Reflection on Designed Activity

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.