will be introduced to more vocabulary by Mark.

Then, I will play a game with them where there are pictures on the board and two students come up and they have to touch the picture of the corresponding food which is said.

Next Mark will teach them phrases such as "Apples are round" or "Grapefruits are sour".

After that I will teach them how to pronounce the phrases and get them to create some with my help if needed.

For homework they will have to learn the vocabulary for next lesson as we will test them on it.

Planning of the French lesson

Before the midterm holidays, me and Mark have decided to give two French lessons to the year seven French group of our school. Since it was their first year of studying French, it was a good idea to expand their vocabulary and possible break away from the habit of their normal lessons just for entertainment and more effective learning.

So in order to make this lesson possible we had to take several things in account:

• the lessons could not be when we have French so we had to communicate with the teachers whose lessons we will miss.
• we had to gather the materials for the lesson
• we had to plan the lesson itself
• we had to devise a technique for getting the reflection (ours' and the students')
• we had to learn some vocabulary and research the web for teaching French
• We also had to plan some games in order to keep them entertained and make sure that they were learning

When we were planning this, our aim was to make the year seven student benefit from our lessons and improve their pronounciation and their vocabulary by much. Furthermore, we also wanted to make sure that they enjoyed it too.

Private Tutoring

Since a few months ago, when my sister had more time due to her recent injury which enabled her to spend more time in school, I decided to help her with her studies and provide the knowledge she missed during the time she was unable to come to school. I help her study mostly during the weekends, but I also helped her during this holiday. I mostly help my sister in Maths and French, since those are her weakest areas. Furthermore, this teaching has been very helpful to me as well, as I could revise some chapters myself too. I plan to keep helping her until the end of the school year as after that I am leaving. And of course this is a great way to train oneself to convey ideas and thoughts effectively, especially if one wants to pursue a career in lecturing.

Update on drumming

I have been practicing single paradiddles and also the switching from doubles to singles. It is quite tough as it requires a lot of wrist work and also sometimes you need to rely on the bounce back of the drumsticks. To say what I am currently good at are: I am capable of playing paradiddles at 60 bpm and switching from doubles to singles and back as well. However to improve for the next time I have to learn how to switch from doubles to paradiddle. Furthermore I have been also practicing songs such as Summer of '69 (Bryan Adams) and Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns & Roses) and also many more which I cannot list as there are many of them. I will try to upload films of me playing them soon.

Valentine's Disco

A few days ago, on Thursday the Valentine's Disco was held in our school hall, with a great success. There were not any noticeable organisational issues and the day went as planned and we got the school to dance. The room was set up and looked very nice, well suited for St. Valentine's Day. The good feedback was that students were talking all about it afterwards, the next school day. It was fun for all of us and especially for the people on the dance floor. The sandwich stall was a great success and many people decided to buy sandwiches. To evaluate the goods and the bads, I have to say that I don't think that much needs to be improved despite that we almost did not have any cables which we have to plan earlier.

Valentine's Day Planning

In a few days we are going to organise a school disco for Valentine's Day. As a plan we have dealt with issues such as getting the cables sorted as well as getting the room decorated and also supplying food and beverages during the event. We have already organised who is doing what and everything should be going as planned. I personally will be helping to set up the hall where the disco will be, including the movement of the tables and chair from the hall and also its decoration. There was much organisation going into this disco and if it goes well we will organise another one.

Snow Activity Day Planning

Not so long ago I was one of the four people who initiated the snow activity day planning and organisation in early December. We started digging up the snow in the school grounds to make the obstacle course, which was a huge success last year. The snow digging began in the middle of January so that we had enough time to do it until February when the snow day was to be held. In the organisation phase we have gone through the thoughts such as how we should organise the time table and what type of activities should there be.

To warm up my drums I decided to play A little Bon Jovi most probably one of their most famous singles. I practiced for a few weeks as i described before but now I show off. The music is in the background but I made my drums sound louder.

It is still under improvement and I could have done better. It is quite hard to play the drums while being recorded, you mess up something and have to start all over again. But I might upload some of my later tries or other songs.

EBDS

Here is finally the long awaited link for my site for the Elementary Binary Determination System. This project is at least 2 years old and I have even included it in my personal statement as a long term project so here you go, read:

http://www.elbidsy.webs.com

To reflect on what I have done, I am very confident that I have improved my scientific research skills as well as my webpage designing skills. It is important not to forget about my essay writing skills. 

To improve I could include some of my other research as well on similar topics but it is hard to do so with my IB exams coming and all of my research together is at least 4 times an IB Extended Essay. My plan is to try and improve on them.

Drumming Plan

A bit more than one year ago I started playing the drums. Since then my techniques have advanced and I have attempted to learn new grooves and beats. That is my plan for the future too. In the next four weeks I am planning to learn how to do paradiddles and if I have practiced that enough I will move on to switching from singles to doubles. My plans after that are to switch between these techniques with at 80 beats per minute. I am going to comment on my progress every week and reflect on how I could improve. Later I will also apply these skills in playing songs and in using advanced drum fills and showing it to my friends.