French Lesson 2

Preparations for the second day went well and I had successfully prepared a games and an idiom quiz for the day. However, the lesson started with a vocabulary test, it was surprising to see that so many students actually managed to score brilliant grades of 90% and up. So we then started the lesson as we did the previous time, Gregory did his vegetable French vocabulary and then we moved onto my idiom quiz, which was meant to teach the kids some good phrases they could potentially use later on, I know because I use them myself. Everyone enjoyed the idioms, especially the literal translation: "Get your strawberry over here". Overall I think it was a better lesson than the previous lesson, it was more organized and flowed better, the pictorial was a great way to end the lesson as the kids were forced to remember the words taught throughout the two lessons in order to gain points. The best drawing was my eggplant, 3D and everything.
The lessons went well and the smaller students seemed to take a lot from the lessons, as we as enjoy the break from the ordinary lessons overall the best part of the lesson was the teamwork between me and Gregory and the evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses in order to teach an even better lesson to the smaller generations. I enjoyed it and hopefully in the future I will have a chance to teach another group again. 

French Lesson

It was not exactly a new experience for me preparing my own lesson, however it was my first time when I taught in a non-native language. Overall the lesson flowed nicely, the Year 7 group learnt new vocabulary and had fun along the way. The lesson was focused mostly across my presentation that I prepared, but Gregory was the person narrating the lesson, he was responsible for the speaking tasks and vocabulary learning and he handled it well. I was the main organizer of the activities and the tasks, such as worksheets, quizzes and crosswords. This lesson allowed me to revisit some of the vocabulary I had once learned and it was useful for me as well. Although the lesson went well, it did not go according to plan, so my aim for next time will be to plan the lesson better and have a greater variety of activities and work for the children. A useful thing to remember for next time would be to make the children to use their exercise books and have a small test to see how they've accomplished their homework. This Tuesday we gave the kids 20 new words and I already have a test for them, I have also looked into making a new presentation and a quiz with useful idioms that they can later reuse. Me and Gregory have had some discussions on how we will conduct our lesson and I believe our teamwork will remain at a great level for next time.

Our French teacher said that it was a great combination of amusing Gregory and a well organized Mark, so I will attempt to maintain the same level of organization and attempt to work on the mistakes that the children picked up on (they wrote reflections on cards after the lesson), thankfully there were more positives than negatives and for next lesson I will attempt to ameliorate my weaknesses and develop some new speaking skills in order to help the children learn.

Preparation for Our French Lesson

A few days back we were allowed to teach our own french lesson and we (me, Sabina and Gregory) have started to plan the lesson, in order to conduct it after the holidays. The topic we decided to focus on with our group was 'Food', this opened up some doors to us as we could do numerous amounts of activities, however the main outcome of this activity is that the children actually learn something new, therefore an integrated lesson must be planned, which is both fun and helpful.

In our discussions we figured that it would be a good idea to combine vocabulary learning with games and presentations on the "smart board". The lesson should be finished of with a quiz to help the children learn a few useful idiomatic expressions that are based around food. It is most likely that we will have two lessons, for the second lesson I have already made work sheets and activities such as charades in French. The lessons will occur on the first week back, I just hope they'll go just as smoothly as the English lessons I taught during the summer break. 

Winter Activity Day

Snow Day happened on the 8th of February. The day went fairly well, everyone enjoyed themselves, the obstacle course the me and my friends built was completely wrecked, after hours of digging and painting (finally my montana cans went to a good cause), but it was great fun. Although the plan was slightly altered the whole day went well. The alterations included: capture the flag being moved to the park close to the school, and hockey as a new activity, lead by me. The hot chocolate and tea stand functioned, but everything was given out free of charge.
The whole day I spent playing hockey, surprise, surprise, what could an ice hockey player lead other than floor hockey. I got to referee and to be fair it is a bit hard to referee when in the middle of the action, as I tended to join in along with other Year 13 students. It was challenging, but the effort payed off in the end as everyone seemed to enjoy the activity. I wanted to bring in actual sticks, as I find that floor hockey and field hockey are not winter sports It was a shame I could not lead the obstacle course, since I was one of the builders and planners of that particular activity, however I still managed to run through the track in 34 seconds. We conducted Snow day to the best of our abilities, we attempted to entertain the students with several sports activities outside (why else would it be called Snow Day, if the activities weren't outside?), which included not only hockey but football, rugby, snow painting and sculpturing and several other activities. We have gained an impressive amount of experience, particularly that it takes a lot of time to organize such an event.  

Snow Day Preparation

Winters in Moscow are long and cold, as many stereotypes say and to make things a bit more colourful, me and a few of my friends decided to organize a "Snow Day" dedicated to sports activities outside. The objective of the day is to make the students in the school be more aware of their physical condition, as well as to provide a day off from intense studies. As for my personal objectives, I seek to:

• Develop new skills, during the process of preparing for this day:
• Undertake new challenges:
• Work collaboratively with others in order to organize the event in a shorter time period.

The Snow Day will consist of a list of activities:

1. An Obstacle course that we are building at the moment
2. Dodgeball on the football court
3. Capture the Flag
4. Snow painting 
5. Quizzes
6. Hockey shootout (if possible, just an additional activity the children could partake in)
7. Forest hiking

However, this will need more preparation, in order to inform the school of the event and how the event might be of particular interest to them (show our objectives to them)...

1. Posters
2. Letters
3. Presentations

Since there are several of us working on the project I will mainly be focusing on the posters and, as a personal challenge, I will try to write letters home in order to both practice my English skill and ameliorate my abilities to write formal letters out to audiences, as well as using a ruler and pencil to make the posters by hand instead of going through the digital method of doing it, thus training my drawing skills.

Optional activities may include the selling of snacks throughout the day, which could include sandwiches and hot chocolate, the money from which will go towards charity. The organization to which the money may be donated to is the "Action for Russia's Children", which helps children that are in difficult situations, in contrast to those within the school. Therefore they can help these children and enjoying the process of it.

Last Year's Snow Day was slightly dull, we are hoping to bring in more enthusiasm and vibrance into it, meaning more activities outside and less inside, which may be added later and small details, as the snow in Moscow does not necessarily need to be white, in an artist's hand it can really turn into something. So far the date that hopefully will be booked is the 8th of February. I'm looking forward to this experience and we have already started to work on the obstacle course and we are close to completing it.

Hopefully, I'll be able to complete my objectives and provide an enjoyable experience for the students and financial support to the children, who do not have the luxury of spending a whole day outside.