Usage of Technology works...
In my second official presentation with first
graders in primary school, I tried to make the presentation very visual and
interactive; otherwise I would lose them. First of all, I created an activity
that had movements in it. Students in primary school need to move somehow in
class. They need to stand up, run, move
their hands, head and speak. It is not
impossible to integrate all of these. I tried to do, at least. At the beginning, I designed a
power point which has many pictures in it related with toys. My presentation
was like a wrap-up, revision of toys, so students are already familiar with
toys. The power point has pictures and two sentences about each picture. One
sentence about the picture is incorrect and the other one being correct.
Sentences were very easy. They can be related with color of toys, size of toys
or anything else. Basically, I used color of toys. Two students were to come to
board. They did not look at the board but to their friends. When I said, “Now
look!”. They looked at the picture reflected on the board, read two sentences
about it , run and touch the correct one. There could have been more enough space for them to run but more or less,it was effective. The classroom
size here is important. I put the students a little away from the board so
that, they read and moved a little bit. I mean, they were not at the front of
the board.
As far as I observed, they liked it, but of
course, it had some problems. Students were like in a race to run and touch the
correct one because two students were trying to figure out which sentence was
correct, but they were not working together. They were seperated, so this might
be a problematic. Some students in the class said : Ayse did it first. And we
were applausing the winner. I realised the deficiency after we finished doing
it. Therefore, if I were to do this activity again, I would say to students:
Ok, now look at the picture, read the sentences and talk with each other which
one is correct, then run and touch it. Maybe, this way could work better. Their
reading pace was not same; some are reading and deciding too fast while the other one is slower. When one
ofthem had already got the answer, the other was still reading and look what
his/her friend did and did the same touched upon the same one. On the other
hand, I was happy to integrate all students in the activity. Everyone in class
had come to board at least once and some did it twice or three times. They were
willing to come and do the task, so this activity could be applied to young
learners in teaching any topic.
You can put a picture on slides
and write two sentences about it ; one of them being correct. It can be applied
in teaching grammar,too. Visuals are very effective to teach a language to
anybody and in order to use visuals, we need technology.
