Round Two of Virtual Exchange

I was excited to get to be apart of this experience once again! It began like the last time, the students were shy at the beginning but by the end they were excited to be learning new things. As a group we started by introducing our selves. It was kind of like an ice breaker for the conversation that was about to happen.

An activity we chose to do with the students got them all involved. It was not anything too complicated, but kept them all engaged. It was a PowerPoint of different animals, object and vehicles. The first slide was just the picture and the children were asked to guess what this was in English. The next slide would have the English word pop up to see if they guessed right or not. This activity reinforced giving the children a chance to see if they have background knowledge first before giving them the answer. In both of the groups that we had, this activity ran smoothly they knew almost of the pictures. The one picture they struggled with was the truck; every student guessed that it was a car. when they had all guessed car, us as teachers tried to redirect and tell them hints to see if the could guess the correct answer before just switching it to the next slide.

I noticed that if we showed the students how involved we were in learning it reflected into them asking multiple questions. You have to make sure that you are showing engagement, if you are expecting the students to do the same. I used the strategy of laughter and acknowledging a few students that I had a month ago. Once I had brought up that I remember the student from before it was like a switch had been turned on. They were more willing to speak and tell us about themselves.

Overall this experience was an eye opener. I know in my future classes that there might be students that cannot speak English. This gave me a few resources that will let me relate to these students into connecting a relationship for trust.